Being a senior agent meant Phil got one of the roomier quarters on the helicarrier. Unfortunately, said room was still smaller than his office at HQ. With a bed filling up one whole wall and a desk taking up most of the other, there was hardly enough space to stand. But Phil never complained. He had a window and his own (equally tiny) bathroom, so he was a lot better off than everyone, besides maybe Fury. And no one knew what Fury's quarters looked like. Actually, no one was sure if he even had quarters or had found a way to skip over sleep entirely.
Phil's favorite part of the room was that he had a door that locked. No one could just barge in and demand his help or ask him about paperwork. He didn't even have to worry about Clint dropping down on him. The air vents in the helicarrier were too small for the man to move around in. Which had caused Clint to throw a temper tantrum any toddler would have been proud of.
He did wish that the rooms weren't so boring. They were just temporary barracks, he knew. Places to sleep whenever they got a chance. Which, if they were on the helicarrier, usually meant that there was some sort of emergency and sleep could wait until after. So Phil took every opportunity for sleep that he got. Even if it was only the two hours between debriefings.
Phil shrugged off his suit jacket and opened up the locker that stood between the desk and the door. It was the exact same size as his high school locker. Same dull grey metal. Even made by the same company. He swore it was the exact same one. There was a dent on the front exactly where Susie Doyle had slammed into his locker sophomore year.
The inside of the locker was barely big enough for the two changes of clothes Phil kept on board. His extra pair of shoes fitting away neatly in the bottom. The polished black leather glinting in the harsh fluorescent lighting. The top shelf, where Phil had once kept notebooks and loose pencils and the occasional snack for when he got hungry between classes, was now filled with Phil's neatly organized toiletries. Everything was smooth and perfect and streamlined. Not a thing out of place.
The only splash of color in the room was on the inside of the locker door. Three pictures were hung up with magnets. A picture of him and his parents the day he'd left for boot camp. One of him and Clint and Natasha a few weeks after their first mission as a team. They'd gone out to celebrate. It was the first time Phil had seen Nat smile. The third picture was just him and Clint. The two of them at the Statue of Liberty. Taking a day to just be tourists. All were held up by magnets that Clint had bought for him from missions he'd gone on without Phil. Moscow and Rio and Toronto and Cairo. Dozens of magnets of every shape and size littered the door, leaving just enough space for the three pictures and one other thing.
It was just a small pencil holder. Phil had found it at some chain discount store during a back-to-school sale. Made of cheap red plastic and Phil had had to re-glue on the magnet a few times. But he loved it. Because it was the exact perfect size to hold his Captain America trading cards.