Agent Coulson had broke his arm.
Now, it had been a pretty routine mission, but sometimes things don't go to plan. They were to intercept some sensitive documents that were about to fall into the hands of some less than stellar gentlemen, and they had in fact succeeded in doing so. Except for the part where one of them went a bit crazy and decided that plowing into the side of their SUV was a good idea after realizing that the documents they were handed weren't actually the real copies.
Clint had seen the car headed their way but the warning he shouted to Coulson was a bit too late and he had taken the brunt of it on his side of the vehicle.
So here they were, sitting in a medical room down in SHIELD headquarters waiting for the doc to get back with the wraps and plaster.
Coulson had brushed Clint's guilt and apologies off stating that it in no way was his fault; it was just a broken arm, he's suffered much worse, No need to worry, Agent Barton. And he kept giving him this small reassuring smile, even when he was the one sitting there with a damn broken arm. That didn't stop Clint from following him down to medical though.
Clint was trying not to fidget too much in the small room they were waiting in, only messing with the drawers and medical tech until Coulson told him to knock it off.
"I don't think they'd appreciate you rearranging their supply drawers, Barton."
"Yeah well, then they shouldn't leave them unlocked and not expect me to go through them. Haven't they learned?"
Clint looked over his shoulder when he heard the other man chuckle. There he was, sitting on the exam table just smiling at him again. And all those little junior agents kept believing those rumors about Coulson being a stone faced, no nonsense agent. Well, he was. But he was so much more than that and no one else seemed to see it.
"I guess they didn't get the memo today about your mission status and adequately prepare for your potential arrival."
"They should always be prepared," Clint said with a laugh.
He hated being down in medical. Too many bad associations with his time in the circus. Because really, who was going to go to the hospital with the mouthy kid with a bow when he pushed too hard and got himself hurt? No one, that's who. His brother certainly didn't take the time to get him help so Clint had to do it himself. Just one lone kid surrounded by a bunch of adults speaking a language that Clint couldn't even begin to understand. He didn't have anyone to hold his hand when the pain got too bad and didn't have anyone to turn to when the doctors started asking him questions he didn't know the answers to.
Fear and loneliness. That's what medical was to Barton.
The doctor came back in then with the supplies for the cast he was going to apply and Clint turned his attention to the table where Coulson was sat. The doc handed him a ring full of square color swatches made of the hard fiber gauze that would be the top layer of Coulson's cast.
"You can go ahead and look through these, black seems to be a favorite with you agents. Despite the heat in the sun, it keeps the cast from looking too dirty."
Clint was quietly picturing to himself what Phil would look like with a brightly colored cast and not some dull dark blue or gray that he was bound to pick. He's sure the neon green would really put those juniors in a tizzy. He watched as Phil flipped through each color and finally settled on the purple square and Clint let out a tiny little huff of surprised delight.
"Oh, I just love you."
Phil's hand froze in the process of handing his choice back to the doctor and Clint swore that in that second he could feel his insides shrivel up.
—the fuck?
He clenched his jaw shut tight and could feel his eyes grow wide as Phil turned to look at him. Without a second thought Clint turned tail and walked out.
Clint sighed and rubbed the palms of his hands down his face.
How could he have said that? Opened his freaking mouth and actually let those words exit?
He was hiding out in the drop ceiling above his rooms at the SHIELD base, stretched out on his back in the small space and feeling more secure and safe there than in his actual rooms below him.
In front of Phil no less, he thought, feeling almost sick remembering what he had said not ten minutes ago. He could think it all he wanted but he was suppose to keep his damn mouth shut about it. Never let those words see the light of day.
He was a super-secret agent of SHIELD, right? He was trained in keeping his mouth shut on super-secret stuff, to never spill the beans even on pain of death. How could his brain take a flying leap off a building and forget that fact? Clint had never done that before in his life; spoken without actually realizing he was about to speak. He'll be the first to admit he sticks his foot in his mouth on a weekly basis but he never says things that he didn't plan on saying, regardless if he knows he'll regret it later.
But saying that...
Weeks—months! He decided. That's how long it would take to get over this colossal screw up and actually be able to face Phil again without turning red in the face and melting into a puddle of embarrassment on the floor.
The one secret he's held close to his chest for the past year of being with SHIELD and he goes and blows it when the man reaches for the purple out of a dozen other colors. Who would have thought that that was going to be the tipping point?
Phil just has a way of blindsiding Clint at the most seemingly random times and that had been one of them. He picked the purple one, dammit! Like Clint could have seen that one coming.
It had been a year of little moments just like that one and Clint couldn't remember anymore a time when he wasn't in love with Phil.
There was the noise of a shoe scuffing the floor just before a knock sounded at his door. Clint held his breath and prepared to wait the person out. They'd leave when they realized no one was going to answer. But, as luck would have it on this day, that just wasn't the case. He could hear the soft tapping sounds of a code being put in to the security pad on his door and Clint's heart sank. Only one other person besides himself had his code to gain entry to his room and it just happened to be the one man he didn't want to face.
The door opened and Phil walked in, moving around the small space and to the bathroom to check for Clint. Up in the drop ceiling as he was, he couldn't see the man below but he was tracking his movements just fine. Phil moved to the small desk and chair that was sat in the corner and took a seat, prepared to wait.
Clint wanted nothing more than to heave a heavy sigh but he didn't want to get caught out. He'd stay up there till the sun went down if he had to. There was no way he was coming out.
As if sensing his inner turmoil, Phil spoke quietly into the empty space of the room, "I'll wait as long as I need to, Clint."
Of course, Clint thought to himself at Phil's statement. He shouldn't even have bothered to pretend that he could hide from Phil. They've spent too much time together, the man knew him too well.
But, that didn't mean Clint wasn't a stubborn shit and wouldn't stay up there whether Phil knew he was hiding there or not.
Clint tried to settle his mind the same way he did when he was on assignment, high up in his nest, but he just couldn't. Not with Phil Coulson sitting below him. The man that he had fallen for, against all warnings he had given himself since meeting him. He wasn't capable of ignoring him.
After a measly ten minutes of silence, Clint finally let out that sigh he had been holding in since he realized who was at his front door. He didn't want to think about what might happen when he dropped down into his room, so he bit the bullet and quickly moved one of the ceiling tiles to the side and dropped down to the floor in his room with his back to Phil. He hadn't bothered moving the tile back in place, fully expecting to be back up there when this conversation came to an end.
He put a fake smile on his face and dusted his hands off on his cargo pants and turned to face his handler. "Hey, Phil, how's it going?" He knew it was stupid and pointless, but he was still going to try his damnedest to play this off like nothing had happened. Like he hadn't spilled the one secret that had the chance of wrecking him completely when the let-down came. It almost hurt to look at him, imagining all the horrible ways this could go.
Phil continued to sit there though with his newly casted arm resting lightly on his thigh, cased in the deep purple that had led to this whole mess. Just like down in medical, he was sans suit jacket and his sleeves were rolled to the elbows. Clint couldn't keep his eyes from straying to his arm, to the purple that Phil had chosen. He tore his eyes away when Phil didn't say anything, just calmly looking back at Clint as if he were one of his suspects in the interrogation room, waiting for him to break. Clint knew he would fold like a lawn chair if he didn't look away. In a jerky movement he turned to his bedside table and fiddled with some paperwork he had placed there the night before. He scanned the pages without really seeing them, just to kill some time in the horrible silence that Phil was persisting on.
On the third flip through of the pages Clint couldn't take it anymore and looked over at Phil again.
Annnd, fold.
Throwing the papers down on the bed, not caring that they flew out in different directions and some off the bed entirely, he turned back towards Phil. "Why are you here, sir?" His brows were furrowed and he could feel his hands shaking at his sides.
His hands haven't shook since he was young and in the circus.
Coulson was quiet when he spoke. "At first, I thought you were just being flippant. But now; you high tailing it and hiding in your ceiling...I don't think that's the case."
"I don't know what—"
"You know exactly what I'm talking about."
Looks to be one of those days where Phil doesn't take any of his crap. Clint didn't like those days very much.
He bowed his head and kicked at the floor with the toe of one boot, shoving his hands deep in his pockets so he didn't have to feel the unfamiliar tremble anymore. "Dammit, Coulson. Can't you just pretend I didn't say anything? Just like all the other times when I say crap that doesn't need to be said?" Clint thought he might actually be sick, his stomach hard as a rock, his throat tight.
"No," Phil said simply. He was silent again for the longest time before Clint heard him ask, "Was it a mistake?" Soft and low like he gets when he's in Clint's ear, when the time gets closer to when he needs to take his shot.
Phil knew as well as Clint did that he didn't speak without thinking, that he didn't say things that he didn't mean. He knew when his words were in jest or said to simply annoy.
He shut his eyes tight. What good would it do to lie? Clint thought. Phil was there for a reason, he knew that something was up, he wasn't stupid. He was right there when Clint practically ran out of the room and he could see how odd his behavior was after that. He didn't want to lose Coulson because of this; as his handler or the friendship they've built up over the past few years, but Clint knew that things would change after today and there was no way he could lie to him or try to avoid the situation.
His voice rough and throat still tight, he finally answered, "I never meant to say it."
He didn't need to elaborate beyond that simply explanation. Phil would know that he meant that it was the truth, what he said, but that it was a truth he never planned to share. He couldn't face him straight on, but he was looking off to the side and could see when Phil stood, his movements slow and measured. Clint shut his eyes again and sighed to himself, trying to brace himself for the gentle rejection he was about to get. And he knew that Phil would be kind about it, he would never hurt him more than he could help.
He just couldn't handle the quiet anymore and he started to ramble, hoping that he could avoid hearing anything that Phil had to say. "I'm sorry, sir. Please just, let's forget about what I said. Just pretend it didn't happen. I won't let it affect my work, you know I won't. So this doesn't need to be an issue, right?" Clint put on his best honest and convincing face, needing so badly for Phil to agree with him like he hasn't needed something in a long time.
It was as if Phil wasn't even listening, he kept his movements slow as he made the few steps to stand in front of Clint. He held his breath as his handler came to a stop in front of him, "Sir?"
Phil raised his broken arm up at his side slightly, the purple standing out in the sea of gray that was his room. "Picking this color," he said, a smile taking shape on his lips, "was the best choice I could have made."
As Clint watched him he could feel his heart pick up the pace as he realized the implications of what he just said.
"What—?" Clint breathed out, not sure he had heard him right, or that he's reading the situation all wrong somehow. Because surely Phil couldn't mean...
Clint wasn't ever that lucky.
"You don't say things you don't mean, Clint."
Phil was in his space now, right there in front of him, almost nose to nose and Clint wasn't sure he was breathing anymore.
"It wasn't a mistake," Phil said under his breath before closing the space between them and touching his lips to Clint's.
Maybe...maybe Clint was that lucky this time.
His brain shut down at the first feel of him and he didn't question it. Phil would never lead him on, he would never be doing this if he didn't mean it and Clint was not about to question him on it when he actually had the man he wanted so desperately right there in his rooms kissing him.
This was not one of the outcomes he had been dreading the past half hour. It had never even entered the realm of possibility but Clint was so very glad that this was the outcome that he was granted.
He raised his hands and placed them gently on each side of Phil's jaw, holding him there as he returned his kiss with more pressure and intent, taking his bottom lip between his own.
"No, it wasn't," he whispered against Phil's lips and he could feel the smile that answered him.
Clint barged into his office the next day with a smirk on his face and a quick 'hey', before shutting the door and sauntering over to the desk and around to Phil's side. Before he could get a word in the man had taken his left casted wrist in hand.
Wielding a black sharpie, Clint carefully penned three neat little letters on the purple cast at the base of Phil's thumb.
ILY, it showed and Phil stared at it for the longest time, at those little black letters. Proof of what had happened the day before. He turned his face up to the man standing above him and smiled before tilting his head in a slight request and Clint bent down without question and gave him a kiss, pressing his smile to Phil's.
"Just in case you forget," he whispered to him before tossing the sharpie on his desk and making his way back out of the office as quick as he had come.
Phil caught himself a dozen times that day, pulling his jacket back from his wrist a scant inch to uncover the hidden letters there. He knew that the people around him were probably wondering why he was smiling so much, unsettled by the behavior change.
His cast was covered in little doodles and notes from Clint by the end of the week. Needless to say, Phil wasn't able to wander around without his suit jacket covering it up. He took full responsibility for it though. He should have known that his cast wouldn't be safe in the hands of Clint while Phil was peacefully sleeping. After those first three letters Clint thought of his cast as free reign and took every opportunity to write on it despite Phil's, admittedly weak, protests.
No one but the two of them needed to see the Property of Clinton F. Barton that was displayed in bold black letters on the purple casing along with a dozen other not so appropriate things.
That was just for Phil and he quite liked the smug look on Clint's face every time his gaze caught sight of his cast.
Yeah, Phil thought as he watched Clint draw a heart with an arrow through its center on his palm, purple was definitely the right choice.