Title: Catch A Criminal
Fandom: The Avengers
Rating: R (probably an overly cautious rating for language)
Characters/Pairings: Clint Barton/Phil Coulson, Natasha Romanoff, Darcy Lewis and Agent Sitwell.
Summary: Spider and Hawk are a thieving partnership made in heaven. Detectives Coulson & Lewis are the duo that are set to catch them.
Disclaimer: All the characters you recognise belong to Marvel, I’m simply playing with them.
Notes: Written for
15genres1prompt. The genre was Crime and my prompt is chemistry. I’m not making any promises but I really do love this ’verse and I have more ideas and have written other bits and pieces. So this may well be a first part/a sneak peak at a longer piece. But like I said - no promises!
Date Written: 26.02.2012
~*~
They watched over the CCTV as Hawk and Spider climbed in through the third floor landing window.
“How do they do it?” Darcy wondered aloud. She gasped as Spider did a handspring over one laser beam and then rolled under another before gracefully rising to her feet in one smooth movement. Hawk was right behind her, following her steps exactly. “They’re beautiful.”
“No complimenting the criminals,” Phil said as he watched the live feed, Darcy stuck her tongue out at him. It was almost time. He turned to face the small team assembled in Doom’s security office. “Myself and Detective Lewis are about to head out. Sitwell, you’re on comms and the rest of you will follow at a distance.” Phil focus’s on Sitwell, “Leave all security measures on until the last moment. We don’t want them to know we are coming. We all know where pressure pads and laser beams are don’t we?”
The assembled squad nodded affirmative and Darcy threw a mock salute. Phil was satisfied his team knew what they were doing. It had been a long time coming but now they finally had the chance of catching the “Super Spies” (as the press had dubbed them) in the act. The two skilful thieves had managed to evade every security system known to man for the last six months and now it was time to end this game of cat and mouse they had been playing with the authorities.
“Let’s go,” Phil and Darcy made their way into the corridor. They worked well together even though Darcy was over twenty years his junior. She shadowed his steps exactly as he had been the one to memorise the location of all of Doom’s security features.
“Something’s up,” Sitwell’s voice came over their comms, “They seem to be taking their time. They’re talking more but we can’t make out the words, they’re maybe even arguing.” Phil and Darcy were halfway up the stairs when Sitwell swore, “They know we’re here! They’ve split up; Spider’s going down the East staircase! Hawk’s heading for the roof!”
They started running, “Hawk’s mine!” Phil shouted to Darcy as he continued up the stairs. He pretended to ignore her shout of “Of course he is!” as she turned left down the corridor.
The alarms started ringing; the rest of the team must have set off some of the security features. Phil blocked it all out as he focussed on his breathing, on getting to the roof as soon as possible. He turned a corner to see Hawk dash through a door way at the end of the hallway. Phil put on another burst of speed. He leaped up the stairs two at a time and came crashing through the emergency exit to see Hawk charging for the roof edge. There were buildings close by but the distance looked too far to reach. He followed anyway. Hawk did not stop and for one moment he really looked as if he was flying. He just landed on the edge of the roof and tipped forward into a roll and scrambled to his feet. Phil watched as he turned with his usual smirk on his face to see who had followed him.
He looked momentarily surprised and then his expression seemed to turn to shock as he realised that Phil wasn’t going to stop. Phil Coulson did not give up; it was a quality that Chief Fury often commented on as if he never knew if it was a good thing or a bad thing.
Phil set his sights on the neighbouring roof and jumped. He slammed into the brick work, feet scambling for grip. He’d missed but he wasn’t falling. Phil looked up to see Hawk hanging half off the building, one hand clamped securely around Phil’s arm whilst the other was clinging onto the roof edge behind him.
Phil could hear Hawk saying things above him but couldn’t make it out. His head was spinning; he must have whacked his head as he collided into the building, and the wind was whipping Hawk's words away. Darcy was never going to let him live this down.
“Hey, idiot! Not that I’m saying you’re heavy or anything but I could use some help getting you up here.”
Phil grabbed onto Hawk’s arm (his rather nice, bare muscley arm) with both hands and together they managed to pull him onto the roof.
Hawk jumped to his feet quickly as if Phil was going to put cuffs on him, which had crossed Phil’s mind but he was finding it hard to focus and wondered if he had a mild concussion.
Hawk started pacing backwards and forwards, arms flying around as if they had a mind of their own, “What were you thinking?! There was no way you would have made that jump, I only just made that jump and I’m an ex-carnie for fucks sake!” Hawk stopped in front of where Phil had propped himself up, “What if I had carried on running? What if I hadn’t looked back? What if I had looked back and I was a heartless bastard who didn’t care if you fell a few floors and ended up with some broken bones and a high chance of internal bleeding?!”
He sat down on his haunches in front of Phil and rubbed his eyes. He sighed and suddenly looked so much younger than when Phil had seen him winking at security cameras.
“Stupid cop who doesn’t know when to quit,” he muttered almost fondly.
Phil honestly had tried to keep up but everything was getting a bit fuzzy. The sudden drop in adrenalin probably wasn’t helping. “Why did you?”
Hawk’s head shot up, staring at him quizzically. Phil found himself caught in his gaze and wondered if that’s where the thief had gotten his name from. “Why did you catch me?”
He finally looked away from Phil and laughed. “I thought it would be obvious.” He leaned forward and caught Phil’s lips with his own, one hand rested gently at the back of Phil’s neck. The kiss was soft and gentle, completely at odds with anything that Phil had imagined (not that he had imagined what kissing his target would be like). He bit Phil’s bottom lip before soothing it with his tongue. Every part of Phil’s cop brain was telling him to stop, to pull out the handcuffs in his pocket and catch the target of a six month operation but he couldn’t. He let himself melt into the kiss.
Phil wasn’t sure how long they were like that when Sitwell’s voice crackled over the comm piece in his ear, “Coulson, we’ve lost Spider! What’s your situation with Hawk?”
Hawk jumped back and looked around warily, as if he was suddenly remembering where he was and who he was with. Phil blinked up at him, it would be so easy to call it in, and Hawk would be gone before they even arrived. “I’ve lost him.”
Hawk stared at him in shock, Sitwell was still talking in his ear but all Phil could see was the man in front of him. He gave Phil a hesitant smile, something that Phil hadn’t seen once in all the CCTV tapes he’d seen of him. He placed a soft kiss on Phil’s forehead before leaping onto the next building and out of sight.
Phil groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose. He was in trouble now.