Fic: Indiscretions 2/3 (Avengers MCU; Clint/Coulson/Natasha, R)
Title: Indiscretions
Author: misachan
Artist: clex_monkie89
Fandom: Avengers MCU
Relationship(s)/Characters: Clint Barton/Phil Coulson/Natasha Romanoff
Word Count: 6854
Rating: R
Content Notes/Warnings: Sexual content, violence, strong language)
Summary: Section 15.03 of every SHIELD agent's manual of rules and regulations outlines the official policy on fraternization, specifically the kind between handlers and field agents under their authority - in short, don't. Clint, Coulson and Natasha have been dancing all over that particular rule for years now, trusting that the combination of caution and exemplary job performance would quiet any whispers.
They're wrong. Clint and Natasha find themselves sitting through a series of interrogations as they try to thwart an investigation that's supposedly for their own good - and if lying and putting on a good show aren't enough, well, then they're just going to have to get a little more proactive. Set between Iron Man 1 & 2 and guest stars Doc Samson; features some violence, some sex and SHIELD agents being absolute stone cold badasses.
The session had gone on for over five hours already, patient question after patient question and Clint's head felt like a marching band had taken up residence in his skull. "Look," he said, making a show of rubbing his temples, "I have no idea where you two are even getting this." If playing this card didn't work Clint was all out of tricks. "The man ordered me dead. To my face."
***
Clint feels the muzzle of the railgun against the back of his head and forces himself to hold still. He hates AIM. He hates their stupid tech and he hates how the agents all have the same sneer no matter how hard you hit them and he especially hates how in his entire SHIELD career he's never been on a single mission involving AIM that didn't go catastrophically south.
And sure, maybe that is a slight exaggeration but he's kneeling on the floor, his bow's broken and he has the weapon prototype they'd been sent to acquire pressed against the soft spot of his skull. He'll exaggerate if he feels like it.
The AIM agent leans over and presses the intercom button. "SHIELD dog!" she says, and Clint sees Coulson's eyes dart around, trying to find the speaker. The glass wall of the testing room is sound proof and, Clint's presuming, bullet proof and anyway, he can see that one of the AIM goons flanking Coulson has his gun. Coulson has a bruise under his eye but otherwise looks okay, not that he's likely to stay that way if they can't figure a way out of this fuck up. "Give us SHIELD's weapon codes and we'll return this one to you," she says, prodding Clint with the muzzle of the gun.
Coulson's lips curl up at that, his expression as casual as if they were discussing lunch plans. "You can't honestly think that's going to work."
"No," she says. Clint hears the whine of the gun powering up and tenses up, makes a show of it. "So let's try another tack." She taps the button to lock the intercom on and then uses her free hand to grab Clint's hair to hold his head still. "SHIELD wanted to see our new toy in action, isn't that true? Hand over the codes or you will get a very graphic demonstration."
Coulson's expression doesn't shift. There's not a single muscle twitch, nothing even so subtle as his pupils dilating, but Clint catches the split second of hesitation before he speaks. Clint doesn't think anyone besides he and Nat would have seen that and he feels hate seethe out from every cell in his body at the woman standing behind him. Then Coulson shrugs, as if he's long since grown bored of all this. "Do it, then."
Clint makes a show of struggling, faking outrage he in no way feels; there's no other call to make, every agent knows from the second they take their badge their tour could end like this. The sound of the gun turns to a high, piercing whine and Clint realizes Coulson's going to look right in his eyes the entire time, the most masochistic thing Clint can possibly imagine. He can almost hear the AIM agent smile as she pulls the trigger.
And nothing happens.
It takes Clint a second to grasp that his head isn't splattered all over the dividing wall, then he wheels around and pulls the gun from the AIM agent's hands. The movement shoves her off balance and Clint spins the gun around like a jutte and clocks her in the side of her head, dropping her before she can pull out anything else exciting and dangerous. He pulls a pair of zip ties out of his belt and gets to work; as he's restraining her he looks up to see Coulson already has one goon on the ground and has recovered his gun. Clint sees the second coming at him from behind and tries to shout a warning, forgetting the room's sound proof but it's unnecessary. Coulson aims behind without looking and of an AIM fires twice, dropping the AIM goon flat to the ground. Clint remembers the first time he saw Coulson pull off something like that, that paper-pusher mask dropping completely. He'd known then he'd be in SHIELD for the rest of his life.
Coulson looks over to him and Clint gives the all clear signal; Coulson nods and taps his earpiece, presumably reporting back to base. Clint scans the room and catches sight agent crouched on the catwalk, watching the clean up. Or someone dressed like an AIM agent, anyway; Clint knows Nat well enough to recognize her no matter what uniform she steals. She pulls a slim metal rod out of her pocket and Clint examines the railgun, seeing the spot near the back where the piece had been removed, right below where the agent's hand would wrap around the grip so the tampering would most likely be missed. When he looks back up she's gone and Clint shakes his head. "Best call I ever made," he says to himself as he hauls the downed agent to her feet and hands her over to the waiting recovery team.
Well, Clint thinks to himself, maybe second best call. He couldn't have made it if he hadn't decided to give SHIELD a try, after all.
None of the second wave teams know where Coulson disappeared to after calling in the cleanup and it takes Clint fifteen minutes to finally find him off in a side hallway, his hands splayed flat against a narrow window ledge. He doesn't look up when Clint approaches and it's not like Clint's trying to be quiet about it. "Sir?" Up close Clint can see his eyes are wide, staring out at the AIM entrance. Frankly he looks like he's pouring all of his willpower into not throwing up. When Clint touches his arm Coulson waves him off, still not looking at him and Clint backs up. Coulson's like Nat that way, putting up don't touch me walls after bad missions and they hadn't been on many that had gone worse than this.
It's not Clint's first rodeo. "The boys in clean up are looking for someone to give them orders," he says, putting that formal tone to his voice. "Sir."
Coulson nods, still not looking up. "Thank you, Barton. I'll be right there."
Three hours after debriefs Clint drops down through Coulson's living room skylight, landing two feet behind where Coulson's seated on the sofa. Coulson doesn't so much as twitch. "You're late, Barton."
The room's dark and quiet; from where he is Clint can see the floor is littered with half-written mission reports. "I kept having to explain how a one hundred pound scientist got the drop on me."
"I'm curious about that point myself." He glances up at his open skylight. "Are you ever going to get tired of doing that?"
Clint shrugs. "You keep changing around the security system. Keeps me sharp." He comes around the side, picking up the tie that's been discarded over the arm of the sofa. Coulson's suit jacket is off too, tossed to the floor on top of some more balled up reports; the man himself is leaning back against the sofa, a half-empty glass of scotch in one hand. He perches on the edge of the coffee table, not speaking until Coulson manages to look down at him for a few seconds. "Pretty sure drinking alone in the dark is one of those bad signs they keep telling us to watch out for."
"Tasha won't let me smoke anymore."
"Damn right. She's still at HQ, when I skipped out she was having fun interrogating that scientist. Woman was practically licking her chops."
Coulson nods, draining the last drops of scotch from his glass. "I made a list of handlers I think you'd work well with. Pick any one you'd like, I'll put in the paperwork myself."
Yeah, that's about how Clint thought this would go. "You know you made the right call."
He's always thought Coulson had one of the scariest smirks he's ever seen, and he's worked with some very scary people. "It's easy to say that when your head's still in one piece."
"I was thinking it when I thought I was a second from it being all over that room." Coulson finally gives him a long, steady look then and Clint knows this look. He's seen Coulson give orders he knew would get agents killed and it's always this look. "I botched the mission. There was only one call to make there, we both know it."
"I hesitated," he whispers, and there's as much recrimination there for that as for giving the order in the first place.
Clint nods. "You still made it."
"I can't make it twice."
Clint studies him for a few long moments, then takes the empty scotch glass from his hand. "You're in too deep, say the word." It feels like putting his chest in a vice and squeezing but he doesn't let that show in his voice, in his eyes. "I'll pick a name on that list and we'll wipe the slate clean." That offer's been on the table since the first line was crossed and Clint's always dreaded the day Coulson would take it.
The look in Coulson's eyes is the exact same one as when he'd turned around to see Clint on his knees with a gun to his head. Before Clint can say another word Coulson leans forward and kisses him, fingertips trailing along Clint's jaw in an apology Clint wants no part of. He shifts up to the sofa and straddles Coulson's lap, pressing him back into the Italian leather as he takes the kiss deep. He knows Coulson likes to surround himself with quality things, expensive furniture, nice suits, old scotch. How Coulson sees him fitting into that has always been a mystery to Clint. He slides Coulson's hands under his shirt, letting him feel that he's in one piece, he's all right. "How about I make a deal with you, sir?" Clint whispers, undoing the rest of buttons of his shirt then sliding his hands down past Coulson's waistband, brushing his fingertips over the tattoo from his ranger days on his hip. "I'll make sure no more scientists pull guns on me and you won't have to make any calls. Deal?"
"Don't make promises you can't keep, Barton," he banters back, but Clint sees him smile for the first time since the briefing that morning.
"I never do." He takes the list of names and balls it up, tossing to the floor with the rest of the discarded reports. He kisses down the curve of his neck as he finishes pulling the shirt off, careful not to rip it. "Let me do all the work for once. I'll make it up to you," he says, putting a leer into his voice.
Coulson just smiles, laying back on the sofa as Clint leans over him. "Tasha will be upset she missed the show."
"We'll just give her an encore."
***
Clint watched Royce page through his record, fighting the urge to drum his fingers against the arm of the chair. "I do see that," he said, and Clint felt a brief flare of hope before meeting the man's eyes. "I also see that the general protocol in those situations is to make a change in the handler assignment. Why didn't you take that opportunity?"
"You know the old saying," Clint said, letting his lips curl up into a sneer. "Better the devil you know, right?"
Royce was giving Clint that look again, the way someone might look at a dog who won't run away from an owner that beats it. Clint wondered if Royce had been one of those commanders who never sacrificed his soldiers and thought that made him better than those who did.
He could only hope he didn't look as helpless as he felt, because he didn't have any weapons left.
***
As the proceedings dragged on Natasha noticed Royce taking the lead more often. She wondered if that was related to the tension she'd begun to pick up between the two men; more and more often she saw Samson's jaw clench when Royce made a comment, or argue with the colonel over whether a question was relevant to the proceedings. She wished she could watch them enter the interrogation room; there was a lot that could be gleaned by how a person stood and moved before their minds fully focused on the task ahead, who entered a room first, when the two of them broke off to take their accustomed positions after entering the room. She didn't think they were having her enter last specifically to thwart her - it was standard SHIELD protocol, after all - but the loss was frustrating.
Especially since based on their body language during the interrogations she strongly suspected the two were arguing outside of them. Or if not outright arguing then at the very least disagreeing; Samson was too sensible a man to test Royce's temper but she couldn't miss how short Samson was growing with the man.
She hoped she found the opportunity to use that to her advantage.
"Agent Romanoff," Royce said, and she could actually see him holding back from calling her sweetheart. "Why don't you give me your position of Philip Coulson's performance as your handler?"
There was that jaw clench. The question itself was very neutral, Samson's fingerprints all over it, but the way Royce asked it stripped all that away. He'd revealed more about himself with his wording than Natasha thought she ever could with her answer; just the slightly vulgar tone he gave to the word "performance" told her everything she needed to know about what he expected from her answer.
And that was just the most obvious bias bleeding through; there were much subtler tells in his questions, ones she could tell he was ignorant of but she - and Samson, she suspected - saw clearly. The way he'd stopped putting "Agent" in front of Phil's name. Even calling him "Philip" was a clue; in the entire time she'd known him she had never once heard someone actually call him Philip, not even during that awkward weekend when his impressively ancient grandmother dropped by his apartment and she and Clint had to come up with cover stories on the fly as to who they were and what they were doing there, especially as it became abundantly clear that the poor woman had no clue what he actually did for a living. Even in formal SHIELD proceedings it was Phil, not Phillip.
Natasha knew better than most the power of names. She personally had more than two dozen and she was slightly different with each one she tried on, each pulling out a different side of her personality the way the color of a dress might bring out her eyes. The name always came first when constructing a new cover because it determined everything that came after. Names were how she had realized what was happening between Clint and Phil before either could have the thought themselves and what still defined them, how Phil called Clint "Barton" whether he was giving an order over an open comm or whispering it in the dark, or how Clint could turn "sir" into an endearment. Names had been how she'd found her place in this new life of hers, Clint calling her Nat even in the field but stretching it out to Natasha as she knelt over him while Phil called her Tasha and Natasha and "Agent Romanoff" when he needed to be especially proper but never, ever Nat. Clint was always "Clint" to her or Hawkeye if a field name was necessary but never Barton, not since the very early days, and how when she called him Coulson in front of others it was almost a private joke between them about how it was Phil in private.
"Philip" Coulson was a man who only existed in Colonel Royce's mind. One he could convict of any number of sins.
Natasha was very tempted to tell him Phil Coulson didn't commit any of those sins without the two of them enticing him first.
***
The nightmare's always the same. She's back in that cave with Clint, her shoulder burning from when she'd separated it digging him out and pulling him down the mountain and he won't stop shaking. She knows she needs to keep his core temperature up but he's so afraid for his hands. She regrets sometimes that the first time she let him touch her was in that freezing cave. She remembers how wild his eyes were, the way he'd begged please don't leave me here, please don't leave me over and over like a child trapped in a night terror.
But in the dream no one notices they haven't checked in. There's no recovery team to finally pull her off of Clint, shivering and almost hypothermic herself. She can't keep the fire going and the air in the cave keeps getting colder until finally the next time Clint's eyes close she can't cajole them open anymore. It isn't very long at all until she's the one left alone on that mountain.
Natasha wakes with a start; it takes her a moment to orient herself in the unfamiliar hotel room, the lumpy mattress and scratchy sheets beneath her and Clint's arms warm around her. She puts her head against his chest and listens to him breathe for a few moments, banishing the nightmare back to her subconscious, then she slips out of bed. She watches Clint stretch out across the mattress as she throws on a robe and enough clothing to be more or less decent; much as she enjoys sleeping with Clint he's ridiculous to sleep next to, forcing her to fight for every inch of space.
It's a flaw she can live with. She kisses his forehead, listening to him mutter something unintelligible in return before rolling over to take up even more space, then she opens the door to the balcony to get some much needed air.
The balcony is shared with the adjoining room and Natasha is surprised to see Coulson standing on the other side.
He's so deep in thought it takes a few minutes to notice her standing there, astoundingly unobservant for him. "Tasha," he finally says, startling like she'd appeared from thin air. "I'll go back in..."
"Stop," she says, waving that away. She gives him a critical, up and down look; he's in his shirt sleeves, with no tie, leaning against the thin railing. Even he's not fastidious enough to put back on his work clothes to stand on a hotel balcony so either he fell asleep in his clothes or, considering the circles under his eyes, hadn't slept at all. Although considering that she and Clint had displayed the survival instincts of slugs let loose in a salt mine on this last mission the dark circles could have any number of causes. "What brings you out here?"
"Enjoying the view."
Natasha stares out into the barren parking lot. "It is quite stunning." Although the mission finally ended last night SHIELD's paid for the hotel through the weekend, as a sort of vacation bonus. Not that she considers two days in a dismal hotel in an ugly city to be much of a bonus. Natasha wonders about Nick Fury's sense of humor sometimes.
But even so, she's glad for Coulson's sake they have the time off; he's still stiff from the shooting and then the infiltration a month before. Frankly she doesn't think he should have been cleared for the field but it's well known at SHIELD that he's been such a pest to PT that the therapists were happy to be rid of him. And then something else catches her eye. "Are you smoking?"
He gives her a panicked look, as guilty as a schoolboy caught cheating. "Please don't tell Director Fury. We both quit at the same time and I'll owe him $500 if he finds out I've slipped."
"I'm good at keeping secrets." He gives her a conspiratorial grin and they both settle into their thoughts, giving her a chance to examine him more closely. She's beginning to understand how Clint can like Coulson watching him the way he does because it's beginning to grow on her, too. He doesn't hide his attraction, an appreciative regard that never veers into ogling. It's a delicate balance she has a hard time not admiring back, and at the same time he keeps that frustrating distance that's beginning to get under her skin like an unreachable itch.
"It wouldn't be the first bet I've lost to the Director," he says, breaking into her thoughts. "I lost $200 to him over you, once."
"You did? Over what?"
"I thought Barton made a mistake recruiting you," he admits. "I was sure you'd leave at the first opportunity."
"Early on I thought I would, too."
He nods, as if that confirms something he'd wondered. "It was a bet I was glad to lose." He taps some ash off the balcony ledge. "Why did you stay?" he says, not looking at her.
"What do you mean?"
"Back in the Azerbaijan mission," he says, sending the phantom chill from her nightmare through her. "The two of you were...maybe fifteen miles from the Russian border. When the avalanche happened you could have been gone before we even knew to look for you." He does look at her then, no accusation in his eyes, just honest curiosity. "Why didn't you?"
Natasha watches a pigeon peck away at a crack in the pavement below. "The thought never even occurred to me," she says. And it's true; it actually wasn't until weeks later until she'd even realized she'd missed her chance. She lets out a sigh, the raw panic she'd felt on that mountain side echoing though her for a moment the way it sometimes does through her dreams. Clint always thinks she's exaggerating considering her history but she means it when she says she'd never had a true nightmare before joining SHIELD. "I should have left," she says. They both seem to be in a confessional mood tonight. "I'm in too deep."
"Welcome to SHIELD," he says, a wry smile twisting his lips. She gives him another careful look then, at the dark circles under his eyes. Clint's told her what happened after the infiltration, and what a long time coming that was, but not how far things have gone since.
She wonders if instead of looking at a man avoiding a nightmare what she's actually seeing is a man working up the courage to knock on a door.
Natasha just isn't as patient as Clint Barton. She walks over to Coulson, snatches the cigarette from his fingers and takes a long drag on it, enjoying how he can't stop his gaze from drifting to her lips. "These are very bad for you," she says, tossing it off the balcony, then she steps close enough to feel him breathe. "Don't I owe you something?" she says, and when his brow furrows she puts one hand over his on the balcony. Then she leans up and kisses him, tightening her hand over his to keep him from pulling away. She holds the contact until she feels his lips part, until he relaxes against her like someone giving up fighting the tide.
Not a bad start. He looks a little dazed when she pulls back, and she finds she likes seeing his blue eyes like that. "Come on, Phil," she says, feeling him shiver when she says his name that way, then she takes his hand. "I think we should go back inside."
She leads him past his room and through the door to theirs; when they walk in Clint is already awake and watching them, like he's been waiting. He makes room without a word, an eager grin in his eyes as she backs Coulson onto the bed.
***
Natasha made sure to always hold Royce's gaze. It unnerved him. "Agent Phil Coulson is more than competent at his job."
Royce's frown was very sweet, but it was a hollow victory. Words couldn't win a battle with this man. She'd have to find something else.
***
It had been five days since the last interrogation. Clint thought he'd be glad to see the end of that but the radio silence around the whole thing was making him nuts. Even the hearing date was top secret, something Nat hadn't been able to tease out from anyone. An outside observer might not have guessed it but Clint liked routine; he was a creature of patience, of preparation and waiting and watching until that perfect moment revealed itself. He liked that no matter how off the wall a field mission got there was still always the ritual of briefings and debriefings and reports, seeing the same faces and reading the same handwriting. All of that was blown to hell now; he hadn't been in the field since getting off the chopper almost two weeks ago and the inactivity combined with never knowing when he'd be pulled in for another interrogation was bad enough without the hearing hanging over his head like the damned sword of Damocles. He thought if he could at least have a date he could come up with a plan for what he'd do but he couldn't even get that much. Any day Clint knew he could wake up to find out his life had been tossed off the side of a cliff and there was nothing he could do.
And that he hadn't heard Coulson's voice in over two weeks wasn't helping at all.
Clint thought getting a field assignment would help, any field assignment, so he'd jumped at the surveillance mission Hill threw at him to get him out of her office even though it was way below his clearance level. It would be boring and routine but it would get him the hell out of HQ and out of his own head.
He regretted the decision now. He'd underestimated how much hearing another handler's voice in his earpiece would rattle him; it wasn't that Vishnavi was doing a bad job, she was just new and young and didn't know him well enough to shut up and let him work. Worse, she still had that fresh-minted SHIELD agent shine that killed their senses of humor for most of the first year; she didn't know how to banter with him to take the edge off and when she tried the result was painful enough that he told her she didn't have to try anymore. He was practically handling her, and in any other circumstance he'd be fine with that, a surveillance job was a low-stress way to break in the newbies. He was experienced enough to not need a lot of hand holding, especially on easy missions; he'd gone jobs before where he and Coulson barely said five words to each other.
The difference being that they could do that because they didn't need to say more than five words. They knew how each other thought; if he was having a problem he could count on Coulson to know and be halfway through fixing it before he said the first word about it. That wasn't the case here; Vishnavi kept asking why he did something, asked him what was wrong if he was quiet too long and Clint didn't know how he'd deal if this was a preview of the rest of his SHIELD career. Or if this was just him waiting for the cliff to crumble beneath his feet; Vishnavi was young enough that she hadn't been at SHIELD during the bad old days, young enough to slip up and call him "Mr. Hawkeye" during the introduction after the briefing. It would be kind of sweet if Clint weren't able to look at her and know that she wouldn't be able to meet his eyes once she got her hands on his full file. SHIELD was still as black and white as her suit to her. Clint tended to add a little more red than most of those agents were comfortable with.
A bullet skidding across the concrete ledge in front of him close enough to graze his ear broke him out of the dread spiral he'd mired himself in fast. He dropped down flat, another bullet slamming into the ledge hard enough send a chunk flying down to the street below. He tapped his earpiece, swearing under his breath. "Barton to base, code 423. I am getting shot at, what the hell's going on?" This was a nothing assignment, not even an especially sensitive target, there was no reason anyone should be shooting. Especially not with a rifle this high powered. "Pretty sure this guy's out of my range, give me some guidance here."
No answer. Not the static of a jammed comm, just no response; he could hear muffled voices barking out orders in the background, too garbled to make out but with a panicked edge that turned Clint's stomach to ice. It took a lot to make SHIELD agents panic, even new ones. Another bullet whizzed over his head and Clint hunkered down lower. "Someone over there, tell me what the hell's going on---"
Like it was an answer to his question the sound of an explosion ripped over the comm line, one so loud it took all of Clint's self-control to not rip out his earpiece. He counted to five and tapped it again, letting out a soft sigh of relief when the connection popped and crackled but stayed open. That meant the building was at least still standing. "Control, report," he whispered, the crack of another rifle shot splitting the air. He heard the rumble of another explosion, one fainter and farther away than the first, and squeezed his eyes shut. Rule of thumb when pinned down was to stay pinned down until word came to do otherwise, no sense giving the shooter a better target, but Clint didn't know how many guns he had trained on him or if he was even the real target. "Control, tell me what I'm supposed to do."
"Barton, keep your head." The jolt of relief hit him like the bullet he kept waiting for; Coulson's voice was the last one he'd expected to hear but God, was it the only one he'd wanted to hear just then.
"Sir, what's going on?"
"A situation." Coulson's voice sounded clipped and he was breathing hard enough for Clint to hear it over the comm line. He's hurt, Clint realized, the icy dread coming back. How bad he couldn't tell; Coulson was a hard read when he wanted to be, he'd walked Clint through a mission once with a bullet in his leg and Clint hadn't been the wiser for days.
And he was talking in code - a "situation" meant communications were compromised, possibly HQ as well, although the explosions had clued him into that pretty well. The last time he'd heard the word situation said in that tone had been the infiltration Clint still had nightmares about. "What kind of situation?" he said, not letting on he'd heard anything important.
"Above your pay grade." Nothing you can help with. Clint squeezed his eyes shut again; it was the answer he'd expected but that didn't make hearing it any easier. "Keep your mind on the mission, we don't want another screw up like Rio."
Clint frowned for a moment; Rio had been a cakewalk, not a blown mission, but Clint finally remembered a detail from the mission report: they'd had to track the Hydra agent down to Rio in the first place because she'd escaped a SHIELD crossfire in Costa Rica by playing dead. All the snipers had earned themselves a solid month of training after that fiasco, whether they were guilty of the screw-up or not.
So that meant he had two guns on him, maybe more, but that Coulson thought they were far enough away or dumb enough to fool. More information than he'd had a second ago. "Loud and clear." Keep the line open.
Another sniper shot rang out and this time Clint let himself go limp. He made his breathing as shallow as he could make it, just in case they were watching through good scopes, but made sure to keep it steady to make sure Coulson knew he hadn't actually gotten hit. "Barton? Barton, report." When Clint stayed silent Coulson swore, audibly clicking the signal over to a "secure" line and giving a meaningless code phrase to sell the con. Clint knew from experience that hackers tended not to question it when they seemed to be winning and hoped that proved true today.
And his luck - such as it was - seemed to be holding; no more shots came whizzing by his head. All Clint had to do now was somehow not react as he heard another explosion rock HQ; he could hear Coulson shouting orders on one of the other channels, coughing now; that could be fire, could be tear gas, could be something a lot worse. It didn't really matter because Clint couldn't ask. All he could do was hold still and wait for another explosion, for the comm to go dead and him to lose even this fragile lifeline.
He felt his mind wander back to the last time he'd been sitting in the field waiting for his comm to go dead, the AIM infiltration (because for some reason it was always fucking AIM.) Back to sitting on another roof with his bow trained on a terrorist they'd been trying to lay eyes on almost the entire time he'd been at SHIELD and back to hearing Coulson code talk to him over the comm. "Hawkeye, there's been a change in orders."
It was never Hawkeye. And there was a code phrase for when there was an order change to keep this kind of thing from happening. "What kind of change? Sir." Which basically translated to The hell?
"I need you to put your gun down and back away from the target." Clint remembered feeling that first cold bead of sweat slide down his neck as he watched the fading sunlight glint off his arrowhead. I have a gun to my head. Don't listen.
"I'm afraid I can't do that, sir. The kill order comes from higher up." He felt the same vicious twist to his stomach he'd felt at hearing the crack of rifle shot and looking down to see Coulson sprawled unmoving on the ground.
"Fire and I'll have you brought up on charges." He's not buying it. Take the shot.
Clint remembered holding his breath as he loosed the arrow, a perfect shot, instant kill. "If you won't give me the kill order I'll go over your head." Arrows were silent, that was the quality that had turned him into a death machine in the first place, and whoever had been trying so hard to stop this operation had no way of knowing they'd already failed.
"This is insubordination." Good job, Barton.
Clint had less than a second to breathe before he heard the crack of a gunshot echo over the comm and the whole thing went dead. It took three minutes for the control room to reestablish communications and Clint remembered them passing like years. He'd felt a lot of things click into place in those three minutes, helped along by the nightmare image of some goon holding a gun to his handler's head. Coulson had only been back at the job two weeks, he still had bullet fragments in his chest. Clint wasn't the praying type, never had been, but sitting on that roof he made a lot of deals with any deity who'd listen, about how he finally got it now, how if he got one more chance he'd stop wasting so much time.
Clint still didn't really believe in anything except SHIELD but he'd said a little prayer of thanks when he heard Coulson's voice again, giving him the all clear like nothing had happened.
That had been the first night he'd broken into Coulson's apartment, dropping through that skylight to catch him just as he walked through the door. Clint only gave himself a second to savor that uncharacteristic surprise on his face - Coulson was a hard man to startle, although he and Nat managed it more often than most - before he'd pushed him against the wall and kissed him, every cell in his body on fire from it. It was like standing in the dark and the lights suddenly switching on; Clint didn't know how he'd missed that this was where it had always been headed between them. Years of build up, of close calls and private jokes and bone deep fear Clint hadn't even been able to look at directly, let alone name.
Life was just too damn uncertain to keep worrying about consequences. "Say the word and this never happened," he'd whispered when he'd finally come up for air, Coulson flushed, eyes wide with surprise and holding on to Clint like he thought Clint might disappear. "Reassign me, get me kicked out, I don't care. Do what you gotta do, but I couldn't go one more day without doing that." He'd backed away and gotten out of there then because even Clint Barton could only cross so many lines in one day. He'd spent the next two weeks waiting for the hammer to fall, for a reassignment or a write up or even just Coulson pulling him aside and telling him That was inappropriate, Barton. It won't happen again.
But there was nothing. And the next time he broke into Coulson's apartment he didn't tell Clint to leave.
And now here he was, on another damn roof listening to Coulson breathing over a comm and wondering if this was the day he would hear him stop. Another day of making deals with deities he didn't really believe in, of thinking Okay, if you're out there listening, this time I got it. Give me one more chance to get this right.
He was barely finished with the thought when he heard Coulson's voice soft over the line. "We got the shooters, Barton. You're clear."
Someday he was going to run out of last chances. "The hell was all that?"
"Someone trying to disrupt the operation."
"Yeah, I got that."
"You'll be debriefed when you get back. I'm handing you back to Agent Vishnavi now," he said, switching Clint to another channel before he could say another word.
He was glad she was okay; he'd assumed the worst when she'd gone black. "How's it look back there?"
"A mess. Agent Romanoff found the double agent," she said and Clint smiled, because of course she had. Vishnavi managed to keep it together for another five whole seconds. "That was amazing."
She was hardly the first junior agent to get starry-eyed over Coulson in crisis mode, and it wasn't like Clint could even blame her. "Yeah. Always is."
That night he was already sitting on the sofa when Coulson walked through the front door. "You're late."
The man didn't even have the courtesy to look surprised. "Barton, you shouldn't be here."
He shouldn't be. The apartment was almost certainly being watched and as good as he was someone can only be so careful. "Tell me to leave." Coulson's lips thinned as he locked the door behind him but he didn't say a word. "Nat's on her way, after they let her out of the debrief. Tell us to leave and we'll go."
And just like that Clint saw that smooth composure crack. "Barton, I never tell you to leave."
Clint didn't remember getting up from the sofa; it was like he blinked and he had Coulson against the wall, like he wouldn't be able to breathe if they stayed that far apart. Coulson had stitches in his temple and flash burns down the side of his face; when Clint touched his side Coulson winced, telling Clint just how much bruising his suit was hiding. "You look like hell," he said, running the pad of his thumb just along the edge of the burns.
"It's been a day."
Clint kissed him, the soft little sigh Coulson let out rushing through him. "I can't do another two weeks. I tried, I did but it's not in me."
Coulson kissed him back then, Clint suspected mostly to shut him up. "Promise me you won't quit SHIELD."
Clint had stood in front of a firing squad once without feeling anything close to this kind of fear. "When's the hearing?"
Coulson let out a short, defeated breath. "Tomorrow morning."
The dread felt like an anchor dragging him under water. "Guess we better make tonight count, then."
-On To Part 3-
-Back To Masterpost-
-Back To Part 1
Author: misachan
Artist: clex_monkie89
Fandom: Avengers MCU
Relationship(s)/Characters: Clint Barton/Phil Coulson/Natasha Romanoff
Word Count: 6854
Rating: R
Content Notes/Warnings: Sexual content, violence, strong language)
Summary: Section 15.03 of every SHIELD agent's manual of rules and regulations outlines the official policy on fraternization, specifically the kind between handlers and field agents under their authority - in short, don't. Clint, Coulson and Natasha have been dancing all over that particular rule for years now, trusting that the combination of caution and exemplary job performance would quiet any whispers.
They're wrong. Clint and Natasha find themselves sitting through a series of interrogations as they try to thwart an investigation that's supposedly for their own good - and if lying and putting on a good show aren't enough, well, then they're just going to have to get a little more proactive. Set between Iron Man 1 & 2 and guest stars Doc Samson; features some violence, some sex and SHIELD agents being absolute stone cold badasses.
The session had gone on for over five hours already, patient question after patient question and Clint's head felt like a marching band had taken up residence in his skull. "Look," he said, making a show of rubbing his temples, "I have no idea where you two are even getting this." If playing this card didn't work Clint was all out of tricks. "The man ordered me dead. To my face."
***
Clint feels the muzzle of the railgun against the back of his head and forces himself to hold still. He hates AIM. He hates their stupid tech and he hates how the agents all have the same sneer no matter how hard you hit them and he especially hates how in his entire SHIELD career he's never been on a single mission involving AIM that didn't go catastrophically south.
And sure, maybe that is a slight exaggeration but he's kneeling on the floor, his bow's broken and he has the weapon prototype they'd been sent to acquire pressed against the soft spot of his skull. He'll exaggerate if he feels like it.
The AIM agent leans over and presses the intercom button. "SHIELD dog!" she says, and Clint sees Coulson's eyes dart around, trying to find the speaker. The glass wall of the testing room is sound proof and, Clint's presuming, bullet proof and anyway, he can see that one of the AIM goons flanking Coulson has his gun. Coulson has a bruise under his eye but otherwise looks okay, not that he's likely to stay that way if they can't figure a way out of this fuck up. "Give us SHIELD's weapon codes and we'll return this one to you," she says, prodding Clint with the muzzle of the gun.
Coulson's lips curl up at that, his expression as casual as if they were discussing lunch plans. "You can't honestly think that's going to work."
"No," she says. Clint hears the whine of the gun powering up and tenses up, makes a show of it. "So let's try another tack." She taps the button to lock the intercom on and then uses her free hand to grab Clint's hair to hold his head still. "SHIELD wanted to see our new toy in action, isn't that true? Hand over the codes or you will get a very graphic demonstration."
Coulson's expression doesn't shift. There's not a single muscle twitch, nothing even so subtle as his pupils dilating, but Clint catches the split second of hesitation before he speaks. Clint doesn't think anyone besides he and Nat would have seen that and he feels hate seethe out from every cell in his body at the woman standing behind him. Then Coulson shrugs, as if he's long since grown bored of all this. "Do it, then."
Clint makes a show of struggling, faking outrage he in no way feels; there's no other call to make, every agent knows from the second they take their badge their tour could end like this. The sound of the gun turns to a high, piercing whine and Clint realizes Coulson's going to look right in his eyes the entire time, the most masochistic thing Clint can possibly imagine. He can almost hear the AIM agent smile as she pulls the trigger.
And nothing happens.
It takes Clint a second to grasp that his head isn't splattered all over the dividing wall, then he wheels around and pulls the gun from the AIM agent's hands. The movement shoves her off balance and Clint spins the gun around like a jutte and clocks her in the side of her head, dropping her before she can pull out anything else exciting and dangerous. He pulls a pair of zip ties out of his belt and gets to work; as he's restraining her he looks up to see Coulson already has one goon on the ground and has recovered his gun. Clint sees the second coming at him from behind and tries to shout a warning, forgetting the room's sound proof but it's unnecessary. Coulson aims behind without looking and of an AIM fires twice, dropping the AIM goon flat to the ground. Clint remembers the first time he saw Coulson pull off something like that, that paper-pusher mask dropping completely. He'd known then he'd be in SHIELD for the rest of his life.
Coulson looks over to him and Clint gives the all clear signal; Coulson nods and taps his earpiece, presumably reporting back to base. Clint scans the room and catches sight agent crouched on the catwalk, watching the clean up. Or someone dressed like an AIM agent, anyway; Clint knows Nat well enough to recognize her no matter what uniform she steals. She pulls a slim metal rod out of her pocket and Clint examines the railgun, seeing the spot near the back where the piece had been removed, right below where the agent's hand would wrap around the grip so the tampering would most likely be missed. When he looks back up she's gone and Clint shakes his head. "Best call I ever made," he says to himself as he hauls the downed agent to her feet and hands her over to the waiting recovery team.
Well, Clint thinks to himself, maybe second best call. He couldn't have made it if he hadn't decided to give SHIELD a try, after all.
None of the second wave teams know where Coulson disappeared to after calling in the cleanup and it takes Clint fifteen minutes to finally find him off in a side hallway, his hands splayed flat against a narrow window ledge. He doesn't look up when Clint approaches and it's not like Clint's trying to be quiet about it. "Sir?" Up close Clint can see his eyes are wide, staring out at the AIM entrance. Frankly he looks like he's pouring all of his willpower into not throwing up. When Clint touches his arm Coulson waves him off, still not looking at him and Clint backs up. Coulson's like Nat that way, putting up don't touch me walls after bad missions and they hadn't been on many that had gone worse than this.
It's not Clint's first rodeo. "The boys in clean up are looking for someone to give them orders," he says, putting that formal tone to his voice. "Sir."
Coulson nods, still not looking up. "Thank you, Barton. I'll be right there."
Three hours after debriefs Clint drops down through Coulson's living room skylight, landing two feet behind where Coulson's seated on the sofa. Coulson doesn't so much as twitch. "You're late, Barton."
The room's dark and quiet; from where he is Clint can see the floor is littered with half-written mission reports. "I kept having to explain how a one hundred pound scientist got the drop on me."
"I'm curious about that point myself." He glances up at his open skylight. "Are you ever going to get tired of doing that?"
Clint shrugs. "You keep changing around the security system. Keeps me sharp." He comes around the side, picking up the tie that's been discarded over the arm of the sofa. Coulson's suit jacket is off too, tossed to the floor on top of some more balled up reports; the man himself is leaning back against the sofa, a half-empty glass of scotch in one hand. He perches on the edge of the coffee table, not speaking until Coulson manages to look down at him for a few seconds. "Pretty sure drinking alone in the dark is one of those bad signs they keep telling us to watch out for."
"Tasha won't let me smoke anymore."
"Damn right. She's still at HQ, when I skipped out she was having fun interrogating that scientist. Woman was practically licking her chops."
Coulson nods, draining the last drops of scotch from his glass. "I made a list of handlers I think you'd work well with. Pick any one you'd like, I'll put in the paperwork myself."
Yeah, that's about how Clint thought this would go. "You know you made the right call."
He's always thought Coulson had one of the scariest smirks he's ever seen, and he's worked with some very scary people. "It's easy to say that when your head's still in one piece."
"I was thinking it when I thought I was a second from it being all over that room." Coulson finally gives him a long, steady look then and Clint knows this look. He's seen Coulson give orders he knew would get agents killed and it's always this look. "I botched the mission. There was only one call to make there, we both know it."
"I hesitated," he whispers, and there's as much recrimination there for that as for giving the order in the first place.
Clint nods. "You still made it."
"I can't make it twice."
Clint studies him for a few long moments, then takes the empty scotch glass from his hand. "You're in too deep, say the word." It feels like putting his chest in a vice and squeezing but he doesn't let that show in his voice, in his eyes. "I'll pick a name on that list and we'll wipe the slate clean." That offer's been on the table since the first line was crossed and Clint's always dreaded the day Coulson would take it.
The look in Coulson's eyes is the exact same one as when he'd turned around to see Clint on his knees with a gun to his head. Before Clint can say another word Coulson leans forward and kisses him, fingertips trailing along Clint's jaw in an apology Clint wants no part of. He shifts up to the sofa and straddles Coulson's lap, pressing him back into the Italian leather as he takes the kiss deep. He knows Coulson likes to surround himself with quality things, expensive furniture, nice suits, old scotch. How Coulson sees him fitting into that has always been a mystery to Clint. He slides Coulson's hands under his shirt, letting him feel that he's in one piece, he's all right. "How about I make a deal with you, sir?" Clint whispers, undoing the rest of buttons of his shirt then sliding his hands down past Coulson's waistband, brushing his fingertips over the tattoo from his ranger days on his hip. "I'll make sure no more scientists pull guns on me and you won't have to make any calls. Deal?"
"Don't make promises you can't keep, Barton," he banters back, but Clint sees him smile for the first time since the briefing that morning.
"I never do." He takes the list of names and balls it up, tossing to the floor with the rest of the discarded reports. He kisses down the curve of his neck as he finishes pulling the shirt off, careful not to rip it. "Let me do all the work for once. I'll make it up to you," he says, putting a leer into his voice.
Coulson just smiles, laying back on the sofa as Clint leans over him. "Tasha will be upset she missed the show."
"We'll just give her an encore."
***
Clint watched Royce page through his record, fighting the urge to drum his fingers against the arm of the chair. "I do see that," he said, and Clint felt a brief flare of hope before meeting the man's eyes. "I also see that the general protocol in those situations is to make a change in the handler assignment. Why didn't you take that opportunity?"
"You know the old saying," Clint said, letting his lips curl up into a sneer. "Better the devil you know, right?"
Royce was giving Clint that look again, the way someone might look at a dog who won't run away from an owner that beats it. Clint wondered if Royce had been one of those commanders who never sacrificed his soldiers and thought that made him better than those who did.
He could only hope he didn't look as helpless as he felt, because he didn't have any weapons left.
***
As the proceedings dragged on Natasha noticed Royce taking the lead more often. She wondered if that was related to the tension she'd begun to pick up between the two men; more and more often she saw Samson's jaw clench when Royce made a comment, or argue with the colonel over whether a question was relevant to the proceedings. She wished she could watch them enter the interrogation room; there was a lot that could be gleaned by how a person stood and moved before their minds fully focused on the task ahead, who entered a room first, when the two of them broke off to take their accustomed positions after entering the room. She didn't think they were having her enter last specifically to thwart her - it was standard SHIELD protocol, after all - but the loss was frustrating.
Especially since based on their body language during the interrogations she strongly suspected the two were arguing outside of them. Or if not outright arguing then at the very least disagreeing; Samson was too sensible a man to test Royce's temper but she couldn't miss how short Samson was growing with the man.
She hoped she found the opportunity to use that to her advantage.
"Agent Romanoff," Royce said, and she could actually see him holding back from calling her sweetheart. "Why don't you give me your position of Philip Coulson's performance as your handler?"
There was that jaw clench. The question itself was very neutral, Samson's fingerprints all over it, but the way Royce asked it stripped all that away. He'd revealed more about himself with his wording than Natasha thought she ever could with her answer; just the slightly vulgar tone he gave to the word "performance" told her everything she needed to know about what he expected from her answer.
And that was just the most obvious bias bleeding through; there were much subtler tells in his questions, ones she could tell he was ignorant of but she - and Samson, she suspected - saw clearly. The way he'd stopped putting "Agent" in front of Phil's name. Even calling him "Philip" was a clue; in the entire time she'd known him she had never once heard someone actually call him Philip, not even during that awkward weekend when his impressively ancient grandmother dropped by his apartment and she and Clint had to come up with cover stories on the fly as to who they were and what they were doing there, especially as it became abundantly clear that the poor woman had no clue what he actually did for a living. Even in formal SHIELD proceedings it was Phil, not Phillip.
Natasha knew better than most the power of names. She personally had more than two dozen and she was slightly different with each one she tried on, each pulling out a different side of her personality the way the color of a dress might bring out her eyes. The name always came first when constructing a new cover because it determined everything that came after. Names were how she had realized what was happening between Clint and Phil before either could have the thought themselves and what still defined them, how Phil called Clint "Barton" whether he was giving an order over an open comm or whispering it in the dark, or how Clint could turn "sir" into an endearment. Names had been how she'd found her place in this new life of hers, Clint calling her Nat even in the field but stretching it out to Natasha as she knelt over him while Phil called her Tasha and Natasha and "Agent Romanoff" when he needed to be especially proper but never, ever Nat. Clint was always "Clint" to her or Hawkeye if a field name was necessary but never Barton, not since the very early days, and how when she called him Coulson in front of others it was almost a private joke between them about how it was Phil in private.
"Philip" Coulson was a man who only existed in Colonel Royce's mind. One he could convict of any number of sins.
Natasha was very tempted to tell him Phil Coulson didn't commit any of those sins without the two of them enticing him first.
***
The nightmare's always the same. She's back in that cave with Clint, her shoulder burning from when she'd separated it digging him out and pulling him down the mountain and he won't stop shaking. She knows she needs to keep his core temperature up but he's so afraid for his hands. She regrets sometimes that the first time she let him touch her was in that freezing cave. She remembers how wild his eyes were, the way he'd begged please don't leave me here, please don't leave me over and over like a child trapped in a night terror.
But in the dream no one notices they haven't checked in. There's no recovery team to finally pull her off of Clint, shivering and almost hypothermic herself. She can't keep the fire going and the air in the cave keeps getting colder until finally the next time Clint's eyes close she can't cajole them open anymore. It isn't very long at all until she's the one left alone on that mountain.
Natasha wakes with a start; it takes her a moment to orient herself in the unfamiliar hotel room, the lumpy mattress and scratchy sheets beneath her and Clint's arms warm around her. She puts her head against his chest and listens to him breathe for a few moments, banishing the nightmare back to her subconscious, then she slips out of bed. She watches Clint stretch out across the mattress as she throws on a robe and enough clothing to be more or less decent; much as she enjoys sleeping with Clint he's ridiculous to sleep next to, forcing her to fight for every inch of space.
It's a flaw she can live with. She kisses his forehead, listening to him mutter something unintelligible in return before rolling over to take up even more space, then she opens the door to the balcony to get some much needed air.
The balcony is shared with the adjoining room and Natasha is surprised to see Coulson standing on the other side.
He's so deep in thought it takes a few minutes to notice her standing there, astoundingly unobservant for him. "Tasha," he finally says, startling like she'd appeared from thin air. "I'll go back in..."
"Stop," she says, waving that away. She gives him a critical, up and down look; he's in his shirt sleeves, with no tie, leaning against the thin railing. Even he's not fastidious enough to put back on his work clothes to stand on a hotel balcony so either he fell asleep in his clothes or, considering the circles under his eyes, hadn't slept at all. Although considering that she and Clint had displayed the survival instincts of slugs let loose in a salt mine on this last mission the dark circles could have any number of causes. "What brings you out here?"
"Enjoying the view."
Natasha stares out into the barren parking lot. "It is quite stunning." Although the mission finally ended last night SHIELD's paid for the hotel through the weekend, as a sort of vacation bonus. Not that she considers two days in a dismal hotel in an ugly city to be much of a bonus. Natasha wonders about Nick Fury's sense of humor sometimes.
But even so, she's glad for Coulson's sake they have the time off; he's still stiff from the shooting and then the infiltration a month before. Frankly she doesn't think he should have been cleared for the field but it's well known at SHIELD that he's been such a pest to PT that the therapists were happy to be rid of him. And then something else catches her eye. "Are you smoking?"
He gives her a panicked look, as guilty as a schoolboy caught cheating. "Please don't tell Director Fury. We both quit at the same time and I'll owe him $500 if he finds out I've slipped."
"I'm good at keeping secrets." He gives her a conspiratorial grin and they both settle into their thoughts, giving her a chance to examine him more closely. She's beginning to understand how Clint can like Coulson watching him the way he does because it's beginning to grow on her, too. He doesn't hide his attraction, an appreciative regard that never veers into ogling. It's a delicate balance she has a hard time not admiring back, and at the same time he keeps that frustrating distance that's beginning to get under her skin like an unreachable itch.
"It wouldn't be the first bet I've lost to the Director," he says, breaking into her thoughts. "I lost $200 to him over you, once."
"You did? Over what?"
"I thought Barton made a mistake recruiting you," he admits. "I was sure you'd leave at the first opportunity."
"Early on I thought I would, too."
He nods, as if that confirms something he'd wondered. "It was a bet I was glad to lose." He taps some ash off the balcony ledge. "Why did you stay?" he says, not looking at her.
"What do you mean?"
"Back in the Azerbaijan mission," he says, sending the phantom chill from her nightmare through her. "The two of you were...maybe fifteen miles from the Russian border. When the avalanche happened you could have been gone before we even knew to look for you." He does look at her then, no accusation in his eyes, just honest curiosity. "Why didn't you?"
Natasha watches a pigeon peck away at a crack in the pavement below. "The thought never even occurred to me," she says. And it's true; it actually wasn't until weeks later until she'd even realized she'd missed her chance. She lets out a sigh, the raw panic she'd felt on that mountain side echoing though her for a moment the way it sometimes does through her dreams. Clint always thinks she's exaggerating considering her history but she means it when she says she'd never had a true nightmare before joining SHIELD. "I should have left," she says. They both seem to be in a confessional mood tonight. "I'm in too deep."
"Welcome to SHIELD," he says, a wry smile twisting his lips. She gives him another careful look then, at the dark circles under his eyes. Clint's told her what happened after the infiltration, and what a long time coming that was, but not how far things have gone since.
She wonders if instead of looking at a man avoiding a nightmare what she's actually seeing is a man working up the courage to knock on a door.
Natasha just isn't as patient as Clint Barton. She walks over to Coulson, snatches the cigarette from his fingers and takes a long drag on it, enjoying how he can't stop his gaze from drifting to her lips. "These are very bad for you," she says, tossing it off the balcony, then she steps close enough to feel him breathe. "Don't I owe you something?" she says, and when his brow furrows she puts one hand over his on the balcony. Then she leans up and kisses him, tightening her hand over his to keep him from pulling away. She holds the contact until she feels his lips part, until he relaxes against her like someone giving up fighting the tide.
Not a bad start. He looks a little dazed when she pulls back, and she finds she likes seeing his blue eyes like that. "Come on, Phil," she says, feeling him shiver when she says his name that way, then she takes his hand. "I think we should go back inside."
She leads him past his room and through the door to theirs; when they walk in Clint is already awake and watching them, like he's been waiting. He makes room without a word, an eager grin in his eyes as she backs Coulson onto the bed.
***
Natasha made sure to always hold Royce's gaze. It unnerved him. "Agent Phil Coulson is more than competent at his job."
Royce's frown was very sweet, but it was a hollow victory. Words couldn't win a battle with this man. She'd have to find something else.
***
It had been five days since the last interrogation. Clint thought he'd be glad to see the end of that but the radio silence around the whole thing was making him nuts. Even the hearing date was top secret, something Nat hadn't been able to tease out from anyone. An outside observer might not have guessed it but Clint liked routine; he was a creature of patience, of preparation and waiting and watching until that perfect moment revealed itself. He liked that no matter how off the wall a field mission got there was still always the ritual of briefings and debriefings and reports, seeing the same faces and reading the same handwriting. All of that was blown to hell now; he hadn't been in the field since getting off the chopper almost two weeks ago and the inactivity combined with never knowing when he'd be pulled in for another interrogation was bad enough without the hearing hanging over his head like the damned sword of Damocles. He thought if he could at least have a date he could come up with a plan for what he'd do but he couldn't even get that much. Any day Clint knew he could wake up to find out his life had been tossed off the side of a cliff and there was nothing he could do.
And that he hadn't heard Coulson's voice in over two weeks wasn't helping at all.
Clint thought getting a field assignment would help, any field assignment, so he'd jumped at the surveillance mission Hill threw at him to get him out of her office even though it was way below his clearance level. It would be boring and routine but it would get him the hell out of HQ and out of his own head.
He regretted the decision now. He'd underestimated how much hearing another handler's voice in his earpiece would rattle him; it wasn't that Vishnavi was doing a bad job, she was just new and young and didn't know him well enough to shut up and let him work. Worse, she still had that fresh-minted SHIELD agent shine that killed their senses of humor for most of the first year; she didn't know how to banter with him to take the edge off and when she tried the result was painful enough that he told her she didn't have to try anymore. He was practically handling her, and in any other circumstance he'd be fine with that, a surveillance job was a low-stress way to break in the newbies. He was experienced enough to not need a lot of hand holding, especially on easy missions; he'd gone jobs before where he and Coulson barely said five words to each other.
The difference being that they could do that because they didn't need to say more than five words. They knew how each other thought; if he was having a problem he could count on Coulson to know and be halfway through fixing it before he said the first word about it. That wasn't the case here; Vishnavi kept asking why he did something, asked him what was wrong if he was quiet too long and Clint didn't know how he'd deal if this was a preview of the rest of his SHIELD career. Or if this was just him waiting for the cliff to crumble beneath his feet; Vishnavi was young enough that she hadn't been at SHIELD during the bad old days, young enough to slip up and call him "Mr. Hawkeye" during the introduction after the briefing. It would be kind of sweet if Clint weren't able to look at her and know that she wouldn't be able to meet his eyes once she got her hands on his full file. SHIELD was still as black and white as her suit to her. Clint tended to add a little more red than most of those agents were comfortable with.
A bullet skidding across the concrete ledge in front of him close enough to graze his ear broke him out of the dread spiral he'd mired himself in fast. He dropped down flat, another bullet slamming into the ledge hard enough send a chunk flying down to the street below. He tapped his earpiece, swearing under his breath. "Barton to base, code 423. I am getting shot at, what the hell's going on?" This was a nothing assignment, not even an especially sensitive target, there was no reason anyone should be shooting. Especially not with a rifle this high powered. "Pretty sure this guy's out of my range, give me some guidance here."
No answer. Not the static of a jammed comm, just no response; he could hear muffled voices barking out orders in the background, too garbled to make out but with a panicked edge that turned Clint's stomach to ice. It took a lot to make SHIELD agents panic, even new ones. Another bullet whizzed over his head and Clint hunkered down lower. "Someone over there, tell me what the hell's going on---"
Like it was an answer to his question the sound of an explosion ripped over the comm line, one so loud it took all of Clint's self-control to not rip out his earpiece. He counted to five and tapped it again, letting out a soft sigh of relief when the connection popped and crackled but stayed open. That meant the building was at least still standing. "Control, report," he whispered, the crack of another rifle shot splitting the air. He heard the rumble of another explosion, one fainter and farther away than the first, and squeezed his eyes shut. Rule of thumb when pinned down was to stay pinned down until word came to do otherwise, no sense giving the shooter a better target, but Clint didn't know how many guns he had trained on him or if he was even the real target. "Control, tell me what I'm supposed to do."
"Barton, keep your head." The jolt of relief hit him like the bullet he kept waiting for; Coulson's voice was the last one he'd expected to hear but God, was it the only one he'd wanted to hear just then.
"Sir, what's going on?"
"A situation." Coulson's voice sounded clipped and he was breathing hard enough for Clint to hear it over the comm line. He's hurt, Clint realized, the icy dread coming back. How bad he couldn't tell; Coulson was a hard read when he wanted to be, he'd walked Clint through a mission once with a bullet in his leg and Clint hadn't been the wiser for days.
And he was talking in code - a "situation" meant communications were compromised, possibly HQ as well, although the explosions had clued him into that pretty well. The last time he'd heard the word situation said in that tone had been the infiltration Clint still had nightmares about. "What kind of situation?" he said, not letting on he'd heard anything important.
"Above your pay grade." Nothing you can help with. Clint squeezed his eyes shut again; it was the answer he'd expected but that didn't make hearing it any easier. "Keep your mind on the mission, we don't want another screw up like Rio."
Clint frowned for a moment; Rio had been a cakewalk, not a blown mission, but Clint finally remembered a detail from the mission report: they'd had to track the Hydra agent down to Rio in the first place because she'd escaped a SHIELD crossfire in Costa Rica by playing dead. All the snipers had earned themselves a solid month of training after that fiasco, whether they were guilty of the screw-up or not.
So that meant he had two guns on him, maybe more, but that Coulson thought they were far enough away or dumb enough to fool. More information than he'd had a second ago. "Loud and clear." Keep the line open.
Another sniper shot rang out and this time Clint let himself go limp. He made his breathing as shallow as he could make it, just in case they were watching through good scopes, but made sure to keep it steady to make sure Coulson knew he hadn't actually gotten hit. "Barton? Barton, report." When Clint stayed silent Coulson swore, audibly clicking the signal over to a "secure" line and giving a meaningless code phrase to sell the con. Clint knew from experience that hackers tended not to question it when they seemed to be winning and hoped that proved true today.
And his luck - such as it was - seemed to be holding; no more shots came whizzing by his head. All Clint had to do now was somehow not react as he heard another explosion rock HQ; he could hear Coulson shouting orders on one of the other channels, coughing now; that could be fire, could be tear gas, could be something a lot worse. It didn't really matter because Clint couldn't ask. All he could do was hold still and wait for another explosion, for the comm to go dead and him to lose even this fragile lifeline.
He felt his mind wander back to the last time he'd been sitting in the field waiting for his comm to go dead, the AIM infiltration (because for some reason it was always fucking AIM.) Back to sitting on another roof with his bow trained on a terrorist they'd been trying to lay eyes on almost the entire time he'd been at SHIELD and back to hearing Coulson code talk to him over the comm. "Hawkeye, there's been a change in orders."
It was never Hawkeye. And there was a code phrase for when there was an order change to keep this kind of thing from happening. "What kind of change? Sir." Which basically translated to The hell?
"I need you to put your gun down and back away from the target." Clint remembered feeling that first cold bead of sweat slide down his neck as he watched the fading sunlight glint off his arrowhead. I have a gun to my head. Don't listen.
"I'm afraid I can't do that, sir. The kill order comes from higher up." He felt the same vicious twist to his stomach he'd felt at hearing the crack of rifle shot and looking down to see Coulson sprawled unmoving on the ground.
"Fire and I'll have you brought up on charges." He's not buying it. Take the shot.
Clint remembered holding his breath as he loosed the arrow, a perfect shot, instant kill. "If you won't give me the kill order I'll go over your head." Arrows were silent, that was the quality that had turned him into a death machine in the first place, and whoever had been trying so hard to stop this operation had no way of knowing they'd already failed.
"This is insubordination." Good job, Barton.
Clint had less than a second to breathe before he heard the crack of a gunshot echo over the comm and the whole thing went dead. It took three minutes for the control room to reestablish communications and Clint remembered them passing like years. He'd felt a lot of things click into place in those three minutes, helped along by the nightmare image of some goon holding a gun to his handler's head. Coulson had only been back at the job two weeks, he still had bullet fragments in his chest. Clint wasn't the praying type, never had been, but sitting on that roof he made a lot of deals with any deity who'd listen, about how he finally got it now, how if he got one more chance he'd stop wasting so much time.
Clint still didn't really believe in anything except SHIELD but he'd said a little prayer of thanks when he heard Coulson's voice again, giving him the all clear like nothing had happened.
That had been the first night he'd broken into Coulson's apartment, dropping through that skylight to catch him just as he walked through the door. Clint only gave himself a second to savor that uncharacteristic surprise on his face - Coulson was a hard man to startle, although he and Nat managed it more often than most - before he'd pushed him against the wall and kissed him, every cell in his body on fire from it. It was like standing in the dark and the lights suddenly switching on; Clint didn't know how he'd missed that this was where it had always been headed between them. Years of build up, of close calls and private jokes and bone deep fear Clint hadn't even been able to look at directly, let alone name.
Life was just too damn uncertain to keep worrying about consequences. "Say the word and this never happened," he'd whispered when he'd finally come up for air, Coulson flushed, eyes wide with surprise and holding on to Clint like he thought Clint might disappear. "Reassign me, get me kicked out, I don't care. Do what you gotta do, but I couldn't go one more day without doing that." He'd backed away and gotten out of there then because even Clint Barton could only cross so many lines in one day. He'd spent the next two weeks waiting for the hammer to fall, for a reassignment or a write up or even just Coulson pulling him aside and telling him That was inappropriate, Barton. It won't happen again.
But there was nothing. And the next time he broke into Coulson's apartment he didn't tell Clint to leave.
And now here he was, on another damn roof listening to Coulson breathing over a comm and wondering if this was the day he would hear him stop. Another day of making deals with deities he didn't really believe in, of thinking Okay, if you're out there listening, this time I got it. Give me one more chance to get this right.
He was barely finished with the thought when he heard Coulson's voice soft over the line. "We got the shooters, Barton. You're clear."
Someday he was going to run out of last chances. "The hell was all that?"
"Someone trying to disrupt the operation."
"Yeah, I got that."
"You'll be debriefed when you get back. I'm handing you back to Agent Vishnavi now," he said, switching Clint to another channel before he could say another word.
He was glad she was okay; he'd assumed the worst when she'd gone black. "How's it look back there?"
"A mess. Agent Romanoff found the double agent," she said and Clint smiled, because of course she had. Vishnavi managed to keep it together for another five whole seconds. "That was amazing."
She was hardly the first junior agent to get starry-eyed over Coulson in crisis mode, and it wasn't like Clint could even blame her. "Yeah. Always is."
That night he was already sitting on the sofa when Coulson walked through the front door. "You're late."
The man didn't even have the courtesy to look surprised. "Barton, you shouldn't be here."
He shouldn't be. The apartment was almost certainly being watched and as good as he was someone can only be so careful. "Tell me to leave." Coulson's lips thinned as he locked the door behind him but he didn't say a word. "Nat's on her way, after they let her out of the debrief. Tell us to leave and we'll go."
And just like that Clint saw that smooth composure crack. "Barton, I never tell you to leave."
Clint didn't remember getting up from the sofa; it was like he blinked and he had Coulson against the wall, like he wouldn't be able to breathe if they stayed that far apart. Coulson had stitches in his temple and flash burns down the side of his face; when Clint touched his side Coulson winced, telling Clint just how much bruising his suit was hiding. "You look like hell," he said, running the pad of his thumb just along the edge of the burns.
"It's been a day."
Clint kissed him, the soft little sigh Coulson let out rushing through him. "I can't do another two weeks. I tried, I did but it's not in me."
Coulson kissed him back then, Clint suspected mostly to shut him up. "Promise me you won't quit SHIELD."
Clint had stood in front of a firing squad once without feeling anything close to this kind of fear. "When's the hearing?"
Coulson let out a short, defeated breath. "Tomorrow morning."
The dread felt like an anchor dragging him under water. "Guess we better make tonight count, then."
-On To Part 3-
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