Beyond Belief (1/?)
Title: Beyond Belief
Rating:NC-17
Genre and/or Pairing: Avengers movieverse/His Dark Materials fusion; Clint/Coulson
Warnings: implied torture, alcohol, language
Word Count: 5,231
Summary: Clint and his king cobra daemon, Maj, came to SHIELD after a life that took them from the circus to assassins to the clutches of a villain they didn't yet know. It's been a hard road and they've never met anyone they could trust, not until they meet Phil Coulson and Ilsae.
So when I started this, I knew next to nothing about His Dark Materials. We were reading the first HDM book in my Children’s Lit class and this prompt came up on the kinkmeme and I flailed and somehow wrote Clint/Coulson for the first time, at a time when I didn’t really ship them. Now, I hardcore ship them…and I still know little about HDM verse beyond the first book, but I’m doing my best.
This fic is mostly pre-canon, and it’s slightly AU too as in addition to the HDM-ness of it, I’ve messed around some with Clint’s history.
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They shouldn’t fit. They shouldn’t. It was obvious, blatant in every respect, but when most of your life consists of insanity anyway, things like typical constraints cease to matter a little.
When they first met, Maj couldn’t have made her feelings on the introduction any more clear. She hissed, curled tightly around Clint’s leg and let her hood flare as she leaned out from his thigh.
“Behave.” As he murmured to her his fingers brushed the back of her head, a caress as much as it was a reminder. He can’t blame her for it, knows she hates cats ever since that time in Bangkok with the ocelot that left the scars she bears on her side.
At Coulson’s feet, Ilsae returns the hiss in feline form, pressed up against his legs. Her whiskers were just a little more puffed with attentiveness, taking everything in. They’ve seen a lot, her and Coulson, but she’d never seen a king cobra before. For all she knew, hissing was exactly the right response to have.
The minute their hands touched, the hissing stopped. It was brief, a touch of hands, an introduction, a welcome and a mission, but it silenced the space between. Still, Maj didn’t lower her hood, didn’t relax, kept her eyes on the treacherous cat.
Ilsae tried to bridge something, anything. She eased a little out of her crouch, ears perking.
Maj slid higher up Clint’s body just in case she tried to come any closer. She didn’t like to be touched then, not even by other daemons. After the life they’ve lived, it was Clint’s touch alone that she trusted, in those days.
When they left, Clint tried to talk to her.
“I’m going to have to work with him, you know. It might not kill you to make a friend.”
She draped across his shoulders, nuzzled up under his ear before she spoke.
“Did you know cats kill their prey by severing the vertebrae? Precision strike.” Her tongue flicked, tasting the air, hating that in the place they’d come to it seemed they spent so much time underground. “Clint, I like my head attached.”
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The next time they met it only went marginally smoother. Maj didn’t flare, just wound herself around Clint’s shoulders possessively, high enough to keep her out of reach of any questing paws but keeping herself in sight enough to maintain a presence. It surprised her a little to see that it hardly mattered.
Ilsae acted for all the world like she couldn’t be bothered, sprawled across Coulson’s desk with her big feet resting on a file embossed with the S.H.I.E.L.D. logo. Her ears barely twitched, only one eye cracked open. She watched without a word, something contemplative in that single amber eye. For all people claim that bobcats are barely larger than their domestic cousins, Ilsae looked somehow too big for the space and deceptively strong. In that, Maj could read only danger. When Clint didn’t stay long, she couldn’t have been happier.
“Seriously, Maj, you’re gonna have to get over this. He seems pretty decent.”
“Yes, I’m sure the man who practically pressganged us into a secret organization is utterly legitimate.”
Clint laughed, short and sharp, reached up to trail his fingers across her scales to soothe her. “The man deserves a shot, that’s all I’m saying. We’re supposed to be the good guys, remember?”
“I’ll reserve judgment on where he deserves that shot, thanks. And I’d thank you to keep your bow ready.” Maj tightened around him, knocked her nose up under his chin. “Sometimes I shudder to think what the hell would happen to us without me.”
It was true, really. Even after everything, sometimes Clint wanted to trust. He needed her there to remind him every reason why he couldn’t, why distance was all that kept them alive. Clint thinks of so much in terms of strategy, of fighting and attack and things he knows, and he knew that in some ways, Maj had a point. Once you let someone walk up to you, it’s a lot harder to get the room to draw on them if you need to fire.
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It doesn’t take that much longer for Maj to realize that they’re going to have to have a serious discussion.
They’re at headquarters after a mission in Phoenix, killing time in a room empty but for Coulson and single guard he’s talking through a new aspect of the alarm system. Ilsae is pacing, something in her still soft tread on the metal looking more impatient than Maj his ever seen, but there is an undeniable beauty to the motion. She is a mystery, with a quiet power that Maj has never seen her throw around, only hinted at through the play of muscles under a sleek coat and the memory of a hiss on the first day they met.
It’s not until Clint nudges her that she even realizes how far she’s slithered away from him, how she’s dangling off the edge of the table as her eyes track the bobcat’s paces. When the tip of the arrow Clint’s working on nudges her tail, she jerks.
“Go on. Go say hello.”
Maj hisses, hood half flared at his idiocy. Sometimes, she thinks he doesn’t think at all and she’s the only one that got the brains. “Don’t be stupid. I was just-“
“You know, you’re a horrible liar. In case you’ve never realized that.” His eyes aren’t on her anymore, on the work of his hands instead. Just like always, he knows there are times she needs not to be stared at. “Maj, she won’t hurt you. Will you just go say hello so I can have one person that doesn’t know me as the guy with the daemon that hates everyone?”
“You’re hilarious.”
“And you’re still watching.”
She was; she couldn’t look away. Ilsae leaped gracefully onto an unused computer console, springing lightly up onto the top of the casing from there. Miraculously, her gigantic feet had pushed nothing, as if she weighed no more than air.
If she curled around the chair, kept enough empty air between them that she could strike if she needed to…
“I’m only doing this to shut you up.”
“I feel honored.”
Ignoring him, she eased down to the metallic floor with a soft thud. The steel was horribly unpleasant against her belly, cold and distracting, and when she made it over to the wooden chair she molded gratefully around it, flowing up it like water to rest her head on the top rung. Across from her, the bobcat cocked her head.
“Well hello. I’m Ilsae.”
“I’ve heard him talk to you.” It comes out shorter than even she exactly means to, and she hisses at herself a little in frustration. The cat is patient. “Its Maj.”
“Maj.” Her voice is warm when she says it, as if she’s fascinated, as if every last bit of the aloof disinterest was merely an elaborate show. That should be comforting, and somewhere deep down it sort of is, but mostly, Maj only registers the deception. The wildcat stretches, slow and deliberate, and she tilts her head at the spot where she had just been sitting. “Do you want to join me?”
“I’m good here, thanks.” More than good, nice and safe and separate, and she steals a quick look back at Clint. He isn’t far away, but without the warmth of his skin against her, she feels vulnerable. “So…” She isn’t sure of a topic exactly when she starts, but at even this small semblance of conversation, the cat’s ears perk up in interest. It’s enough to spur her to cast around for something to say. “How long have you two been working in this coffin?” She’ll never get used to being underground, she thinks. She hates it.
Across the room, Clint watches her, something in his chest warming when she doesn’t flee back to safety. It’s been a long time since she had a friend, since back when they worked the circus together and she changed freely, hawk or red panda or scorpion or snake her most common aspirations. She made friends not quite easily then but easier, and their lives weren’t full of quite so many secrets. A great deal has happened in between, and he’d started to wonder if they’d both lost the ability, if it even mattered quite as much as he tried to tell her it did, because really, who did they need outside of each other?
“I’m sorry, that took longer than I expected.”
Coulson’s voice catches him a little off guard, and he looks up, something in him jolting a little. “It’s alright. Not like I’m goin’ anywhere. Yet.” There’s something about the set of the man’s shoulders that’s different, tense and unfamiliar, and Clint stretches out on his own limbs. “Look like you’ve had a hell of a time.”
Something of a smile tugs at the corners of Coulson’s lips, and he draws out his own chair to take a seat across the table. “You could say that.”
…and he could say a whole lot more, because that’s not much for Clint to go on. He picks up the arrow he was fletching and gets back to his work. “What’s the trouble?” His eyes flickered up, barely meeting Coulson’s for a heartbeat. “If you don’t mind me asking, sir.”
He hesitates, but then it doesn’t seem that he does, because suddenly they’re talking about Tony Stark and how he’s an overgrown child and a liability and they can’t have in the organization but he’s clearly up to something so they can’t leave him out, and as they ramble on it gets easier and easier to look him in the eye.
His attention only strays when he hears Maj laugh from her perch in the corner. He can’t remember the last time she laughed for anyone other than him.
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“-I mean it, Clint, this is dangerous, we…are you even listening to me? You’re not, are you?”
“Shhh.” Clint’s thumb trails lovingly over the inside of his compound bow, his eyes trained hard on the fenceline he’s watching. In the beginning especially he understood little of what he was doing for S.H.I.E.L.D. exactly beyond the fact that he was doing the world a service, but the more time goes on the more Coulson trusts him with bits and pieces, and this guy he’s watching for is a real piece of work; he knows that for a fact. Once he’s got a shot he’s taking it, and then they’ll be off back to a place he’s trying hard not to call home. Mostly because Maj gets excessively agitated when he does. “Can we just do this job? Quietly?”
“You’re louder than I am.” Her whispered voice is petulant, and she hisses briefly as she flicks the tip of her tail against his leg. “Just admit it. You like him.”
“It’s not a crime.” Clint’s lips barely move to get the words out, more careful than he had been when he’d shushed her. She might have been acting like an irritated child, but she had a point. Her words had been quieter than his. “And don’t tell me you don’t like him; I know you do.” Before he’d left for this mission, he’d stopped by to pick up a stash of arrows, and he’d seen Coulson having breakfast in his office. Maj hadn’t shown the first sign of alarm, had instead flicked her tongue casually in greeting before tucking her face in shyly against Clint’s neck, as if her own lack of fear frightened her in all new ways.
“Even if I…that’s even worse!” There’s genuine worry there, he feels in everything from her very emotions themselves to the way she constricts around him. “We should leave. Ok? We kill this son of a bitch and then we leave and we go where no one knows us, maybe even join a circus again, something simple, something hidden, alright?”
“We’re not leaving. It’s a good place, it’s good work, and besides, he-“
Below, the door of the guard shack opens, their mark walking out with a single bodyguard into what he doesn’t quite think is the open, protected behind his fence. From the tree they’re in, it’s no problem at all. In the excitement of the moment everything else is forgotten, Maj twisting up his body to line her eyes up with his, sighting the shot with him. Two shots, because they won’t line up just right for him to do it any other way. Not that it matters, really, because the decision and shots included still take him only heartbeats. They fall quietly, satisfyingly quietly.
Clint shoulders his bow. “Come on. Time to go.” Distracted by the action, or maybe finally almost ready to concede at least temporary defeat, Maj doesn’t argue.
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Clint knocks on Coulson’s door, though it’s already standing open and he’s already easing up to lean against the frame. Coulson crumples the paper he had in his hands, keeps it crushed there against his palm as he looks up. In the corner Ilsae is agitated, growling under her breath though she straightens at the sight of them, the frustrated hunch easing a little out of her shoulders.
“Barton. Back already.”
“Sorry. Too efficient for you?”
“I’d be thrilled if that was the height of this organization’s problems.”
Clint knows a little about that, at least. At the Dallas airport on a layover he saw Stark on TV, addressing the press while that white serval of his sat next to him with ears that were almost pinned back to her head. That was, until the moment Stark had put down the cards, declared himself Iron Man in front of a room of reporters and changed everything. The room had exploded. The serval’s agitation had vanished as she sat up to her full height to preen, soft pink tongue lapping innocently at her already pristine shoulder.
“How much damage did Stark do?” Considering it’s 3 AM and Coulson’s sitting at his desk still, jacket off and tie loosened around his neck, Stark’s blown a crater for the sake of pretty fireworks, ignorant of everything that went up in the blaze. If he was watching from the outside, Clint would probably just call him an ostentatious fool and be done with it. Watching him from the inside, he tends to think the guy deserves to be taken down a peg. Or five.
“Difficult to say. But the real problem is the fact that he still thinks he’s playing a game that follows rules he understands.”
Clint might not understand all those rules yet himself, but he knows enough to know that Stark’s done more than painted a target on his own head, with this. The repercussions are going to come down on all of them. Clint crosses the floor, pulls the folded papers he kept in the inside of his vest out to lay down on the desk.
“My paperwork. I thought I’d be sliding it under your door.”
“Thank you.”
Clint could leave, then, and he almost does, but it isn’t what he wants. He can feel Maj’s agreement, concordance with the separation between what they both know is logical and the subtle warmth they know isn’t. Maj squirms, and Clint unwraps her from his leg to drape across his back. It gives him something to do with his hands.
“I’d take a wild guess and say you’ve been at this since they made the announcement.”
Ilsae drifts closer to Coulson, reaches up to settle her paws on his thigh. Even though he’s clearly still trying to hold everything in perfect structure, it’s clear they’re absolutely bone tired. Coulson finally drops the crumpled paper, shoves his computer keyboard back and actually looks at Clint.
“I was there when it happened, at first. Director Fury made the decision to talk to Stark himself at that point and since there was more than enough of this…” He gestured at the paper, at the computer which Clint could now see was currently showing a running of the clip on a German news channel.
“Seems like you could use a drink.”
That at least got him almost laugh. “I’m pretty sure there’s not a day since I took this job that couldn’t have fallen under that heading.”
Clint nods absently, weighing the words one more time for just a second before he speaks. “Got any hatred for Crown Royale?” That gets him speechless, a look somewhere between shock and interest. “Hey, I might not have done too much to my room here, but I’ve got some essentials.” And in their line of work, sometimes whiskey was an essential. Especially in his line of work. Maj curls all 8 feet of herself so tight around his chest he thinks she’s about to crack a rib.
Finally, Coulson nods his assent, and that’s more than good enough. He goes for the whiskey, comes back with it and two glasses, and they drink until he’s smiling and Coulson doesn’t look quite so much like he’s been run over by a few dozen trains. By the time Clint gets up to leave it’s 7 AM, and though Coulson hasn’t gotten any more work done, he doesn’t seem to mind quite so much. Maj had spent the last couple of hours curled around the heat of a pole lamp, and when she slithers down she slows during the descent, finally stretches her neck out until it’s just inches from the bobcat stretched out on the floor, and she tips her head just a little in farewell. Ilsae purrs, and Clint doesn’t bother to hide his own smile as he leans against the doorframe once again.
“I’ll stop by tomorrow to see about where I’m off to next?”
“That’d be great.”
“Goodnight, sir.”
“Coulson.” He’s already halfway turned to leave, but when he catches that, Clint turns back. Coulson isn’t drunk by a long shot, but he’s had just enough that the careful constraints he keeps himself under have faded, and it’s just him looking out of hazel eyes that tonight seem just a little more green. “If it’s just us, there’s no need for…it’s just Coulson.”
As he walks down the hallway, he can tell by the way Maj stretches up eagerly toward even the fluorescent lights they pass that she is pleased.
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The picture in the file shows a boy of about 14. His dark hair is ruffled with the wind, the feathers of the hawk that perches on his shoulder equally disheveled. They’re both sighting a shot, bow string already drawn tight, the boy’s face a mask of concentration. It’s one of the only early pictures S.H.I.E.L.D. has, and Coulson’s seen it more times than he can count. He can’t help but flip through the file occasionally, maybe a little more occasionally these days than he strictly should, but his excuse is the same every time, and he gives it to Ilsae when she puts one paw down on the page he’s trying to turn.
“If they’ve come across new information, it’s my business to know. I’m responsible for him, Ilsae, if I send him into a situation where he’s in greater danger than I realize, that would be on me.”
“You’re snooping, Phil. Hide it behind whatever words you like; you’re snooping.”
Maybe he was, a little, but could she honestly blame him? When S.H.I.E.L.D. had made contact with Clint Barton he’d been fresh from busting out of some villain’s clutches, the identity of which was either unknown or actually above his clearance, a fact which had the potential to be both impressive and disturbing. So little was known about how he’d gotten there, what had happened to him while he was held. They knew only a few things for certain.
He’d left the circus sometime after his 15th birthday, fallen off the grid for a couple of months before he started appearing in mercenary circles. His kind of skills were highly prized, after all, and even at a young age there’d been no one like him. Even if he did put in a staggering amount of practice, it seemed hard to believe that anyone else could’ve achieved the same results even if they had worked just as hard. He had the touch and the eye for it, and that couldn’t be duplicated. So he had worked, woven in and out of the shadows and finally landed himself in far over his head in the world of heroes and villains. Not that they thought Clint had really realized that, initially, though since their intel was fuzzy they couldn’t be sure. They just knew that he’d been held in Bangkok some six months, and that they’d met him not long after he made it out. He’d been working his way up through lower level government ranks before Coulson had swept in to recruit him into S.H.I.E.L.D.
Almost every picture taken of Clint and Maj from their circus days showed his daemon giving him the aid of her razor sharp hawk eyes or warming his neck with the lush fur of a red panda. Even the two that showed her clenched tight around his arm in the form of a cobra, there’s something in her fluidity that lends everything about her an air of ease. Coulson can probably count on one hand the number of times he thinks he might have seen her fully at ease, and he wouldn’t even need to use very many fingers.
He reaches out, tries to push Ilsae’s paw aside only to have her growl low in her throat.
The look he gives her would probably wilt just about anyone else. “You can’t tell me you’re not curious.”
“I can tell you that if we ever want his trust, stalking his employee file isn’t the way to get it.” She bares her teeth, warning. She will nip him; there’s no doubting it.
Even if he hates losing, sometimes, he’ll concede a little ground. Especially with her. Sometimes, she just might know best. Possibly. Frustrated, he pulls his hands back, lets her bat the cover closed and lay down on it to glower at him.
“So how would you suggest that conversation go if something happens? ‘I’m sorry that I wasn’t aware of the potential danger for you in this mission; my daemon insisted I shouldn’t do my job?”
Her eyes narrow, the growl deepening until it sounds like it couldn’t possibly be coming from a cat her size. “There’s a not so fine line between doing your job and being too afraid to wait until you can ask him a damn personal question.” The growl tapers, Ilsae seeing something in his shift back into his chair that takes her off the offensive. “I’m not saying you have to stop wanting to know. We have to be patient.”
Patience is something that, for better or worse, he knows quite a bit about. Half his job is spent waiting for a potential mark to show his powers or his inventions, waiting for a discovery, waiting to make contact, waiting for contact to be approved...dozens of forms of waiting, never ending.
Patience. Right. If he needs to, he can muster up even more of it for this, too, because with the life he’s living, Clint’s just about the only almost friend that he’s got. In and of itself, really, that should be enough. Everything else he can’t help but want when Barton relaxes enough to smile at him really should be shoved back altogether.
He’ll probably remember that for as long as it takes Barton to get back from his latest deployment in Maine.
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“I’m gone for two weeks, and this is what you do? Jesus, Coulson.” Clint’s deliberately as teasing as he can muster, but even then he can hear the fear in his own voice. He’d steadied himself as much as he could, but there was no way he could even it out all the way, not after the afternoon he’d had. He’d come to check in at the main headquarters, finished up the last details on the paperwork for Coulson before swinging by his office to hand them over only to find that Coulson was gone. On top of that, not just gone for the day but gone, in the hospital hopefully recovering from a concussion. Hopefully, as if there was a chance he might just be…
“Sorry to disappoint.” His voice is a little scratchy with disuse, but he sounds alright. Alive and well at least, and fuck, that’s enough. For once in their lives Maj truly takes the initiative, takes advantage of his shock and slithers down his leg to fall to the floor, only rising back up when she reaches the edge of the bed with railings just perfect to wrap her strong neck around and pull herself up. When she reaches out to touch her nose to Ilsae’s too dry one, Clint can feel the warmth seep through his body like it’s coated him from the inside. Maybe he can actually get his feet to move, get himself over to the bed to talk to him properly. Might help.
So much has been creeping into his consciousness piece by piece, everything from how good this man looks when he’s not holding himself too uptight to how good he feels when he’s with him once he’s let that guard down, and all of it floods in on him now. Everyone looks fragile in hospital beds and Coulson’s no exception. His eyes look grey today, thin somehow under the lights, and Clint wants irrationally to cup his cheek, to press a kiss to the wound on his forehead and see if he’s got a fever. If that cut gets infected, on top of everything else…
Clint wraps his fingers painfully tight around the bedside rail. It seems like the most harmless thing he can do with his hands, since taking Coulson’s is out of the question.
“Seriously, boss, what the hell were you doin’ out there? The guys not doin’ their job?” Because if someone skipped out on Coulson when they should’ve been watching his back, he will come down on them so hard they won’t even know what hit them, rank be damned.
“I was a field agent before I got this promotion, you know. I can actually look out for myself.” It could’ve carried a different weight, it had the potential, but Coulson’s voice has more dry humor than honest irritation, and Clint lets himself smile a little.
“Yeah, I can tell.” Honestly, the thought that he’s got so much training and someone still managed to leave a gash like that on his head and knock him out cold is more than a little disturbing. “Really, what happened? Did…were you-“
“Difficult to say exactly. I know there were more than we expected; I was pulling the radio to call for help.” And clearly, that went brilliantly.
Clint’s knuckles are actually starting to burn with the effort of holding on so tight. He’s lucky, really, that he doesn’t have any particular power in that department, because otherwise his skin might be splitting open.
“I’m sorry. If I’d been back, I could’ve-“
“No.” Despite the fact that he’s barely moved since Clint came in, much less moved his head, Coulson shakes his head feebly until Clint’s twitch forward makes him cut the motion off. “Don’t do that. I’m fine.”
Yeah. Fine.
At the foot of the bed, Ilsae lay listless across his feet, keeping them warm. Maj had buried her face somewhere in the ruff of fur near her neck, through the rest of her body still twisted away to rest separately. Something frustrated sparks in his chest, ridiculous jealousy at the thought that for all her hesitancy, she’s worked up the nerve for touch before he has. With most people’s daemons that might be a near constant truth, but it sure as hell isn’t for his.
He swallows hard against the bite of envy, clenches his fingers on the plastic again and wonders briefly what he’d do if it cracked.
“I didn’t even know if…they just told me you were in the hospital with a concussion. From what I’ve seen, that could’ve meant everything from fine to a whole lot of absolutely not fine.” He’d actually seen that kind of damage firsthand before. Some blows, people never woke up from. “Coulson…” It’s on the tip of his tongue, the urge to ask for things he isn’t sure he has the right to even mention. It’s one thing for them to be friends without really talking about it, about the fact that they have a relationship that isn’t defined by Coulson’s position as his superior. That’s an unspoken agreement, and it’s a whole different matter than one with words and spoken expectations, but considering how good he’s been at keeping his hands to himself, he was damn well bound to fail at something. “Something like this happens, I think I have a right to know before I get home and hear it from the staff.”
Maj doesn’t even hiss at the word ‘home’, doesn’t so much as raise her head. She’s busy scenting the air around Ilsae with her tongue, memorizing the feel and smell of warm fur.
“The nurse actually came in here to tell me I was having a visitor.” Clint blinks at him, not sure at first how in the hell that’s connected to anything he just said. Coulson’s eyes close, something in him weary enough to sink back a little into his pillows. “Director Fury called but other than that…”
No one had come. Not a damn one of them, just him. Everything he does around headquarters, the epic lengths he goes to to save Stark’s ass, and the man can’t be bothered to haul himself to a hospital room or at least send that aide of his, whatshername, and clearly no one else can either. Truthfully, though, most of them probably didn’t even know, and that says something all in itself.
When his hands finally move, it feels utterly without his permission, like it really had just been his grip that had been making them behave and the minute it’s loosened he loses all control. He takes Coulson’s face in his hands and kisses him, just the simple, firm pressure of their lips against each other’s, and for a second he forgets that for so many reasons this is insanely stupid. He’s going to crash and burn, going to fuck up his job and the one person he thinks is actually his friend, but he tells himself fleetingly that he can’t really help it, because in the face of the relief the need to do something he desperately wants is irresistible.
He’s just pulling back, his jumbled thoughts trying to center more firmly on how stupid he’s just been when Coulson’s hand reaches up to fist the sleeve of the filthy shirt he hadn’t taken the time to change, holding him in place. That hand’s still trailing an IV, and it can’t be comfortable to hold on that tight unless he just wants it that much. Clint licks his lips, closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to see just yet, but maybe, maybe this wasn’t so stupid after all.
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Rating:NC-17
Genre and/or Pairing: Avengers movieverse/His Dark Materials fusion; Clint/Coulson
Warnings: implied torture, alcohol, language
Word Count: 5,231
Summary: Clint and his king cobra daemon, Maj, came to SHIELD after a life that took them from the circus to assassins to the clutches of a villain they didn't yet know. It's been a hard road and they've never met anyone they could trust, not until they meet Phil Coulson and Ilsae.
So when I started this, I knew next to nothing about His Dark Materials. We were reading the first HDM book in my Children’s Lit class and this prompt came up on the kinkmeme and I flailed and somehow wrote Clint/Coulson for the first time, at a time when I didn’t really ship them. Now, I hardcore ship them…and I still know little about HDM verse beyond the first book, but I’m doing my best.
This fic is mostly pre-canon, and it’s slightly AU too as in addition to the HDM-ness of it, I’ve messed around some with Clint’s history.
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They shouldn’t fit. They shouldn’t. It was obvious, blatant in every respect, but when most of your life consists of insanity anyway, things like typical constraints cease to matter a little.
When they first met, Maj couldn’t have made her feelings on the introduction any more clear. She hissed, curled tightly around Clint’s leg and let her hood flare as she leaned out from his thigh.
“Behave.” As he murmured to her his fingers brushed the back of her head, a caress as much as it was a reminder. He can’t blame her for it, knows she hates cats ever since that time in Bangkok with the ocelot that left the scars she bears on her side.
At Coulson’s feet, Ilsae returns the hiss in feline form, pressed up against his legs. Her whiskers were just a little more puffed with attentiveness, taking everything in. They’ve seen a lot, her and Coulson, but she’d never seen a king cobra before. For all she knew, hissing was exactly the right response to have.
The minute their hands touched, the hissing stopped. It was brief, a touch of hands, an introduction, a welcome and a mission, but it silenced the space between. Still, Maj didn’t lower her hood, didn’t relax, kept her eyes on the treacherous cat.
Ilsae tried to bridge something, anything. She eased a little out of her crouch, ears perking.
Maj slid higher up Clint’s body just in case she tried to come any closer. She didn’t like to be touched then, not even by other daemons. After the life they’ve lived, it was Clint’s touch alone that she trusted, in those days.
When they left, Clint tried to talk to her.
“I’m going to have to work with him, you know. It might not kill you to make a friend.”
She draped across his shoulders, nuzzled up under his ear before she spoke.
“Did you know cats kill their prey by severing the vertebrae? Precision strike.” Her tongue flicked, tasting the air, hating that in the place they’d come to it seemed they spent so much time underground. “Clint, I like my head attached.”
----------------
The next time they met it only went marginally smoother. Maj didn’t flare, just wound herself around Clint’s shoulders possessively, high enough to keep her out of reach of any questing paws but keeping herself in sight enough to maintain a presence. It surprised her a little to see that it hardly mattered.
Ilsae acted for all the world like she couldn’t be bothered, sprawled across Coulson’s desk with her big feet resting on a file embossed with the S.H.I.E.L.D. logo. Her ears barely twitched, only one eye cracked open. She watched without a word, something contemplative in that single amber eye. For all people claim that bobcats are barely larger than their domestic cousins, Ilsae looked somehow too big for the space and deceptively strong. In that, Maj could read only danger. When Clint didn’t stay long, she couldn’t have been happier.
“Seriously, Maj, you’re gonna have to get over this. He seems pretty decent.”
“Yes, I’m sure the man who practically pressganged us into a secret organization is utterly legitimate.”
Clint laughed, short and sharp, reached up to trail his fingers across her scales to soothe her. “The man deserves a shot, that’s all I’m saying. We’re supposed to be the good guys, remember?”
“I’ll reserve judgment on where he deserves that shot, thanks. And I’d thank you to keep your bow ready.” Maj tightened around him, knocked her nose up under his chin. “Sometimes I shudder to think what the hell would happen to us without me.”
It was true, really. Even after everything, sometimes Clint wanted to trust. He needed her there to remind him every reason why he couldn’t, why distance was all that kept them alive. Clint thinks of so much in terms of strategy, of fighting and attack and things he knows, and he knew that in some ways, Maj had a point. Once you let someone walk up to you, it’s a lot harder to get the room to draw on them if you need to fire.
-----------------
It doesn’t take that much longer for Maj to realize that they’re going to have to have a serious discussion.
They’re at headquarters after a mission in Phoenix, killing time in a room empty but for Coulson and single guard he’s talking through a new aspect of the alarm system. Ilsae is pacing, something in her still soft tread on the metal looking more impatient than Maj his ever seen, but there is an undeniable beauty to the motion. She is a mystery, with a quiet power that Maj has never seen her throw around, only hinted at through the play of muscles under a sleek coat and the memory of a hiss on the first day they met.
It’s not until Clint nudges her that she even realizes how far she’s slithered away from him, how she’s dangling off the edge of the table as her eyes track the bobcat’s paces. When the tip of the arrow Clint’s working on nudges her tail, she jerks.
“Go on. Go say hello.”
Maj hisses, hood half flared at his idiocy. Sometimes, she thinks he doesn’t think at all and she’s the only one that got the brains. “Don’t be stupid. I was just-“
“You know, you’re a horrible liar. In case you’ve never realized that.” His eyes aren’t on her anymore, on the work of his hands instead. Just like always, he knows there are times she needs not to be stared at. “Maj, she won’t hurt you. Will you just go say hello so I can have one person that doesn’t know me as the guy with the daemon that hates everyone?”
“You’re hilarious.”
“And you’re still watching.”
She was; she couldn’t look away. Ilsae leaped gracefully onto an unused computer console, springing lightly up onto the top of the casing from there. Miraculously, her gigantic feet had pushed nothing, as if she weighed no more than air.
If she curled around the chair, kept enough empty air between them that she could strike if she needed to…
“I’m only doing this to shut you up.”
“I feel honored.”
Ignoring him, she eased down to the metallic floor with a soft thud. The steel was horribly unpleasant against her belly, cold and distracting, and when she made it over to the wooden chair she molded gratefully around it, flowing up it like water to rest her head on the top rung. Across from her, the bobcat cocked her head.
“Well hello. I’m Ilsae.”
“I’ve heard him talk to you.” It comes out shorter than even she exactly means to, and she hisses at herself a little in frustration. The cat is patient. “Its Maj.”
“Maj.” Her voice is warm when she says it, as if she’s fascinated, as if every last bit of the aloof disinterest was merely an elaborate show. That should be comforting, and somewhere deep down it sort of is, but mostly, Maj only registers the deception. The wildcat stretches, slow and deliberate, and she tilts her head at the spot where she had just been sitting. “Do you want to join me?”
“I’m good here, thanks.” More than good, nice and safe and separate, and she steals a quick look back at Clint. He isn’t far away, but without the warmth of his skin against her, she feels vulnerable. “So…” She isn’t sure of a topic exactly when she starts, but at even this small semblance of conversation, the cat’s ears perk up in interest. It’s enough to spur her to cast around for something to say. “How long have you two been working in this coffin?” She’ll never get used to being underground, she thinks. She hates it.
Across the room, Clint watches her, something in his chest warming when she doesn’t flee back to safety. It’s been a long time since she had a friend, since back when they worked the circus together and she changed freely, hawk or red panda or scorpion or snake her most common aspirations. She made friends not quite easily then but easier, and their lives weren’t full of quite so many secrets. A great deal has happened in between, and he’d started to wonder if they’d both lost the ability, if it even mattered quite as much as he tried to tell her it did, because really, who did they need outside of each other?
“I’m sorry, that took longer than I expected.”
Coulson’s voice catches him a little off guard, and he looks up, something in him jolting a little. “It’s alright. Not like I’m goin’ anywhere. Yet.” There’s something about the set of the man’s shoulders that’s different, tense and unfamiliar, and Clint stretches out on his own limbs. “Look like you’ve had a hell of a time.”
Something of a smile tugs at the corners of Coulson’s lips, and he draws out his own chair to take a seat across the table. “You could say that.”
…and he could say a whole lot more, because that’s not much for Clint to go on. He picks up the arrow he was fletching and gets back to his work. “What’s the trouble?” His eyes flickered up, barely meeting Coulson’s for a heartbeat. “If you don’t mind me asking, sir.”
He hesitates, but then it doesn’t seem that he does, because suddenly they’re talking about Tony Stark and how he’s an overgrown child and a liability and they can’t have in the organization but he’s clearly up to something so they can’t leave him out, and as they ramble on it gets easier and easier to look him in the eye.
His attention only strays when he hears Maj laugh from her perch in the corner. He can’t remember the last time she laughed for anyone other than him.
-----------------------
“-I mean it, Clint, this is dangerous, we…are you even listening to me? You’re not, are you?”
“Shhh.” Clint’s thumb trails lovingly over the inside of his compound bow, his eyes trained hard on the fenceline he’s watching. In the beginning especially he understood little of what he was doing for S.H.I.E.L.D. exactly beyond the fact that he was doing the world a service, but the more time goes on the more Coulson trusts him with bits and pieces, and this guy he’s watching for is a real piece of work; he knows that for a fact. Once he’s got a shot he’s taking it, and then they’ll be off back to a place he’s trying hard not to call home. Mostly because Maj gets excessively agitated when he does. “Can we just do this job? Quietly?”
“You’re louder than I am.” Her whispered voice is petulant, and she hisses briefly as she flicks the tip of her tail against his leg. “Just admit it. You like him.”
“It’s not a crime.” Clint’s lips barely move to get the words out, more careful than he had been when he’d shushed her. She might have been acting like an irritated child, but she had a point. Her words had been quieter than his. “And don’t tell me you don’t like him; I know you do.” Before he’d left for this mission, he’d stopped by to pick up a stash of arrows, and he’d seen Coulson having breakfast in his office. Maj hadn’t shown the first sign of alarm, had instead flicked her tongue casually in greeting before tucking her face in shyly against Clint’s neck, as if her own lack of fear frightened her in all new ways.
“Even if I…that’s even worse!” There’s genuine worry there, he feels in everything from her very emotions themselves to the way she constricts around him. “We should leave. Ok? We kill this son of a bitch and then we leave and we go where no one knows us, maybe even join a circus again, something simple, something hidden, alright?”
“We’re not leaving. It’s a good place, it’s good work, and besides, he-“
Below, the door of the guard shack opens, their mark walking out with a single bodyguard into what he doesn’t quite think is the open, protected behind his fence. From the tree they’re in, it’s no problem at all. In the excitement of the moment everything else is forgotten, Maj twisting up his body to line her eyes up with his, sighting the shot with him. Two shots, because they won’t line up just right for him to do it any other way. Not that it matters, really, because the decision and shots included still take him only heartbeats. They fall quietly, satisfyingly quietly.
Clint shoulders his bow. “Come on. Time to go.” Distracted by the action, or maybe finally almost ready to concede at least temporary defeat, Maj doesn’t argue.
-----------------------
Clint knocks on Coulson’s door, though it’s already standing open and he’s already easing up to lean against the frame. Coulson crumples the paper he had in his hands, keeps it crushed there against his palm as he looks up. In the corner Ilsae is agitated, growling under her breath though she straightens at the sight of them, the frustrated hunch easing a little out of her shoulders.
“Barton. Back already.”
“Sorry. Too efficient for you?”
“I’d be thrilled if that was the height of this organization’s problems.”
Clint knows a little about that, at least. At the Dallas airport on a layover he saw Stark on TV, addressing the press while that white serval of his sat next to him with ears that were almost pinned back to her head. That was, until the moment Stark had put down the cards, declared himself Iron Man in front of a room of reporters and changed everything. The room had exploded. The serval’s agitation had vanished as she sat up to her full height to preen, soft pink tongue lapping innocently at her already pristine shoulder.
“How much damage did Stark do?” Considering it’s 3 AM and Coulson’s sitting at his desk still, jacket off and tie loosened around his neck, Stark’s blown a crater for the sake of pretty fireworks, ignorant of everything that went up in the blaze. If he was watching from the outside, Clint would probably just call him an ostentatious fool and be done with it. Watching him from the inside, he tends to think the guy deserves to be taken down a peg. Or five.
“Difficult to say. But the real problem is the fact that he still thinks he’s playing a game that follows rules he understands.”
Clint might not understand all those rules yet himself, but he knows enough to know that Stark’s done more than painted a target on his own head, with this. The repercussions are going to come down on all of them. Clint crosses the floor, pulls the folded papers he kept in the inside of his vest out to lay down on the desk.
“My paperwork. I thought I’d be sliding it under your door.”
“Thank you.”
Clint could leave, then, and he almost does, but it isn’t what he wants. He can feel Maj’s agreement, concordance with the separation between what they both know is logical and the subtle warmth they know isn’t. Maj squirms, and Clint unwraps her from his leg to drape across his back. It gives him something to do with his hands.
“I’d take a wild guess and say you’ve been at this since they made the announcement.”
Ilsae drifts closer to Coulson, reaches up to settle her paws on his thigh. Even though he’s clearly still trying to hold everything in perfect structure, it’s clear they’re absolutely bone tired. Coulson finally drops the crumpled paper, shoves his computer keyboard back and actually looks at Clint.
“I was there when it happened, at first. Director Fury made the decision to talk to Stark himself at that point and since there was more than enough of this…” He gestured at the paper, at the computer which Clint could now see was currently showing a running of the clip on a German news channel.
“Seems like you could use a drink.”
That at least got him almost laugh. “I’m pretty sure there’s not a day since I took this job that couldn’t have fallen under that heading.”
Clint nods absently, weighing the words one more time for just a second before he speaks. “Got any hatred for Crown Royale?” That gets him speechless, a look somewhere between shock and interest. “Hey, I might not have done too much to my room here, but I’ve got some essentials.” And in their line of work, sometimes whiskey was an essential. Especially in his line of work. Maj curls all 8 feet of herself so tight around his chest he thinks she’s about to crack a rib.
Finally, Coulson nods his assent, and that’s more than good enough. He goes for the whiskey, comes back with it and two glasses, and they drink until he’s smiling and Coulson doesn’t look quite so much like he’s been run over by a few dozen trains. By the time Clint gets up to leave it’s 7 AM, and though Coulson hasn’t gotten any more work done, he doesn’t seem to mind quite so much. Maj had spent the last couple of hours curled around the heat of a pole lamp, and when she slithers down she slows during the descent, finally stretches her neck out until it’s just inches from the bobcat stretched out on the floor, and she tips her head just a little in farewell. Ilsae purrs, and Clint doesn’t bother to hide his own smile as he leans against the doorframe once again.
“I’ll stop by tomorrow to see about where I’m off to next?”
“That’d be great.”
“Goodnight, sir.”
“Coulson.” He’s already halfway turned to leave, but when he catches that, Clint turns back. Coulson isn’t drunk by a long shot, but he’s had just enough that the careful constraints he keeps himself under have faded, and it’s just him looking out of hazel eyes that tonight seem just a little more green. “If it’s just us, there’s no need for…it’s just Coulson.”
As he walks down the hallway, he can tell by the way Maj stretches up eagerly toward even the fluorescent lights they pass that she is pleased.
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The picture in the file shows a boy of about 14. His dark hair is ruffled with the wind, the feathers of the hawk that perches on his shoulder equally disheveled. They’re both sighting a shot, bow string already drawn tight, the boy’s face a mask of concentration. It’s one of the only early pictures S.H.I.E.L.D. has, and Coulson’s seen it more times than he can count. He can’t help but flip through the file occasionally, maybe a little more occasionally these days than he strictly should, but his excuse is the same every time, and he gives it to Ilsae when she puts one paw down on the page he’s trying to turn.
“If they’ve come across new information, it’s my business to know. I’m responsible for him, Ilsae, if I send him into a situation where he’s in greater danger than I realize, that would be on me.”
“You’re snooping, Phil. Hide it behind whatever words you like; you’re snooping.”
Maybe he was, a little, but could she honestly blame him? When S.H.I.E.L.D. had made contact with Clint Barton he’d been fresh from busting out of some villain’s clutches, the identity of which was either unknown or actually above his clearance, a fact which had the potential to be both impressive and disturbing. So little was known about how he’d gotten there, what had happened to him while he was held. They knew only a few things for certain.
He’d left the circus sometime after his 15th birthday, fallen off the grid for a couple of months before he started appearing in mercenary circles. His kind of skills were highly prized, after all, and even at a young age there’d been no one like him. Even if he did put in a staggering amount of practice, it seemed hard to believe that anyone else could’ve achieved the same results even if they had worked just as hard. He had the touch and the eye for it, and that couldn’t be duplicated. So he had worked, woven in and out of the shadows and finally landed himself in far over his head in the world of heroes and villains. Not that they thought Clint had really realized that, initially, though since their intel was fuzzy they couldn’t be sure. They just knew that he’d been held in Bangkok some six months, and that they’d met him not long after he made it out. He’d been working his way up through lower level government ranks before Coulson had swept in to recruit him into S.H.I.E.L.D.
Almost every picture taken of Clint and Maj from their circus days showed his daemon giving him the aid of her razor sharp hawk eyes or warming his neck with the lush fur of a red panda. Even the two that showed her clenched tight around his arm in the form of a cobra, there’s something in her fluidity that lends everything about her an air of ease. Coulson can probably count on one hand the number of times he thinks he might have seen her fully at ease, and he wouldn’t even need to use very many fingers.
He reaches out, tries to push Ilsae’s paw aside only to have her growl low in her throat.
The look he gives her would probably wilt just about anyone else. “You can’t tell me you’re not curious.”
“I can tell you that if we ever want his trust, stalking his employee file isn’t the way to get it.” She bares her teeth, warning. She will nip him; there’s no doubting it.
Even if he hates losing, sometimes, he’ll concede a little ground. Especially with her. Sometimes, she just might know best. Possibly. Frustrated, he pulls his hands back, lets her bat the cover closed and lay down on it to glower at him.
“So how would you suggest that conversation go if something happens? ‘I’m sorry that I wasn’t aware of the potential danger for you in this mission; my daemon insisted I shouldn’t do my job?”
Her eyes narrow, the growl deepening until it sounds like it couldn’t possibly be coming from a cat her size. “There’s a not so fine line between doing your job and being too afraid to wait until you can ask him a damn personal question.” The growl tapers, Ilsae seeing something in his shift back into his chair that takes her off the offensive. “I’m not saying you have to stop wanting to know. We have to be patient.”
Patience is something that, for better or worse, he knows quite a bit about. Half his job is spent waiting for a potential mark to show his powers or his inventions, waiting for a discovery, waiting to make contact, waiting for contact to be approved...dozens of forms of waiting, never ending.
Patience. Right. If he needs to, he can muster up even more of it for this, too, because with the life he’s living, Clint’s just about the only almost friend that he’s got. In and of itself, really, that should be enough. Everything else he can’t help but want when Barton relaxes enough to smile at him really should be shoved back altogether.
He’ll probably remember that for as long as it takes Barton to get back from his latest deployment in Maine.
------------------------
“I’m gone for two weeks, and this is what you do? Jesus, Coulson.” Clint’s deliberately as teasing as he can muster, but even then he can hear the fear in his own voice. He’d steadied himself as much as he could, but there was no way he could even it out all the way, not after the afternoon he’d had. He’d come to check in at the main headquarters, finished up the last details on the paperwork for Coulson before swinging by his office to hand them over only to find that Coulson was gone. On top of that, not just gone for the day but gone, in the hospital hopefully recovering from a concussion. Hopefully, as if there was a chance he might just be…
“Sorry to disappoint.” His voice is a little scratchy with disuse, but he sounds alright. Alive and well at least, and fuck, that’s enough. For once in their lives Maj truly takes the initiative, takes advantage of his shock and slithers down his leg to fall to the floor, only rising back up when she reaches the edge of the bed with railings just perfect to wrap her strong neck around and pull herself up. When she reaches out to touch her nose to Ilsae’s too dry one, Clint can feel the warmth seep through his body like it’s coated him from the inside. Maybe he can actually get his feet to move, get himself over to the bed to talk to him properly. Might help.
So much has been creeping into his consciousness piece by piece, everything from how good this man looks when he’s not holding himself too uptight to how good he feels when he’s with him once he’s let that guard down, and all of it floods in on him now. Everyone looks fragile in hospital beds and Coulson’s no exception. His eyes look grey today, thin somehow under the lights, and Clint wants irrationally to cup his cheek, to press a kiss to the wound on his forehead and see if he’s got a fever. If that cut gets infected, on top of everything else…
Clint wraps his fingers painfully tight around the bedside rail. It seems like the most harmless thing he can do with his hands, since taking Coulson’s is out of the question.
“Seriously, boss, what the hell were you doin’ out there? The guys not doin’ their job?” Because if someone skipped out on Coulson when they should’ve been watching his back, he will come down on them so hard they won’t even know what hit them, rank be damned.
“I was a field agent before I got this promotion, you know. I can actually look out for myself.” It could’ve carried a different weight, it had the potential, but Coulson’s voice has more dry humor than honest irritation, and Clint lets himself smile a little.
“Yeah, I can tell.” Honestly, the thought that he’s got so much training and someone still managed to leave a gash like that on his head and knock him out cold is more than a little disturbing. “Really, what happened? Did…were you-“
“Difficult to say exactly. I know there were more than we expected; I was pulling the radio to call for help.” And clearly, that went brilliantly.
Clint’s knuckles are actually starting to burn with the effort of holding on so tight. He’s lucky, really, that he doesn’t have any particular power in that department, because otherwise his skin might be splitting open.
“I’m sorry. If I’d been back, I could’ve-“
“No.” Despite the fact that he’s barely moved since Clint came in, much less moved his head, Coulson shakes his head feebly until Clint’s twitch forward makes him cut the motion off. “Don’t do that. I’m fine.”
Yeah. Fine.
At the foot of the bed, Ilsae lay listless across his feet, keeping them warm. Maj had buried her face somewhere in the ruff of fur near her neck, through the rest of her body still twisted away to rest separately. Something frustrated sparks in his chest, ridiculous jealousy at the thought that for all her hesitancy, she’s worked up the nerve for touch before he has. With most people’s daemons that might be a near constant truth, but it sure as hell isn’t for his.
He swallows hard against the bite of envy, clenches his fingers on the plastic again and wonders briefly what he’d do if it cracked.
“I didn’t even know if…they just told me you were in the hospital with a concussion. From what I’ve seen, that could’ve meant everything from fine to a whole lot of absolutely not fine.” He’d actually seen that kind of damage firsthand before. Some blows, people never woke up from. “Coulson…” It’s on the tip of his tongue, the urge to ask for things he isn’t sure he has the right to even mention. It’s one thing for them to be friends without really talking about it, about the fact that they have a relationship that isn’t defined by Coulson’s position as his superior. That’s an unspoken agreement, and it’s a whole different matter than one with words and spoken expectations, but considering how good he’s been at keeping his hands to himself, he was damn well bound to fail at something. “Something like this happens, I think I have a right to know before I get home and hear it from the staff.”
Maj doesn’t even hiss at the word ‘home’, doesn’t so much as raise her head. She’s busy scenting the air around Ilsae with her tongue, memorizing the feel and smell of warm fur.
“The nurse actually came in here to tell me I was having a visitor.” Clint blinks at him, not sure at first how in the hell that’s connected to anything he just said. Coulson’s eyes close, something in him weary enough to sink back a little into his pillows. “Director Fury called but other than that…”
No one had come. Not a damn one of them, just him. Everything he does around headquarters, the epic lengths he goes to to save Stark’s ass, and the man can’t be bothered to haul himself to a hospital room or at least send that aide of his, whatshername, and clearly no one else can either. Truthfully, though, most of them probably didn’t even know, and that says something all in itself.
When his hands finally move, it feels utterly without his permission, like it really had just been his grip that had been making them behave and the minute it’s loosened he loses all control. He takes Coulson’s face in his hands and kisses him, just the simple, firm pressure of their lips against each other’s, and for a second he forgets that for so many reasons this is insanely stupid. He’s going to crash and burn, going to fuck up his job and the one person he thinks is actually his friend, but he tells himself fleetingly that he can’t really help it, because in the face of the relief the need to do something he desperately wants is irresistible.
He’s just pulling back, his jumbled thoughts trying to center more firmly on how stupid he’s just been when Coulson’s hand reaches up to fist the sleeve of the filthy shirt he hadn’t taken the time to change, holding him in place. That hand’s still trailing an IV, and it can’t be comfortable to hold on that tight unless he just wants it that much. Clint licks his lips, closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to see just yet, but maybe, maybe this wasn’t so stupid after all.
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