I Want The World To See You Be With Me
Title: I Want The World To See You Be With Me
Rating:NC-17
Genre and/or Pairing: Avengers movieverse/Supernatural crossover; Clint/Coulson
Warnings: language, sex, angst
Word Count: 3,562
Summary: With Phil back in his arms, for the most part, even if it cost his soul nothing seems anything but right.
Master post is here.
Um, so this post was supposed to be the first year…have the first night instead, lmao
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Despite the physical proof and all the security checks he passes, Fury insists on keeping Coulson under lockdown for two weeks. Initially he tries to say that it’ll be alone, that he has to be kept separate until they’re ‘sure’, like he’s a fucking rabid dog. Honestly, Clint’s too worn down to threaten. At this stage, anything he does will be action, not threat, but lucky for him, he’s reminded once again that everything in his life has changed. He says he’s staying and Steve steps up behind him just like that, like there’s no question about it, and as he’s technically Clint’s commanding officer, regardless of Fury’s rank it’s enough to give everyone pause. Even stranger, maybe, is the fact that he doesn’t even have to look to know everyone else is with him too, to know that Nat’s hands are near her hips and her knives and Bruce is clenching his hands like he’s trying just a little harder than normal to keep control. He does that sometimes when he’s got the other guy fully corralled, when he’s facing someone he knows he can fool because they expect the worst of him. It never works on the team, and now, he never tries.
It works, and that’s great, but the whole bureaucratic clusterfuck of the thing means that their first night back together is spent in a SHIELD issue twin bed, in a room smaller than many of Stark’s closets. It’s irritating, sure, and Clint knows there’s gotta be a camera, gotta be more than one kind of camera, but he really, really doesn’t give a flying fuck. If whatever young officer they’ve got on nightshift monitor duty really wants to watch them fuck, they’re welcome to it. There’s things he’d like to keep between the two of them, even as little of a filter as he has, but the thing is, privacy isn’t a necessity. Getting his hands on Phil undoubtedly is.
The door to their barely-more-than-a-glorified-prison-cell is still clicking shut as Clint backs Phil up against the wall. He slaps the light switch, the hum of dying fluorescents ringing in his ears as he brings his arms up to cage Phil in. His hands are already sliding up under Clint’s shirt, fingertips skimming his skin in inventory, dancing light across his already heaving ribs. He feels shaky, mingled adrenaline and shock and relief and desire. It’s all catching up to him, the wracking loss he’d felt last night, the crushing pressure of thinking that that was the rest of his life looming before him, a thousand nights just like that, then the kiss and the deal and oh God, for once in his life, something he did actually went right.
Coulson’s hand presses against the small of his back, pulling him closer as his lips brush Clint’s ear. “Clint,-“
He can feel more than hear it, the threat of worry and discussion and he can’t do that first, he just can’t. It’s just that there’s so much he wants, so much contact that he needs; the deeper concern is that the team he can deflect but Coulson himself is something else entirely. He hasn’t lied to him in years, not just because it hurts but because frankly, it just isn’t practical. He knows Clint better than anyone, and if he asks how Clint’s been, even if he asks how he is, the answer isn’t going to be an easy one to structure.
Clint can’t let that happen yet. He yanks open Phil’s shirt, just the top two buttons, just enough to give him access, and he fists his hand in the material as he nuzzles into the open collar, hiding his face against Phil’s skin. “Sir, please.” It’s the best card he’s got, the only plea that might be listened to. Back in the beginning, before the Avengers came together, before they were really even fully planned, Clint was as wild and incorrigible and if he hadn’t had such a high body count as an assassin SHIELD probably would’ve thought it was better to be rid of him. He’s still those things with most everyone, but Coulson was the first he came to listen to, the first he gave respect to before he gave him everything else. In the field, if he ever calls Fury ‘sir’ it most likely means he’s about to go off grid. When he says it to Coulson, it means he’s listening.
“Stop that.” Coulson knows what he’s doing, he always knows what Clint’s doing, but his hands are moving again and he follows up the whisper with his lips on Clint’s neck, tracing the slightly straining muscle he finds there.
Clint moans, milking the advantage he’s got until his brain spirals down to one point, his fingers stumbling blind over something that stops him cold. It may be healed over but he can feel the thick cord of a scar there, all too fucking close to Phil’s heart. Jesus, it’s almost right on top of it, proof of Loki’s sadistic aim because he could’ve hit it dead on if he wanted, could’ve killed him almost instantly but he just wounded him, left him to bleed out on the floor and he knows just how long that took, he watched every agonizing second over and over and…
Phil’s fingers rake through his hair and he whispers Clint’s name in a way that should be comforting, but he’s past thinking. He gets a grip on Phil’s hips, tight but not bruising, and he pushes him to sit on the edge of the bed, low enough that when Clint drops to his knees his lips can find just the right spot. He trails his lips all along the scar, everything, every thought is completed whited out but the feel of scar tissue under his lips and tongue and the grounding pressure of Phil’s fingers in his hair, holding him there with just enough pressure to make sure he’s getting through, to make sure Clint can feel him.
Clint hears his own voice absently, harsh and broken, “Never, never again, do you understand me, never-“ and if Coulson’s answer him, he doesn’t quite hear it. There’s something ringing in his ears but he feels the rumble of his chest, and he finally stills his incessant tracing to press his damp cheek against Phil’s skin. Phil’s heartbeat is right there, vital and strong, and for just a minute he closes his eyes to listen, the ringing fading away. His face is hidden not just by the dark but by Coulson’s half open shirt and when he realizes that he’s grateful, because if there’s anything he’d want to hide, it’s this. No one, no one but Phil gets to see him like this, never in his life before and there’ll never by anyone else again. It’s not so much pride(though there’s some, of course there’s some) as it is a reverse kind of possession. Coulson, he earned this with hard work and time and love and blood. No one else has ever made that much effort over him, no one else has ever deserved this right.
When Coulson moves it’s not to try to take back the advantage, to put distance between them and make Clint let him look, to clear him the way he likes to when Clint comes in from a mission. He pulls him up, pulls Clint into his lap with those deceptively strong arms of his and tugs Clint’s mouth down to his, and from there it’s amazing it’s not over in thirty seconds. Somehow, they mostly strip, though Coulson keeps that white shirt hanging off his shoulders throughout. Clint doesn’t mind, doesn’t have it in him to care and besides, it’s kind of hot. He whispers that against Coulson’s ear, stilted and breathless with Coulson’s fingers recently slick from Clint’s mouth sliding inside him. Phil laughs, soft and low, and Clint fully gave up coherency in favor of shifting his focus to clinging tighter to the man in his arms. His thighs are shaking and they shouldn’t be, they’ve done much harder work than this, but the tremor works its way through his whole body anyway, muscles twitching under Coulson’s fingers like a strung out thoroughbred.
The sensation of having Phil inside him again is enough to make him lightheaded, and he nearly comes too soon, crying out and writhing as soon as they’re joined. He feels full in a way his body remembers as strongly as his heart, everything in him seizing up in tandem as Phil breaks his usual relative quiet with a shuddering moan, muffling the sound as he bites into Clint’s shoulder. Clint can’t possibly last after that, and he murmurs a string of fuck that has Phil hauling him closer with one arm around his waist, the other hand sliding between them to fist around Clint’s cock. He comes in seconds, rocking down hard and with Phil’s grip tight and perfect around him. He’s limp and heavy on Coulson’s lap, utterly spent, and he wraps his arms around Coulson’s shoulders to moan encouragingly against his ear. For all he complains about his chatter over the coms, Coulson can never get enough of his voice. Coulson scrabbles at his hips, breath heavy as he thrusts up into him and comes with Clint’s name on his lips.
They come down slowly, full of drawn out kisses and hands all over each other’s chests with lazy, greedy strokes, and somewhere in there Coulson finally loses the shirt and they kind of meld onto the bed, stretched out together and barely fitting. They overlap, too big for the space, and Clint is totally, totally ok with that.
Clint’s wiped out, warm and exhausted and his body’s humming with the thrill of Phil’s fingers on his chest and the lingering ache in his ass, so the first question takes a minute to fully register with his brain.
“This.” Phil’s thumb is smoothing over a scar on his abdomen, still an angry pink that he can’t possibly see in the dark, though it’s faded. “Explain this.”
“Hm?” Clint’s not ready for coherent, certainly not ready for conversations he’s not looking forward to anyway. He’s perfectly fine with dazed and warm and making out until they fall asleep. That sounds excellent, but of course Phil won’t have it. “The stab wound, Clint, how’d it happen?” Knowing him like he does, he can tell that Phil’s still shaky too, still warm and buzzing, but Phil’s level of focus is unlike anything he’s ever seen. People think he’s good because he can spend hours in a hide but really, he’s got nothing on this man.
Clint turns his head, nuzzles against Phil’s collarbone in a way he knows should be irresistible. “Shh. I’m speechless. You’ve rendered me speechless; enjoy it.”
Phil’s lips press lightly against his temple, and he can feel the smile. “I could never render you speechless. You’re incapable.” Clint’s laughter is soft, muffled further against Coulson’s skin. Phil’s thumb strokes across the scar again, insistent. “What happened?”
Honestly, it’s one of the tamer stories, but it’s not that specific telling that he dreads, it’s the whole that it’s a part of. In their time apart, he hasn’t exactly been careful. There’s a fine line between reckless and suicidal, and he’s danced all along it and mostly kept himself out of too much suspicion from the shrinks Fury kept sending him to, but even so he knows a few more of the nurses names now, and he certainly didn’t come out unscathed. The real core of it is, no matter how crazy the past few days have been, no matter how unlikely it is his secret will ever be discovered, his previous mental state isn’t something he wants Coulson asking too many questions about.
“Well, as you brilliantly deduced,” Clint kisses him, tries to steal any sting from the words. “It’s a stab wound. There was a guy, and a knife, and it really wasn’t my priority since we were dealing with a few evil streetlamps at the time. It turned out alright.” Thinking about it he could remember the way the blood had spilled over his fingers as tried to keep the knife from jostling, remembered how he’d dragged his exhausted ass out of medical that night via picking a lock because he wasn’t about to wake up there, not when every other time he’d ever been stuck there overnight had resulted in Phil at his bedside with a cappuccino the next morning at an ungodly hour.
“This?” His touch on the inside of Clint’s arm is so light it makes him shiver. The mark in question is newer, fresh from the time a few weeks ago when he got bitten by some psychoass mechanical snake of Doom’s. That one, that could’ve been serious.
Maybe he can leave that part out, a bit.
Clint covers Phil’s hand with his, guides his thumb to a little firmer pressure, and even if he’s still tracing the mark Clint’s touch has to be distracting. “I had, uh…” How does he even begin with that? ‘A crazy robot tried to poison me?’ “Doom makes weird shit; you know that. Sometimes it bites. I had to dig this…implant out.”
He feels the breath Coulson sucks in, sharp and tight. “You had to-“
“Would’ve taken too long to get to medical. Stark said…” Well, his exact words weren’t going to be repeated, but if they hadn’t been said right when they had, the two of them wouldn’t have been having this conversation. “I still had broad tip arrows; it worked out alright.” It had hurt like hell, and even though he’d been quick he’d still blacked out from the poison, cracking his head on the brick behind him. Coulson didn’t need to know all that.
There has to be more, there’s definitely at least one more new addition Clint remembers on his back, but Coulson doesn’t try to pull his hand away from Clint to resume his inventory. He lets it be held, and he nestles his head against Clint’s shoulder, his voice just a little lower when he speaks.
“I heard them talking about you, after I came back. Steve was a guilty mess. He seemed to think he drove you away.”
“He didn’t.” But maybe he was going to need to make a point of that, because seriously when it came to his team, Rogers could worry like no other.
“Everyone seemed to think…” He cleared his throat, clearly not finding the right words and for Coulson, that was an incredible rarity. Clint, words just tumbled out of his mouth and occasionally he found what he meant to say through trial and error. Phil, Phil planned. “They were all worried like hell about you. I-“
With quick fingers, Clint covered his lips. “Let me stop you there, alright? Don’t ask a question you already know the answer to. You know it’s not one you’ll like.” He was gentle saying it, but even then, the words still weren’t quite right, not enough and really, honestly, this was half of why he talked all the time. So often he just couldn’t get it right. “Sweetheart…” That sounded better at least, the taste of a word on his tongue he’d only been addressing the air with for months. “I wake up out of that…that godawful trance, and we save the world and then they tell me you’re gone, and the first thing I’m thinking is…”
He’d thought with Coulson here in his arms, so blatantly alive, he’d be able to say the one thing he hadn’t said even to the silence, the one thought he’d kept inside him, buried and twisting until he watched that horrible tape. There’s a weight in his throat, like the words are literally pressing down on his insides and it’s all he can do to struggle against their pressure.
“They told me it was Loki, but I couldn’t shake the thought that there might be something I couldn’t remember, because God knows the fucker’s sadistic enough; I mean I know Thor loves the guy and being in my position I can’t and don’t pretend to understand, but even Thor admits that much. When he’s pissed he’s cruel and I…”
Coulson’s lips caught his, silencing the ramble of his darkest fears. He hadn’t had to live with the thoughts for too long, but God, he remembered having them. He remembered the tremor in his hands when he realized it, realized all they told him was that Loki had killed him and for a while there, for a while he was Loki’s hands. He’d well and truly lost it then, shut himself up in his bathroom and heaved up everything he possibly had to lose, not much considering he hadn’t eaten anything since after the battle.
“You’d never.” He feels the words against his lips, but it’s the absolute sincerity of them that shakes him, the kind of unflappable certainty Phil has in him that never ceases to astound him.
Clint swallows around the bitter taste in his mouth, his mind flickering with images he’ll never forget. “I killed agents, Coulson. I killed good agents, and I nearly brought down the helicarrier and-“
“And if he’d tried to make you stab me, you’d have put an arrow in his throat.” He tugs on Clint’s hand, rolling to the side and reaching up to cradle the back of Clint’s head, fingers burying gently in his hair. “With as long as I’ve trusted you, Barton, I’ve never been wrong.”
Of all the things he could’ve said, it’s just those words that in a perfect world might make him feel better, but not now, not anymore. The reminder of just how trustworthy he isn’t burns under his skin, and for a second there’s the fleeting feeling that if this guilt gets worse every year, by the time he gets to ten he’s going to be twitchy.
He takes a deep breath, smiles to keep up appearances. “Don’t lie. I’ve done things you wanted to wring my neck for personally.”
“You have, but-and this is not exactly a statement of approval-just because I would prefer you not do something insane doesn’t mean you’re not doing it with the right intentions.”
Everything in his chest hurts, a tight, sharp stabbing his ribs, and still he smiles as he leans in for a kiss. “There’s a method in my madness.”
“Something like that.”
They lapse into silence, trading soft kisses until Phil’s head shifts to press his lips to Clint’s forehead. His fingers are tight on Clint’s neck, every inch of his body pressed close, and there’s such a fierce tenderness to it it takes his breath.
For a second, that is, and then his mouth is rushing on ahead, running off without him.
“Marry me.”
Fuck, he didn’t mean to say it like this, not now, not this soon and not without a ring, but his mind is swirling mess of guilt and ticking clocks and want and that kiss was the last brick to push him over, to bring the love he has for this man flooding his veins like a force of nature.
“Clint-“
His heart’s pounding, a thousand miles an hour it feels like and he speaks up, cutting him off because he can only think of one objection.
“No, I mean it, I’m not just-“ Amazingly, all that sounded like almost one word. “I had your ring. I had it, and I was a fucking idiot, and a few months ago I shot it into the woods upstate because I thought I’d lost my chance, so when I tell you I mean this I really, really-“
“Yes.”
“Yes?” They kiss, the taste of Coulson on his tongue wiping away the taste of fear that had risen to choke him.
“Yes.”
In this moment, with Coulson in his arms and on his way to being his husband, the heavy guilt he hasn’t been able to shake since he realized he’d really pawned off his soul was all but gone. Ten years seems like an eternity, a fucking lifetime. He can feel Coulson’s heart beating against his chest where he’s pressed warm up against Clint’s side, and Clint turns in towards it like a cat soaking up summer sun. Ten years? Fuck, the past hour’s felt like forever. It’s enough time for what it bought him, for what it bought them both. More than enough.
The next day, on the way to a briefing about the persistent problems they’ve had with the sewers lately, Tony slides a drive into his pocket, not quite hiding it behind a new phone he says Clint needs, since he apparently couldn’t be bothered to pay enough attention to his old one. He knows what it is, absolutely, but he still grins like an idiot when he opens the file later that afternoon.
So I might’ve conned the guards into giving me their shift, and I also might’ve pulled this from the archives and looped the next few hours back in to make it look complete. It’ll fool no one, but they’ll have no other choice. You’re welcome.
Tell Coulson I expect immunity from his wrath for the rest of forever, and I don’t want to do paperwork in any form for at least six months.
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Rating:NC-17
Genre and/or Pairing: Avengers movieverse/Supernatural crossover; Clint/Coulson
Warnings: language, sex, angst
Word Count: 3,562
Summary: With Phil back in his arms, for the most part, even if it cost his soul nothing seems anything but right.
Master post is here.
Um, so this post was supposed to be the first year…have the first night instead, lmao
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Despite the physical proof and all the security checks he passes, Fury insists on keeping Coulson under lockdown for two weeks. Initially he tries to say that it’ll be alone, that he has to be kept separate until they’re ‘sure’, like he’s a fucking rabid dog. Honestly, Clint’s too worn down to threaten. At this stage, anything he does will be action, not threat, but lucky for him, he’s reminded once again that everything in his life has changed. He says he’s staying and Steve steps up behind him just like that, like there’s no question about it, and as he’s technically Clint’s commanding officer, regardless of Fury’s rank it’s enough to give everyone pause. Even stranger, maybe, is the fact that he doesn’t even have to look to know everyone else is with him too, to know that Nat’s hands are near her hips and her knives and Bruce is clenching his hands like he’s trying just a little harder than normal to keep control. He does that sometimes when he’s got the other guy fully corralled, when he’s facing someone he knows he can fool because they expect the worst of him. It never works on the team, and now, he never tries.
It works, and that’s great, but the whole bureaucratic clusterfuck of the thing means that their first night back together is spent in a SHIELD issue twin bed, in a room smaller than many of Stark’s closets. It’s irritating, sure, and Clint knows there’s gotta be a camera, gotta be more than one kind of camera, but he really, really doesn’t give a flying fuck. If whatever young officer they’ve got on nightshift monitor duty really wants to watch them fuck, they’re welcome to it. There’s things he’d like to keep between the two of them, even as little of a filter as he has, but the thing is, privacy isn’t a necessity. Getting his hands on Phil undoubtedly is.
The door to their barely-more-than-a-glorified-prison-cell is still clicking shut as Clint backs Phil up against the wall. He slaps the light switch, the hum of dying fluorescents ringing in his ears as he brings his arms up to cage Phil in. His hands are already sliding up under Clint’s shirt, fingertips skimming his skin in inventory, dancing light across his already heaving ribs. He feels shaky, mingled adrenaline and shock and relief and desire. It’s all catching up to him, the wracking loss he’d felt last night, the crushing pressure of thinking that that was the rest of his life looming before him, a thousand nights just like that, then the kiss and the deal and oh God, for once in his life, something he did actually went right.
Coulson’s hand presses against the small of his back, pulling him closer as his lips brush Clint’s ear. “Clint,-“
He can feel more than hear it, the threat of worry and discussion and he can’t do that first, he just can’t. It’s just that there’s so much he wants, so much contact that he needs; the deeper concern is that the team he can deflect but Coulson himself is something else entirely. He hasn’t lied to him in years, not just because it hurts but because frankly, it just isn’t practical. He knows Clint better than anyone, and if he asks how Clint’s been, even if he asks how he is, the answer isn’t going to be an easy one to structure.
Clint can’t let that happen yet. He yanks open Phil’s shirt, just the top two buttons, just enough to give him access, and he fists his hand in the material as he nuzzles into the open collar, hiding his face against Phil’s skin. “Sir, please.” It’s the best card he’s got, the only plea that might be listened to. Back in the beginning, before the Avengers came together, before they were really even fully planned, Clint was as wild and incorrigible and if he hadn’t had such a high body count as an assassin SHIELD probably would’ve thought it was better to be rid of him. He’s still those things with most everyone, but Coulson was the first he came to listen to, the first he gave respect to before he gave him everything else. In the field, if he ever calls Fury ‘sir’ it most likely means he’s about to go off grid. When he says it to Coulson, it means he’s listening.
“Stop that.” Coulson knows what he’s doing, he always knows what Clint’s doing, but his hands are moving again and he follows up the whisper with his lips on Clint’s neck, tracing the slightly straining muscle he finds there.
Clint moans, milking the advantage he’s got until his brain spirals down to one point, his fingers stumbling blind over something that stops him cold. It may be healed over but he can feel the thick cord of a scar there, all too fucking close to Phil’s heart. Jesus, it’s almost right on top of it, proof of Loki’s sadistic aim because he could’ve hit it dead on if he wanted, could’ve killed him almost instantly but he just wounded him, left him to bleed out on the floor and he knows just how long that took, he watched every agonizing second over and over and…
Phil’s fingers rake through his hair and he whispers Clint’s name in a way that should be comforting, but he’s past thinking. He gets a grip on Phil’s hips, tight but not bruising, and he pushes him to sit on the edge of the bed, low enough that when Clint drops to his knees his lips can find just the right spot. He trails his lips all along the scar, everything, every thought is completed whited out but the feel of scar tissue under his lips and tongue and the grounding pressure of Phil’s fingers in his hair, holding him there with just enough pressure to make sure he’s getting through, to make sure Clint can feel him.
Clint hears his own voice absently, harsh and broken, “Never, never again, do you understand me, never-“ and if Coulson’s answer him, he doesn’t quite hear it. There’s something ringing in his ears but he feels the rumble of his chest, and he finally stills his incessant tracing to press his damp cheek against Phil’s skin. Phil’s heartbeat is right there, vital and strong, and for just a minute he closes his eyes to listen, the ringing fading away. His face is hidden not just by the dark but by Coulson’s half open shirt and when he realizes that he’s grateful, because if there’s anything he’d want to hide, it’s this. No one, no one but Phil gets to see him like this, never in his life before and there’ll never by anyone else again. It’s not so much pride(though there’s some, of course there’s some) as it is a reverse kind of possession. Coulson, he earned this with hard work and time and love and blood. No one else has ever made that much effort over him, no one else has ever deserved this right.
When Coulson moves it’s not to try to take back the advantage, to put distance between them and make Clint let him look, to clear him the way he likes to when Clint comes in from a mission. He pulls him up, pulls Clint into his lap with those deceptively strong arms of his and tugs Clint’s mouth down to his, and from there it’s amazing it’s not over in thirty seconds. Somehow, they mostly strip, though Coulson keeps that white shirt hanging off his shoulders throughout. Clint doesn’t mind, doesn’t have it in him to care and besides, it’s kind of hot. He whispers that against Coulson’s ear, stilted and breathless with Coulson’s fingers recently slick from Clint’s mouth sliding inside him. Phil laughs, soft and low, and Clint fully gave up coherency in favor of shifting his focus to clinging tighter to the man in his arms. His thighs are shaking and they shouldn’t be, they’ve done much harder work than this, but the tremor works its way through his whole body anyway, muscles twitching under Coulson’s fingers like a strung out thoroughbred.
The sensation of having Phil inside him again is enough to make him lightheaded, and he nearly comes too soon, crying out and writhing as soon as they’re joined. He feels full in a way his body remembers as strongly as his heart, everything in him seizing up in tandem as Phil breaks his usual relative quiet with a shuddering moan, muffling the sound as he bites into Clint’s shoulder. Clint can’t possibly last after that, and he murmurs a string of fuck that has Phil hauling him closer with one arm around his waist, the other hand sliding between them to fist around Clint’s cock. He comes in seconds, rocking down hard and with Phil’s grip tight and perfect around him. He’s limp and heavy on Coulson’s lap, utterly spent, and he wraps his arms around Coulson’s shoulders to moan encouragingly against his ear. For all he complains about his chatter over the coms, Coulson can never get enough of his voice. Coulson scrabbles at his hips, breath heavy as he thrusts up into him and comes with Clint’s name on his lips.
They come down slowly, full of drawn out kisses and hands all over each other’s chests with lazy, greedy strokes, and somewhere in there Coulson finally loses the shirt and they kind of meld onto the bed, stretched out together and barely fitting. They overlap, too big for the space, and Clint is totally, totally ok with that.
Clint’s wiped out, warm and exhausted and his body’s humming with the thrill of Phil’s fingers on his chest and the lingering ache in his ass, so the first question takes a minute to fully register with his brain.
“This.” Phil’s thumb is smoothing over a scar on his abdomen, still an angry pink that he can’t possibly see in the dark, though it’s faded. “Explain this.”
“Hm?” Clint’s not ready for coherent, certainly not ready for conversations he’s not looking forward to anyway. He’s perfectly fine with dazed and warm and making out until they fall asleep. That sounds excellent, but of course Phil won’t have it. “The stab wound, Clint, how’d it happen?” Knowing him like he does, he can tell that Phil’s still shaky too, still warm and buzzing, but Phil’s level of focus is unlike anything he’s ever seen. People think he’s good because he can spend hours in a hide but really, he’s got nothing on this man.
Clint turns his head, nuzzles against Phil’s collarbone in a way he knows should be irresistible. “Shh. I’m speechless. You’ve rendered me speechless; enjoy it.”
Phil’s lips press lightly against his temple, and he can feel the smile. “I could never render you speechless. You’re incapable.” Clint’s laughter is soft, muffled further against Coulson’s skin. Phil’s thumb strokes across the scar again, insistent. “What happened?”
Honestly, it’s one of the tamer stories, but it’s not that specific telling that he dreads, it’s the whole that it’s a part of. In their time apart, he hasn’t exactly been careful. There’s a fine line between reckless and suicidal, and he’s danced all along it and mostly kept himself out of too much suspicion from the shrinks Fury kept sending him to, but even so he knows a few more of the nurses names now, and he certainly didn’t come out unscathed. The real core of it is, no matter how crazy the past few days have been, no matter how unlikely it is his secret will ever be discovered, his previous mental state isn’t something he wants Coulson asking too many questions about.
“Well, as you brilliantly deduced,” Clint kisses him, tries to steal any sting from the words. “It’s a stab wound. There was a guy, and a knife, and it really wasn’t my priority since we were dealing with a few evil streetlamps at the time. It turned out alright.” Thinking about it he could remember the way the blood had spilled over his fingers as tried to keep the knife from jostling, remembered how he’d dragged his exhausted ass out of medical that night via picking a lock because he wasn’t about to wake up there, not when every other time he’d ever been stuck there overnight had resulted in Phil at his bedside with a cappuccino the next morning at an ungodly hour.
“This?” His touch on the inside of Clint’s arm is so light it makes him shiver. The mark in question is newer, fresh from the time a few weeks ago when he got bitten by some psychoass mechanical snake of Doom’s. That one, that could’ve been serious.
Maybe he can leave that part out, a bit.
Clint covers Phil’s hand with his, guides his thumb to a little firmer pressure, and even if he’s still tracing the mark Clint’s touch has to be distracting. “I had, uh…” How does he even begin with that? ‘A crazy robot tried to poison me?’ “Doom makes weird shit; you know that. Sometimes it bites. I had to dig this…implant out.”
He feels the breath Coulson sucks in, sharp and tight. “You had to-“
“Would’ve taken too long to get to medical. Stark said…” Well, his exact words weren’t going to be repeated, but if they hadn’t been said right when they had, the two of them wouldn’t have been having this conversation. “I still had broad tip arrows; it worked out alright.” It had hurt like hell, and even though he’d been quick he’d still blacked out from the poison, cracking his head on the brick behind him. Coulson didn’t need to know all that.
There has to be more, there’s definitely at least one more new addition Clint remembers on his back, but Coulson doesn’t try to pull his hand away from Clint to resume his inventory. He lets it be held, and he nestles his head against Clint’s shoulder, his voice just a little lower when he speaks.
“I heard them talking about you, after I came back. Steve was a guilty mess. He seemed to think he drove you away.”
“He didn’t.” But maybe he was going to need to make a point of that, because seriously when it came to his team, Rogers could worry like no other.
“Everyone seemed to think…” He cleared his throat, clearly not finding the right words and for Coulson, that was an incredible rarity. Clint, words just tumbled out of his mouth and occasionally he found what he meant to say through trial and error. Phil, Phil planned. “They were all worried like hell about you. I-“
With quick fingers, Clint covered his lips. “Let me stop you there, alright? Don’t ask a question you already know the answer to. You know it’s not one you’ll like.” He was gentle saying it, but even then, the words still weren’t quite right, not enough and really, honestly, this was half of why he talked all the time. So often he just couldn’t get it right. “Sweetheart…” That sounded better at least, the taste of a word on his tongue he’d only been addressing the air with for months. “I wake up out of that…that godawful trance, and we save the world and then they tell me you’re gone, and the first thing I’m thinking is…”
He’d thought with Coulson here in his arms, so blatantly alive, he’d be able to say the one thing he hadn’t said even to the silence, the one thought he’d kept inside him, buried and twisting until he watched that horrible tape. There’s a weight in his throat, like the words are literally pressing down on his insides and it’s all he can do to struggle against their pressure.
“They told me it was Loki, but I couldn’t shake the thought that there might be something I couldn’t remember, because God knows the fucker’s sadistic enough; I mean I know Thor loves the guy and being in my position I can’t and don’t pretend to understand, but even Thor admits that much. When he’s pissed he’s cruel and I…”
Coulson’s lips caught his, silencing the ramble of his darkest fears. He hadn’t had to live with the thoughts for too long, but God, he remembered having them. He remembered the tremor in his hands when he realized it, realized all they told him was that Loki had killed him and for a while there, for a while he was Loki’s hands. He’d well and truly lost it then, shut himself up in his bathroom and heaved up everything he possibly had to lose, not much considering he hadn’t eaten anything since after the battle.
“You’d never.” He feels the words against his lips, but it’s the absolute sincerity of them that shakes him, the kind of unflappable certainty Phil has in him that never ceases to astound him.
Clint swallows around the bitter taste in his mouth, his mind flickering with images he’ll never forget. “I killed agents, Coulson. I killed good agents, and I nearly brought down the helicarrier and-“
“And if he’d tried to make you stab me, you’d have put an arrow in his throat.” He tugs on Clint’s hand, rolling to the side and reaching up to cradle the back of Clint’s head, fingers burying gently in his hair. “With as long as I’ve trusted you, Barton, I’ve never been wrong.”
Of all the things he could’ve said, it’s just those words that in a perfect world might make him feel better, but not now, not anymore. The reminder of just how trustworthy he isn’t burns under his skin, and for a second there’s the fleeting feeling that if this guilt gets worse every year, by the time he gets to ten he’s going to be twitchy.
He takes a deep breath, smiles to keep up appearances. “Don’t lie. I’ve done things you wanted to wring my neck for personally.”
“You have, but-and this is not exactly a statement of approval-just because I would prefer you not do something insane doesn’t mean you’re not doing it with the right intentions.”
Everything in his chest hurts, a tight, sharp stabbing his ribs, and still he smiles as he leans in for a kiss. “There’s a method in my madness.”
“Something like that.”
They lapse into silence, trading soft kisses until Phil’s head shifts to press his lips to Clint’s forehead. His fingers are tight on Clint’s neck, every inch of his body pressed close, and there’s such a fierce tenderness to it it takes his breath.
For a second, that is, and then his mouth is rushing on ahead, running off without him.
“Marry me.”
Fuck, he didn’t mean to say it like this, not now, not this soon and not without a ring, but his mind is swirling mess of guilt and ticking clocks and want and that kiss was the last brick to push him over, to bring the love he has for this man flooding his veins like a force of nature.
“Clint-“
His heart’s pounding, a thousand miles an hour it feels like and he speaks up, cutting him off because he can only think of one objection.
“No, I mean it, I’m not just-“ Amazingly, all that sounded like almost one word. “I had your ring. I had it, and I was a fucking idiot, and a few months ago I shot it into the woods upstate because I thought I’d lost my chance, so when I tell you I mean this I really, really-“
“Yes.”
“Yes?” They kiss, the taste of Coulson on his tongue wiping away the taste of fear that had risen to choke him.
“Yes.”
In this moment, with Coulson in his arms and on his way to being his husband, the heavy guilt he hasn’t been able to shake since he realized he’d really pawned off his soul was all but gone. Ten years seems like an eternity, a fucking lifetime. He can feel Coulson’s heart beating against his chest where he’s pressed warm up against Clint’s side, and Clint turns in towards it like a cat soaking up summer sun. Ten years? Fuck, the past hour’s felt like forever. It’s enough time for what it bought him, for what it bought them both. More than enough.
The next day, on the way to a briefing about the persistent problems they’ve had with the sewers lately, Tony slides a drive into his pocket, not quite hiding it behind a new phone he says Clint needs, since he apparently couldn’t be bothered to pay enough attention to his old one. He knows what it is, absolutely, but he still grins like an idiot when he opens the file later that afternoon.
So I might’ve conned the guards into giving me their shift, and I also might’ve pulled this from the archives and looped the next few hours back in to make it look complete. It’ll fool no one, but they’ll have no other choice. You’re welcome.
Tell Coulson I expect immunity from his wrath for the rest of forever, and I don’t want to do paperwork in any form for at least six months.
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