Imperfect Timing

by ArkadyFlowers

In which Coulson's brain operates like a) a steel trap (sometimes) and b) a Swiss stopwatch (always), Clint is kind of messed up, and learning to get along from Day One is an exercise in cautious affection. Origin story. May not be entirely MCU compliant, and definitely takes a running jump away from comicsverse, but hopefully enjoyable nevertheless. Written as a gift.

First Day (00 : 00 : 00 : 00 : 09 : 14)

It had already been a hell of a long week, and Phil Coulson knew it was far from over.

He had been given instructions to take out a minor threat to the peace. Without prejudice. One shot, job done. It should have been easy. Putting his sniping skills to good use was far from his favourite part of the job, but he'd done it before and doubtless would again.

Just... Not this time.

His own handler had had fits when he'd commed in to say he'd made a different call. On your head be it, the deputy director had said. Nick Fury's idea of having fits took two forms: the explosive and the near-silent. The latter were far more terrifying, and exactly what Coulson had got for this little trick. Being the level he was — highly enough ranked to have a direct comm to a deputy director during his own field missions, and handler to several lower — ranked operatives of his own — usually gave him some level of protection, but if this one went south, there'd be no coming back from it.

It had been a long night and this was an early morning, but he was grateful to have gotten home at all. The sharp taste of mouthwash made him think of the quart of whiskey (and, by association, the half a pack of cigarettes) stowed in the bedside drawer, but he shoved the thoughts aside. You're up now. No turning back.

It was a familiar mantra. Don't turn around. Don't look back. Always carry on.

In this instance, that meant turning left out of the bathroom and heading straight for the kitchen. Decent coffee would set him right; there was precious little chance of getting the good stuff at the Triskelion.

He reversed the little red classic convertible into a spot between two hulking SUVs half an hour later, picked up the flask from the passenger seat and turned the key in the door lock three times — locked, unlocked, locked again to be sure — before wishing Lola a peaceful day here and heading up to the office.

---

The bullpen was muted chaos. Nothing new about that, but it still hit him a little every time he walked through the door. Given the choice, he would have taken a private office any day, but that was at least one promotion and an additional level of clearance away. Next year, at the latest. Besides, this was a challenge. A small one, granted, but a worthwhile one. Every day was a battle against natural introversion, and almost every day was a success. Five years ago, just the half-dozen "Morning" and "Alright, Coulson" greetings he got as he crossed the floor would have exhausted him. It was already a check mark for today that he flickered waves and brief greetings back to each one by name.

There were a few files in his in-tray tray which had appeared overnight and he glanced through them briefly over a second cup of coffee: nothing so desperately urgent he had to drop all else and run for a weapons locker. Small mercies, especially with the situation he had privately nicknamed Project Artemis. Speaking of which, the next job was to visit the subject of the same...

The new recruit (who had spent most of their conversations so far, the ones that weren't patient negotiation by Coulson and shrugs or sarcasm from the other, apparently trying to figure out if he was recruit, captive or convict) had been given a small set of rooms — a single bedroom, small entranceway with a couch, and private bathroom. The suites were often used by visiting field agents who for whatever reason found it impractical or unsafe to get a room in a civilian hotel, or sometimes by Triskelion workers who hadn't made it home but needed to crash for a few hours. They weren't bad at all for a few days, but the new recruit insisted on calling it a cell.

"Consider it more of a gilded cage, for now," Coulson told him lightly as they made their way along the corridor away from the suite, or cell, or whatever the awkward young bastard wanted to call it.

"Going to clip my wings, too?" was the response, a terse mutter, not meeting Coulson's eye.

"Not if I can help it," Coulson said. "I prefer the kinds of birds who fly free and trust me enough to come back anyway."

Clint Barton looked at him properly for the first time since he'd been brought in. Coulson glanced back for just long enough to catch his eye, and the look in it. Can I trust you, that look said.

Guess we'll find out, he thought. Most days I trust myself, so good luck to you.

---

Paperwork (00 : 00 : 03 : 02 : 10 : 12)

It took a fortnight to get Barton to even look at paperwork, and when he finally did, it was with a look of derision and a snort. Paperwork was for suits. You do it, if it matters to you so much.

That was towards the end of yet another long day — endless paperwork would have been a respite, if not for the fact no less than eight other agents showed up at his desk all needing his attention for something or other during the afternoon, and the morning had been largely taken up by forced interaction with the SHIELD-approved gas fitter who had come to his apartment to look at the stove and fix its intermittent problem of not sparking the burner. In a strange way, his daily visits to Barton had become a sort of relief. Barton didn't expect much conversation, and the questions he did ask were straightforward and demanded answers which, if not detailed, could at least be precise, which fit perfectly with how Coulson felt like interacting at this point. Anything more would have been too much. Sometimes he wondered if Barton almost got that, on some level, though training told him it was far more likely he was just being obstreperous for the hell of it, and honestly, Coulson couldn't much blame him.

Either way, it worked. Some days Coulson was pretty sure he was getting through to the young mercenary, and Barton seemed to appreciate that Coulson recognised a conversational shutdown and knew better than to pursue it.

That was until the paperwork fiasco, at least. He had gotten Barton a door pass that would see him into the gym and most of the Triskelion's interior garden spaces, so he could at least burn off some energy and get some fresh air, and of course he had canteen and commissary access. It wasn't a bad life, apart from technically not being free. But that would come, Coulson had promised, and he believed it. For all Barton had been recruited under duress — it's this or it's the end — there was something good in there. Something small and lost and afraid, hiding behind thick walls of sarcasm and bristles, but it was in there. The thing people forget about introverts, Coulson thought, considering the brash and outgoing attitudes of some of his fellow handlers and field agents, is we have to study people our whole lives just to get through a workday in an open office without going freaking nuts. Combine that with a fair few modules in human psychology and holding training certification in half a dozen operative disciplines, and it was a rare thing he called it wrong.

But holy hell, had he ever called the paperwork situation wrong. He had expected some disagreement, the usual sarcasm, but not a near-complete emotional shutdown. Defensive.

Maybe they weren't getting along so well after all.

He let it be, respecting their unspoken agreement not to push at the uncomfortable too much, but he knew he'd have to go back to it sooner or later. Sooner would be better, in fact. His own job was still on the line for this.

For a little over a week he retreated on it, apart from the occasional prod which Barton shut down with just as much fervour as the first time he'd been presented with the manila pack. Every spare moment, around keeping up the necessary productivity on his other ongoing projects, he thought about how to get around it. The almost violent objection was the last thing he thought of at night and very nearly the first thing on his mind in the mornings. Seven nights later, he found himself up at four in the morning, bedside drawer open, eyeing up the whiskey and cigarettes and wondering where he'd read it wrong. What had been the mistake. Where lay the fault...

Whiskey, cigarettes, 9mm, book. Gun accessible, book on its side with the spine up. The drawer was as meticulously neat as the rest of the apartment. Even an impressive array of Star Trek starship scale models on the sideboard in the lounge had to be on perfect angles, and God forbid any of the packed bookcases found a single volume out of place...

Whiskey. Smokes. Gun. Book.

Oblivion, less oblivion, ultimate oblivion, brief escape, if he could calm down and concentrate enough to read.

If he could—

Jesus shitting Christ.

—read.

If he could read.

---

A little over three weeks after he'd been brought in, nine days after the first time Coulson had tried to thrust the manila pack at him, Barton found himself taken out for coffee. Coulson picked one of his favourite places, a family-run, quiet, casual spot, and settled them in his favourite booth at the back, where the padded bench backed onto the far wall and the door was in easy sight, with Clint by his side, together on one long end of the four-person table.

"It starts out pretty straightforward," he said easily, shuffling the first page quietly out of the envelope. "This is just name, date of birth, place of birth." For each one he underlined the word in question with a fingertip. Barton eyed him suspiciously for a split second, but then his gaze fell to the page, and out of the corner of his eye Coulson spotted him following along as best he could.

"How 'bout I write," he suggested, uncapping his favourite Captain America rollerball, the one with the brushed aluminium barrel and little enamelled shield on the cap clip. "You just tell me what to put."

Barton hesitated for a long moment. "What if I don't know the answer?"

"How so?"

"Like... That—" He frowned at the page. "That's gonna be my social security number, right? Don't think I've got one of those."

Not completely illiterate then, Coulson thought. Partial. Maybe recognises the shape of certain words but probably not a confident reader at all. Hardly surprising, given that what relatively little they'd managed to find out about the archer's history didn't seem to include a whole lot of school. Or even stability, for that matter.

"We can leave gaps for now," he said. "Let's just do what we can, okay? And I'll see if I can fill in the rest from the databases we have — like getting you a social security number. And then I'll let you know what it is, if you like. It's yours, after all."

Barton looked at him with a faint frown, then a slow blink, before he nodded.

Coulson wrote in a neat, rounded hand which felt utterly unnatural compared to his usual scrawl, but was as legible as he could make it, and wondered how often in the past anyone had ever told Clint Barton something belonged just to him.

---

Aldridge (00 : 02 : 02 : 06 : 11 : 26)

"Where do you think most of the frustration is coming from, Phil?"

"If I knew that—" Coulson bit back a sigh. He'd been doing this for long enough now that he could recognise when he was internalising feelings. And it wasn't Dr Aldridge's fault, after all. The answer which came to mind was I don't know, but he'd also been doing this long enough to know Frank Aldridge wouldn't let him get away with that for long.

"I'm finding it hard to get through to him," he said after a moment. "Every time I think I'm getting somewhere, he shuts down again. Shuts me out. It's been two and a half months, Frank. I should be getting somewhere by now — and the frustration is that a lot of the time I feel like I really am, and then... Today happens."

The psychiatrist nodded, one corner of his lips crinkling sideways as he thought about it. He had a damn good poker face, but Coulson could read him by now. "But do you think there's been any progress?"

"Without a doubt. The first breakthrough was the paperwork — I told you about that. Now he's working through basic, and there are more good days than bad..."

"Basic being, I take it, some kind of training?"

"Yes. Can't say too much, but..."

"Please don't." Dr Aldridge offered a small smile. "I'd rather you didn't have to kill me."

"Sorry, Frank. Wish I could."

"I think we have a perfectly viable working relationship without the specific details of your work."

"Wish I could tell you, I meant, sorry. Not kill you."

Dr Aldridge laughed softly. "I guessed. I don't generally get homicidal feelings from you."

"Most of the time I can sit on them," Coulson told him with a slight smile back.

"You know I have to ask, if you say things like that — even though I think I know you well enough to pick up a joke. How are you feeling?"

"Still got the whiskey and cigarettes in the bedside drawer."

Dr Aldridge shot him a look. "And...?"

"And a fully licensed 9mm Glock. For self — defence."

Says the man who can kill a guy with a quarter or a ballpoint...

"Talk to me, Phil."

"I'm not going that route, Frank. I'm not. I'm frustrated and pissed off and feeling — feeling inadequate, but I'm not there."

"Okay. Okay... So how are we going to overcome those feelings?"

"Like I always do, Frank. Stay calm. Consider other options. Take every step forward for the success it is. Never look back."

"Could I make a suggestion, Phil?"

"Of course."

"You'll have to excuse me if it sounds like teaching your grandmother to suck eggs, given that you train people with a lot more regularity than I do."

"I'm taking all the help I can get on this one, Frank."

Dr Aldridge smiled another of those almost — unreadable little smiles. "I get the sense 'this one' isn't like any you've dealt with before. They usually come a certain... route, right? And this one's what you might call a nontraditional entry."

"Right."

"So potential triggers — not necessarily in the psychological sense you and I use in this room, but in general — triggers from past experiences are going to be very different to those in the trainees you're used to seeing."

Coulson nodded, with a sigh. "I know. I'd got that. Part of the problem is I know very little about his past, and he's not keen to tell."

"You're an observant guy, Phil. Much more so than most of my clients — hell, I'll be honest, it freaks me out sometimes how much you notice. You already know the answer. I know you do."

Coulson glanced away for a moment, then nodded again. "Most of my rookies are happy to be open books because that's what they think is going to make them trustworthy and therefore successful in their role. This guy's survived as long as he has by being the opposite — closed off, never giving too much away."

"So...?"

"So he's going to tell me in other ways."

"Which means you watch and you wait."

"Even if it's frustrating as hell."

"You got this, Phil. I know you've got this. Hour's almost up, how are you doing?"

Coulson considered that for a moment to come up with an honest response. "Better than I was at the start. Same time in two weeks?"

"I've already got you pencilled in. Call if you need me in the meantime."

"I never do."

"Guess you never need me."

Coulson shrugged a little as he stood. "Don't take that the wrong way."

"Take you not needing me the wrong way? Far as I'm concerned, that's a good thing. Now get out of here, Agent."

---

First Friday (00 : 03 : 00 : 03 : 08 : 22)

There was an all-hands alert the following fortnight, so Dr Aldridge was going to have to wait. It was a frenetic five days — four nights of quarter dose medication because Coulson didn't dare risk either the sedative side effects in full or missing that long entirely. It was also Barton's first time in the field.

Fury called Coulson back after the mass debrief and spent a long moment looking him over before he spoke. Close to exhaustion and dressed in dusty field kit, Coulson was pretty sure he looked as wrecked as he felt.

"We'll discuss Barton tomorrow. Go home and get some rest."

Coulson sank back into one of the leather swivel chairs around the conference table with a shake of his head. "I'd rather hear it now, sir."

"Well. You tell me."

"He did good out there. Really good."

Fury stayed silent for another lifetime or so, then nodded. "He did. Except for one thing."

"He checks in with me before he'll take an order from anyone else."

"Exactly."

"I'll talk to him."

"Tomorrow."

"Might as well go now, sir."

"Phil." Fury eyed him steadily, leaning on open palms pressed to the mirror-shine wood of the table. "Go home. Take a pill. Go the fuck to sleep. Hell, take a day."

"I don't need a day off, sir."

"It's a damn order, Coulson."

---

"Got plans tomorrow?"

Barton didn't look up from doing something to the end of an arrow. "Not unless you tell me I do."

"You do. C'mon with me."

At that, he did look up, suspicion flashing across the backs of his eyes. "Where are we going?"

"Out. Grab something to eat, pick up a Blockbuster on the way home. You can crash on my couch."

Coulson had taken a shower and changed into black slacks and a button-down shirt between the conference room and Barton's quarters, but he was still very aware that he looked wrecked here leaning in the doorframe. He didn't think he imagined the flicker of concern in the archer's eyes.

"Is... that an order?"

Coulson closed his eyes for a long moment, regulating the exhale so it didn't sound like a sigh. "No. It's an invitation. No pressure."

"Couch, you said?" Barton hesitated for a moment over that one, and Coulson frowned. What had he done in the past just to get by? Maybe this sounded way more suspicious than he meant it to.

"Okay, full disclosure," he said; the warmth in his voice was genuine but it was an effort to push it through nevertheless. Five days of nearly 24/7 people had just about done for him. "I'm not usually the kind of guy who likes company, and I get the feeling you're okay without too. But it's been a rough few days and I figured it might be nice to get a pizza and put a movie on together. And you did great out there — really great — but there's one small thing to discuss. Maybe we'll get to that tonight, maybe we'll just have a chill one. You have a couple beers if you want; I don't drink much, but I don't mind if you do a little. And then I'm gonna make you up a bed on the couch and I'm gonna go to bed in my room. You wake up first, help yourself to coffee, tea, breakfast, whatever."

Barton paused for a few endless seconds before he set the arrow aside and unfolded himself from a cross-legged perch on the bed in one fluid movement. "Okay. What movies are you into?"

---

Hangover (00 : 06 : 01 : 03 : 09 : 55)

He didn't trust the others, that was the problem.

They got into a routine in the three months that followed. Friday nights were takeout and movie night. Barton — Clint, off-duty— got comfortable enough to start setting up his own nest on the couch when it got late. Made coffee Saturday morning while Coulson did the blueberry pancakes with bacon and maple syrup.

("You Canadian?" Clint had asked, second week.

"No, Minnesota," Phil told him.

"Near enough," Clint said with a shrug and a grin, and took to occasionally adding an 'eh' on to his statements thereafter.)

They had just come back from a field mission together, Clint out in the dirt and Coulson running op-comms from a mobile unit. Fully successful, but it inevitably brought the conversation back to working with other handlers.

"I don't have the seniority to always pull the handler straw," Phil told him, settled on one end of the couch with the remote in one hand — the night's rental offering had just ended — and an open soda can in the other. "There are gonna be times you'll have to."

"I guess I can try." Clint was already half — way to nested among a small fort of couch cushions and spare pillows on the opposite end of the couch. "I don't trust 'em, though. They're not as good as you are."

"Tell that to the screening panel for my next promotion, would you?"

Clint laughed. "Sure, boss."

They went to bed not long after. It had been a hard week; even being in close quarters with Clint for most of it— who usually didn't take much out of him, emotionally — had been tougher than usual. Coulson knew he probably could have used a night entirely to himself, but he didn't want to let Clint down by breaking their usual routine.

Safe in the bedroom, alone, he cracked open the bedside drawer. Gun, book, whiskey, cigarettes. The only one he had touched in months was the book.

He'd been quarter-dosing again while they were in the field. Three full pills later — making up the deficit, he lied to himself — he was out like a light within ten minutes.

---

He woke up slowly, eyes gluey at the edges, head pounding, but a figure by the bed had him alert as his drugged mind was able within seconds, and the second — emergency backup — gun out from the gap between the headboard and the mattress before the figure had chance to react.

"Don't shoot," Clint said quickly. "I won't bring you coffee again if you shoot me." A pause while Phil lowered the gun, then, "You look like hell. Actually, you look hungover."

"I'm not. I'm... Give me a minute. Ugh. Sorry."

Blurry though he was, he caught Clint's sharp look to the still-open bedside drawer. "Thought you didn't drink."

"I don't." A dose and a half last night had done a number on his insides. The hangover was real; it just wasn't alcoholic. Coulson thought he might be sick. "Give me five minutes to freshen up, then I'll explain."

Clint watched with an expression somewhere between mistrust and concern as Phil made it to the bathroom with rather unsteady steps. When he re-emerged, feeling a little more human, the archer was perched on the side of the bed, a mug of coffee cupped in both hands. Another one steamed on the bedside table.

"Hey." Coulson sank down beside him. "Okay. I guess I owe you an explanation."

Clint shrugged. "You don't owe me nothing."

Phil took a deep breath, determined to give him one regardless. All of it, no matter how hard it was to say.

"Hungover isn't a bad word for what I am, but it's not from drinking. It's medication."

Clint shot him a look which Phil judged to be firmly in the range of worried, though there was still some suspicion lingering in the edges of it. "What do you have?"

Another deep breath. "Chronic clinical depression. The drug is called Trazodone. It's an anti-depressant with sedative side-effects, helps me sleep. I take a quarter dose when I'm in the field or otherwise on alert. Honestly, I hate that it does this to me, but it's the only one I've found that works."

Clint stayed silent for a long moment, then, with a characteristic bluntness Phil had come to not only expect but appreciate, said, "Do you want to kill yourself?"

It shouldn't have been unexpected, knowing Clint as he did by now, but it was — so much so that Phil had to utter a short laugh. "No," he said. "Not... Not for a long time, no. When I was younger, before it was properly managed... But not for years."

Clint nodded, seeming to give that due consideration. "Years."

"Three of them. And two months. Two weeks."

"You got this down to the hour?" Clint shot him a sidelong look that was almost a grin.

Phil paused a second, then shrugged. "Five days. About eleven hours."

"Impressive."

"The length of time or...?"

"Nah. The human stopwatch thing."

"I don't try to do it. Certain dates just stick in my head and I find it pretty easy to count up."

There was a definite grin this time. "Any about me?"

Phil smiled back. "Really wanna know?"

"Sure. I'm curious."

"Six months, one week, three days and about ten hours since I brought you in."

Clint shook his head, whistling between his teeth. "You're like a fucking computer."

"Few bugs in the code."

"None that look that bad to me."

"You think?"

"Yeah." Clint nodded firmly. "You take something in the mornings, too?"

"Not usually. There have been a few times my shrink has put me on a supplementary dose, when I've been... bad."

"Don't have to get you a glass of water as well then. Drink your coffee. I'd kill for your bacon blueberry pancakes right now."

---

Not Him (00 : 09 : 02 : 03 : 14 : 34)

"I fucking hate him." Clint glared at a pastrami melt as if it had done him a personal injury. Which was unfair on the sub, really, Phil thought, especially as he knew this was Clint's favourite lunchtime bolthole.

"I've been telling you for three months you need to be able to work with other people," he said patiently, eyeing the archer up over his own coffee mug.

"I will. Mostly. Anyone but fucking him."

It had not been a successful operation. Well, no, that too was unfair. Target acquired, threat dealt with. But Phil had picked up the comms logs after, and three days of sniping back and forth between handler and agent didn't match up to successful in his head, even if the objectives had been achieved.

He sighed softly. The last thing he wanted was for Clint to get the idea he was a frustration or a pain, but he'd already had it up to the neck with having to deal with people today, and the idea of a difficult conversation with the other party didn't exactly set him on fire. Necessary, though. It was one of the perils of the job.

So he'd just go and fucking do it, if needs must.

"I'm going to talk to him," he said. "I've listened to the comms and I'm not so happy with how that worked out, either. But you need to trust me, okay? And give other people a chance."

Clint frowned, sighed, glared out the pastrami again. "Okay. But let the record show, boss, I don't like him one bit."

Phil thought it wiser not to mention he wasn't Rumlow's biggest fan, either.

---

Anniversary (01 : 00 : 00 : 00 : 00 : 30)

"Your posture slipped right at the end there." The words were no more than a whisper, right in Phil's ear.

He nodded, just once, not wanting to give away their position, and whispered back, "I know. Dropped it."

"Opposite, actually. Held on to the riser. But you'd already lost it in the shoulder by then."

There was a moment of silence, a sharp twang, and a deer fifty feet ahead in the forest hit the ground, dead in one.

Phil shook his head, grinning. "That's crazy. I could do that with a rifle, easy, but this..." He stood slowly from their crouch in the bushes, looking to the bow he had in hand.

"No rifles," Clint reminded him. "No mod cons."

"Hey, I wasn't complaining. Just commenting."

"Whatever you say, Phil." Clint shot him a charming smirk and headed off up to the dead deer. "Hope you like venison," he commented. "He's a big one."

"We're only out here for tonight. The rest can go in my freezer. Or yours."

Clint paused in heating up the carcass, raising an eyebrow. "Dunno if you've noticed, but the freezer box in my gilded cage would struggle to fit a squirrel."

"Happy anniversary, Barton. You're getting a cage upgrade. Could even call it going free range."

Clint had the buck over his shoulders by now, but somehow still managed a very quizzical upwards look to Phil. "Anniversary?"

Phil nodded, reaching to take Clint's bow to make his life a bit easier. Neither said it, but they both knew there was a hell of a deal of trust there that Clint passed it over without so much as a frown, knowing without question that it was still his, that he'd get it back without even having to ask. "It's a year today I brought you in," he said easily. "And I figured I couldn't let that slide without an anniversary present."

"So you... What? Got me a fucking apartment?"

"Cleared your probation so you can get yourself one. I considered it, but I didn't wanna assume what kind of place you'd want. And by the way, welcome to SHIELD... specialist."

Clint hesitated a second, his steady footsteps slowing so much Phil paused too. "You okay?"

The grin told him everything he needed to know. They walked back to camp in companionable silence.

---

Clint could gut and strip a deer more efficiently than anyone Phil had ever seen, and that was coming from a family who'd done an annual hunting vacation in the fall. Dinner was on the go and done in what felt like no time flat, and by the time the last rays of the sunset slipped through the trees and the sky above their clearing was dark and starlit, both were settled contentedly in their sleeping bags, still out by the fire for now, happy to watch the stars and the embers burning low.

"Ever think you'd get to here?" Phil asked quietly, into the dusky night.

"To a forest in upstate New York? To taking a mini camping vacation with my boss?" Phil could hear the smile on the words.

"Yeah, that. And all the rest. SHIELD. You're happy, aren't you?"

Clint was silent for a long moment. Phil almost started to worry, then he finally spoke up. "Yeah. More'n I can remember being before."

Phil smiled into the dark. "For what it's worth, me too."

Clint shifted just enough to look at him. "Seriously?"

"Right now, yeah."

Clint snorted. "Come on, Phil. You got the white picket fence childhood. In Minnesota, sure, but even so."

"Heyy. Nothing wrong with Minnesota."

"If you say so, gopher. Eh. But I'm serious. This is your happy place?"

Phil thought for a moment, not wanting to lie to him. "Okay, maybe not more than ever before. But it's been a long time since I was comfortable just being with someone like this."

"Like a friend." Clint was definitely looking at him now, up on one elbow and all. "Even I've had friends before, Phil, resident fuckup over here. Jesus, I've got one or two at the office by now. ...fuck me, there's a sentence I never thought I'd say."

"I have friends," Phil said. "Sitwell, Maria... Even Fury on a good day. And others. None outside of work, really, but people I can trust in the field and can call if... I don't know, if I needed a hand moving in exchange for a case of beer and a takeout."

"But you wouldn't take them camping for their work anniversaries, is that it?" Clint sounded amused, but also genuinely curious, like this was a part of Phil he hadn't worked out yet and he'd decided right now was the time to get to the bottom of it.

Phil nodded against his roll-up pillow. "Something like that. I'm pretty quiet, Clint. Some days the kind of bullish stuff I have to do at the office... It gets tiring. You're..."

He trailed off, and was damn grateful that Clint picked up in the gap. "Is it a depression thing?"

"Probably related. People get really tiring sometimes. I manage at work because... Well, I have to. And I genuinely love what I do, don't get me wrong, and I'm damn good at it. Aldridge says I'm introverted, and sure, I roll with that quite a lot in my narrative in my head, I guess, but I don't love the label. It implies..."

In the gap again, like a hawk-winged angel. "Meek. Shy. Incapable."

For an adult illiterate (less so by now, but still not fully confident) with a bit of dyslexia on the side, Clint sure could thesaurise his way to a connotation. Phil nodded again. "Right. Things I think everyone would agree I'm not."

"Everybody's just coping, Phil," Clint said quietly, with a rustle that told Phil he'd lain down again. "Everybody's got their things."

"Sure, I know that."

Clint was silent for a long moment. "You know how you own 'mental'? How me and Jasper Sitwell can get away with saying that about you and it's not offensive to ya?"

"Sure."

"Maybe you should own 'introvert' too."

Phil glanced sidelong at him, that second-glance profile with the strong jaw and nose that'd been broken maybe once too often. "Okay, come on."

A shrug. "It don't have to mean all that meek and incapable shit. Maybe it just means people get tiring, and you cope with it. Same as mental just means you got something screwed up in your head and you have practical and medical ways to deal with it. Same as circus freak means damn good shot with a really cool weapon."

Phil laughed softly. "Who would dare call you a circus freak?"

"I do. Can't write or read so well but I think everybody's got that narrative in their head you were talking about, Phil."

Phil was silent for a long moment. Sometime in that moment, they got closer. He wasn't sure who moved. Or maybe who moved first.

"My ex said I was just shy. Always hated that."

"Your ex is a bitch."

"Mm. Bastard is probably a more accurate term."

Clint glanced at him but didn't comment. "Bad breakup?"

"Hah. Just about the worst, but that's not why he was a dick. I don't blame him one bit for leaving, in the end."

Clint rolled up on an elbow again, staring him down fiercely. "Don't do that. It wasn't your fault. I dunno what happened. I don't care what happened. But it wasn't your fault."

Phil blinked. "I— Jesus. Clint, no, it's not like that. I... He..." He paused for a long moment, then sighed and shuffled to sit up, dragging the sleeping bag around himself. "In a purely technical sense, it was my fault. Work followed me home. And he was a civilian and... You can imagine how that might have gone down."

"Followed you home like...?"

"Like five hostiles coming through our bedroom window."

Clint sat up a bit straighter, whistling between his teeth. "Jesus."

"Yeah."

"What happened? I mean, if you wanna tell me."

Phil paused for so long that Clint shuffled a fraction closer and laid a hand on his knee, over the fabric of the sleeping bag. "You don't hafta."

"Maybe not tonight. Don't ruin it."

Clint nodded. "Guess we can leave the 'worst bits of our lives' for later, yeah."

"I have two," Phil said quickly, before he could think about it and deliberately stop himself. "That and one other. I don't talk about them much, but I will tell you. Just not tonight."

Clint looked at him so earnestly that Phil felt his heart twinge. Sure, he hid behind sarcasm and dirty humour and smirking self-deprecation, but get past that, gain his trust, and something in there was so fucking real and raw...

And caring.

Clint Barton wasn't just an asset any more. Officially, now, outside of probation and with a shiny new Specialist title, but he ought to have known for months that he wasn't just another agent to Phil. And Phil was pretty sure he'd long ago stopped just being a suit and a sharp shot to Clint.

"Whenever you want, Phil," he said quietly, laying his cheek on Phil's shoulder. This was a first; they were friends, close friends, but even with Clint rooming on the couch every Friday without fail, there had always been a quiet sort of gentleman's boundary on personal space. Casual touching did happen, of course it did — especially Saturday morning breakfast time, in Phil's little kitchen, when it wasn't unusual for one to nudge the other gently out of his path with light fingertips on a waist or shoulder and a mutter of 'Can I just get... ah, thanks', but this was more deliberate and settled than any of that had ever been.

Phil wrapped an arm around his shoulders and kept him close, and felt Clint relax at the silent permission.

"Hey," he said quietly. "You know much about astronomy?"

Clint turned his head just enough to look at the patch of starlit sky above their clearing. "Fuck all. Tell me."

---

Apartment (01 : 02 : 00 : 03 : 12 : 20)

"Who knew moving was this hard?" Clint flopped across the kitchen counter of the apartment which had become his own less than an hour ago, legs sprawled open across its entire length. "Jesus, man."

Phil laughed and took a perch on the edge of a sturdy packing box. "Who knew you'd acquired this much stuff?"

"Yeah, that's hella new. Always used to travel light." He glanced around from his perch on the counter, shifting up to sit cross-legged on its empty surface. "Think I brought half your apartment with me."

"I managed to hang on to the furniture."

"Hey, I have a bed!"

"And tomorrow you get a couch."

"Weird." Clint shook his head. "This is fucking weird, Phil. My name on a lease."

"Alias, technically, but I take your point." He stood up from his box perch and made for the kettle, the first thing to be plugged in. "Coffee?"

"Love one. Hey, Phil?"

"Uh huh?"

Clint hesitated for just a second. "You wanna stay the night?"

Phil paused, not turning around, but he knew Clint was more than observant enough to catch the slight tension across his shoulders. "Sure."

"I mean. Only if you wanna."

"No, sure, sounds good. We can clear up a space on the living room floor and I'll put a few blankets down."

"Nah, you're way too old for that shit."

"I'm thirty — six, thanks a lot!"

"Just come in the bed."

The invitation felt somehow loaded, despite the very casual tone of its delivery. Phil concentrated on stirring cream into their coffees for a moment before he replied. "You better not snore."

"You better not wriggle." He turned just in time to catch the back end of Clint's grin, somehow strangely shy.

Phil smiled slightly and handed one of the coffee mugs across to him, leaning back on the counter opposite so they were face to face. "Trazodone sees to that. Though I'll probably go half-dose."

He caught the words too late, saw the flicker of concern and disappointment in Clint's eyes before the archer managed to hide it. His tone was casual and playful when he spoke, but Phil had seen the look and felt bad already.

"Don't trust me, boss?"

"Sure I do," he said, deliberately light but with a firm edge of sincerity. "It's just a new place. I'd do the same anywhere."

Clint frowned. "How long's it been, Phil?"

"Since we met? A year and two months. And about three and a half days."

"You think in fourteen months you could manage to trust me a little?"

"Clint, I do. Jesus, man, I do. More than you know. It's not you. It's not."

Clint shrugged, stayed quiet.

Phil sighed. "Look... You know the things I don't talk about yet?"

Another shrug.

"The second of those, chronologically, was the five hostiles incident. Look, I've personally done security on this place, hell, we did that before the viewing, you know that. And it's fine, it is. Honestly, you're safer here than I was, generally speaking, in that apartment. But your bedroom window, that sash type, that's the same kind we had. And with your bed where it is, it's..."

Clint glanced up at him for the first time in a while, then set his coffee aside and hopped lightly off the bench. "C'mon, boss."

"Where?"

"We're gonna move the bed before the rest of the furniture shows up tomorrow."

---

The rest of the day passed in a blur of boxes and packing tape and bickering about where things should live, a takeout for dinner a few hours too late, and finally collapsing into the repositioned bed in the small hours of the morning. Both were tired, but there was a glitter of happiness and achievement in their eyes.

They had chatted a little and said goodnight and been lying there for maybe ten minutes when Phil felt a hand on his hip and, despite the fuzz of half a Trazodone, was immediately in a sickly, sleepy alert.

"Still awake?" Clint whispered against his back, and a second later he was rolled and the hand had slipped across his abdomen to graze the opposite hip, nudging at the bare skin between his shirt and the borrowed sweatpants standing in for pyjama bottoms.

Stay calm, he thought, for God's sake he needs you to stay calm.

"Yes," he whispered, "but could I ask you to move that arm?"

Clint withdrew immediately. "Fuck... Fuck Phil, I'm sorry, I thought... You look like someone's just nearly shot you, fuck..."

Deep breaths, Phil reminded himself. Perfectly safe. Just Clint. Still, he shuffled himself to sitting, the effect of the antidepressants sending a different sickening lurch through his head at the movement.

"You want me to go?" Clint murmured, sitting up too but keeping a safe distance between them, letting Phil have the covers to wrap over his knees.

"No," he said firmly. "Don't go. It's not what you think."

"I just figured I— after everything, God, it doesn't have to be some big deal, just after all you've done for me— I'm fucking good and I won't run my mouth off at work about it if you wanna..."

Phil was vaguely aware there were some worrying concepts in that explanation, but let it fly while he concentrate on breathing and not being sick. "Clint, just— just a second. Just... Come here, maybe? But. Don't. Don't hold on."

Clint frowned, nodded, and shuffled closer to tuck in by Phil's side, minding to keep his hands and arms to himself. Carefully, Phil laid an arm around him, warm skin against a strong back.

"We're going to unpack your apparent obligation in a minute," he said, a little impressed at how steady his voice was. "But first. Explanation. I'm... I'm really not good at being held down. Even just your arm over me, it felt... I know you didn't mean it that way. I get that. But I felt confined."

Clint frowned again. "Okay. I mean, yeah, I didn't mean it that way. But we've been working together for over a year. I know you're not claustrophobic."

"It's just people, not spaces. And it's worst when I'm... horizontal."

Clint nudged closer, still not putting an arm around him. "Phil... When those guys came through your bedroom window... What'd they do to you?"

"Nothing as bad as you're thinking. But points for perception, Hawkeye. That's exactly why I'm edgy. I was on different drugs then, and man, if you think the Trazodone is bad... I can wake up from that, I'm sleepy and sickly on a full dose but I can make myself do it. Then, it was one type of antidepressant and another one, a real sleeping pill. I woke up with Mike screaming and a guy sitting on my chest."

"Jesus," Clint whispered. Phil twitched as he felt an arm uncoil and slide very gently across the small of his back. "Shh. It's okay, you're all clear forward. I'm not gonna hold on to you. You're okay."

"I know. I know, Clint, I— fuck, Christ, I hate this."

"Hate what?"

"Weakness."

The hand on his back was firmer for a moment, but still not holding him down or back if he did choose to move. "Phil. You're the strongest guy I've ever known. Way more than me."

"Don't do that. It's not a competition."

He felt the slight movement by his side as Clint shrugged. "Okay. Shall we go with 'less fucked up than me' then?"

"You're not that bad."

"Man. How long have you known me?"

"Fourteen months and three… almost four days." The response was almost automatic, and it surprised him a little when he heard a soft half-laugh in reply.

"Right. Weird stopwatch thing. That's kinda cute, boss." Silence for a moment — Phil wasn't too sure how to take that one, though it felt broadly positive — then, quietly, "I'm pretty fucked up too. And I'm pretty sure you cope better than I do."

"Clint. I keep drink and smokes in my bedside drawer just to prove to myself I can not touch them."

"What did you just tell me?" Gently, barely a whisper of a touch, Clint hooked a finger under his chin and made a very light suggestion Phil should turn to look at him. "It's not a competition," he went on, once they were eye to eye. "You wanna see my scars? Because I'll show you. I'm not ashamed of 'em now."

"Scars?" Well done, Coulson. Definitely the smartest question of the night.

Clint just shrugged again, unperturbed. "You ain't the only guy in the world ever wanted to die. And don't think I haven't twigged the gun in your drawer at home isn't just self-defence, neither. Even if you only admit to the whiskey and cigarettes being there for a test." He paused a moment, the hand on Phil's back tightening a fraction again. "But we're still here, right?"

Phil smiled slightly, for the first time in what felt like a long time. "You don't get rid of me that easily. When did you go through my stuff?"

He didn't mean the question as accusatory, didn't even think it sounded it, but Clint stiffened just the slightest bit by his side. After a long pause, the answer was just a mumble. "First night I stayed over. You were in the shower. And I'm real quick and quiet."

"And you just let me get on with the 'I don't drink' all that time?"

"Never saw you drink, never saw you hungover until that time I got ballsy and brought you a coffee in. And…" He hesitated for another second or two. "I checked a couple more times. The amount in the whiskey never moved. Or changed colour, so you weren't topping it off with water."

Phil rather thought he should feel utterly violated, but that wouldn't come. Clint had slipped so quietly into his life, curling around the blank spaces and warming up the cold spots gently, softly, without a fuss or a murmur. Maybe if he'd known at the time he would have been hurt or angry, but now…

"And eventually," Clint went on in the slow silence that followed, "I guess I figured I was already accidentally trusting you on so much other stuff I should just let it go."

Accidentally trusting, Phil thought. Like someone slipped in so quietly that they'd become part of your life before you really saw it.

They were both quiet then, Clint having apparently decided that was enough emotional vulnerability for him for now. The internal stopwatches all went on the blink in the same moment, making it hard to judge how long they sat there together, touching but not holding, almost a hug that didn't quite get there.

"Hey," Clint said after a second. "C'mere." He shifted suddenly, turning them both with a firm motion so they were closer to facing. "Trust me, okay?"

"I… okay?"

"I'm not much of a gilded cage, boss." Strong fingers trailed up Phil's forearms, crossed the line of the t — shirt sleeves and up to his shoulders, holding on just lightly. "But I'm not gonna lock the door behind you the second you let your guard down, okay? Just— just give me a couple seconds, okay? I'm not gonna hold on tight."

Phil nodded. It seemed the only course of action when he had no idea what to say.

He held out three and a half seconds, arms twining around Clint's ribs before he'd thought about it, before he felt the first twinge of well — trained fight or flight and mumbled, "Off," against a firm shoulder.

Clint reacted immediately and smoothly, no panic in response, just dropped his hold without pushing Phil off, hands coming to rest lightly on Phil's forearms again, tracing light patterns that never rested in one place too long. "Okay there?" he murmured back, head bowed to whisper in his ear.

A little nod. "Yeah. Not so bad. Told you, it's worse when I'm horizontal."

Clint shifted then, sitting them both up properly, though the gentle patterns stayed. "Okay. So let's say there's a midline, right…" One finger on each side pointed, touching from the bone of his wrist up to the outside of his elbow, up his arm to the outer point of his shoulders. "There. And whichever side of you I'm on, I'm not gonna go past that line unless you say it's okay to."

Phil blinked. "That… sounds okay. Yeah, that should be okay."

There was a little grin in response. "Wanna know a secret?"

"Sure, if you wanna tell."

"I would never have figured out to think of that if not for this one guy who captured me this one time…" He paused, glanced at him to clock Phil's slightly concerned frown, grinned in reply. "And turned out to be pretty much the only guy I've ever known who gave a shit what I wanted."

Phil smiled slightly, let the silence stay between them for a moment before he moved. "You want to lie back down? I'll be okay."

"Sure." A moment of shuffling followed, Clint fitting into place behind him, not touching except for a hand light on his hip. They were both quiet for a moment more, then, "So… were you just freaked out cos I went over the line?"

God, there were so many ways to take that statement. Phil considered the professional boundaries one first before remembering that he'd said they were going to unpack that apparent obligation before they'd wound up doing the Coulson Therapy Hour. "There's the fraternisation aspect, sure. But I was figuring that out until you went to 'after all you've done for me'."

He felt Clint pause behind him. "Well. You have."

"That's not a good reason to sleep with a guy, Clint."

Another long pause. Phil imagined Clint thinking it's not?, and not wanting to say that, and wondered, not for the first time, what had happened in the many gaps there were in his knowledge of the archer's speckled past.

At last he heard, just the slightest bit — sharp? Or was that hurt? "It is for me."

He moved just enough to cover Clint's hand with his own, moving them both a fraction forward to rest just past the mid — line point on his waist. It'll be okay, he thought, as long as I've got this hand here, as long as I'm on top.

"Not for me," he said, deliberately careful, gentle. "I'm never gonna expect that of you. Never."

Clint stayed quiet, the hand tightening fractionally before drawing back to rest on the mid — line again without shucking Phil's off. His breathing was shallow and calm, but didn't drop to the low steady thrum of sleep before the Trazodone fog took Phil down again.

---

Natasha (01 : 06 : 02 : 05 : 14 : 45)

Friday nights stayed the same, which was something of a relief. For days after the Apartment, Phil was concerned something had changed. Well— something had changed, but whether it was good or bad annoyingly refused to make itself apparent for days. It wasn't until the following Thursday when Clint caught him in the corridor and said, "On for tomorrow?" that he thought it might be okay. When Friday night turned into Saturday's early hours and Barton made himself a contented nest on Phil's couch, he dared to breathe again for the first time in almost a week. Normality had apparently resumed.

They didn't talk about it. Clint didn't ask again about either the Five Hostiles or the Other Thing which Phil had mercifully avoided going into yet, and Phil didn't push him any more on the strange and sad obligation thing. He did catch himself keeping a closer eye on who else Clint was interacting with, trying to judge in his own mind if those relationships were… okay.

Just friendly concern. Professional, too, since he was Barton's immediate supervisor. Just making sure nobody was taking advantages. It was only when he saw a junior agent touch Clint's arm in the canteen, lean in and whisper a joke in his ear — probably nothing more than friends; it was loud in there, leaning in wasn't unknown — and caught himself thinking try it and I'll kick you down the HR corridor so hard you won't sit for a month that he realised it might have gotten a little more personal than professional.

But he couldn't go down that route. Not without knowing how Clint really felt, being certain it wasn't obligation or a slightly skewed sense of duty to the firm. And even on their Fridays there just never seemed to be a good time to even begin that conversation…

So when, three months later, the well — established crack team of Barton and Coulson brought in the Black Widow and in two weeks flat she had assimilated without a word of complaint, and a week later she and Clint were practically inseparable, he figured it was None Of His Business and bit his tongue.

And when, the following Friday, Clint said he and Nat were having a thing at his place tonight, come along if you wanna, more than welcome, Phil cried off on the grounds of drowning in paperwork and called Aldridge, and considered it a win that he managed not to mention Clint Barton once.

---

"Okay. What's eating you?"

Phil didn't even look up from the paperwork on his desk at the familiar light thud of his favourite asset dropping almost soundlessly from behind the unscrewed vent shaft cover in the top — right corner of his office. Changing offices a few months ago, following a promotion and clearance level earned, had put Clint off for precisely half a day, and that was only because he'd had to sticky-fingers a screwdriver from one of the maintenance guys to undo the cover. This was remarkably normal in its absurdity.

"I thought you were covering a shooting class for Sitwell's rookies," he said mildly.

Clint crossed the room to the little couch tucked in between the door and two file cabinets, dropping down there with easy elegance, long legs outstretched across the length of it. (Phil didn't mean to look, he swore.) "They've been here six weeks. I set them up with Yankovic as range captain and left them to get an impromptu lesson in independence."

"Yankovic. Stocky dark guy?"

"Yeah. Great with a rifle. Crap with a pistol. Good leader type."

"Fair enough, I suppose." Apart from a 'hello' glance up, he still hadn't really looked away from the paperwork.

"So I'm gonna ask you again. What's eating you?"

"Why do you ask? I'm fine."

"And I'm the queen of Sheba, boss. You haven't hardly said a word to me since last Friday. Nearly a week."

Phil sighed, paused, replaced the cap on his favourite Captain America rollerball, set it down perfectly parallel to the neat stack of papers in front of him. Not quite perfectly. A slight nudge to the nib end got it in line. From the look Clint was giving him when he did at last look up, Barton had watched the entire performance with something between frustration and concern.

"I'm okay," he said after a moment, an imperceptible breath to steady his voice. "You free Friday night?"

"Yeah, sure. Long as I'm back at mine for lunchtime-ish. Nat's coming over."

Of course she fucking is, thought Phil, man dangerously close to in love, swiftly followed by well, that's very good that she's integrating so well from Agent Coulson, perpetual professional. The latter won out, of course. Always would. "Good that you've got plans together."

"'Plans' is pushing it. She's decided I need to go shopping. Actually, you wanna come?"

No, I want you to stop trying to get me to gooseberry your obvious dates, Phil thought, and Agent 'Professional Distance + Personal Relationship = Most Effective Team' Coulson just had to go and say, "Sure, if you don't mind your dad over here cramping your style."

Clint laughed at that, real and open, and there was something so unconcerned and unguarded about it that Phil had to grin too. "You're not that old. I'm like, twenty-sixish. She's probably about twenty-four. No way you're old enough to be our dad, unless you were getting freaky when you were ten or eleven."

The 'probably' interested him in a purely professional, pastoral sense. Natasha Romanoff had come with a package of obviously false memories and a convoluted history she seemed entirely happy not to unpick just yet, if ever. If she'd gotten to figuring out she was 'probably about twenty-four' with Barton, that was a good sign. Though it made him wonder just how young she'd started, when all the intel they'd managed to gather had suggested the Black Widow had been operating solo (and very effectively) for half a decade. She hadn't just come out of nowhere, after all…

Honestly, he was getting a reputation for picking up the waifs and strays here. Fury had come straight to him (and by extension, very explicitly stated extension, Barton) on the Black Widow case. After eighteen months with just a few minor and easily accommodated hitches with Clint, he supposed they'd been the obvious choice. But goddamn it, he was running a nontraditional recruitment drive, not a fucking dating agency.

No, stop; that's getting personal again, Phil.

"Not that there's anything wrong with that." Apparently he'd been silent a moment too long, because Clint was off again. "I'm sure as hell not one to talk. Just thought that's a bit young for kids."

"You were— when you were eleven?"

Clint hesitated at the sudden sharp look. Something in the mood of the conversation changed; he was close to withdrawing again, Phil could tell. He hadn't done that in any significant sense in nine months, three weeks and six days. Not when it was just the two of them. Even the Apartment hadn't knocked him so much he'd gone back to square one, but the look in his eyes right now was very close to eighteen months, two weeks and five days ago.

"It's okay," Phil said, softer. "Just curious. Talk to me?"

Clint was silent for another moment, and when he did speak, it was quiet. "It was just me and my brother then. Well… we had a kinda circus gig, some friends, but mostly him and me. Specially for me. Barney always looked out for me. Back then, anyway."

"Go on," Phil said gently, when Clint paused for longer than several breaths.

"He split not so long after. Dunno where. Dunno why. Just up and left me there one day. Midnight flit."

"Shit. I'm sorry." The brother was known to SHIELD — small-time criminal, not worth keeping a close eye on. But Clint had been doing far worse when Phil had brought him in, and look how he'd turned out. People did what they had to do to survive. Maybe it would be worth digging out a few files, see if he could be tracked down. Get a little reunion going. Get the brother sorted out, on the right lines. It was doubtful Phil would find two Hawkeyes in one family but that didn't make the attempt worthless, for Clint's sake.

"It wasn't all bad. I had a couple friends in the circus looked out for me after he went. Until I was old enough to look out for myself."

"Even so. Dick move. No offence."

Clint barked a dry, humourless laugh. "None fucking taken, boss."

"Right. So…" He paused a moment. "You were telling me about when you were eleven."

Clint shrugged. "I made a cuter kid than I turned out grown up. And we had to eat."

Every one of the files Phil had been imagining reopening in his mind slammed shut, one after the other in quick succession, sealed down with riveted steel bars. "Your brother was… sixteen, right?"

"Sure, I guess about there."

For a brief moment, Coulson felt the same kind of rising bile he got from trying to fight off a Trazodone hangover: not actually at risk of being sick, but he could almost taste it. Bastard. And Clint God, Clint still thought even now that that had been looking out for him. "Jesus, Clint," he whispered.

"It's fine, boss. Chill."

"It's not fine. You were eleven. He should've been looking after you—"

"He did." The words were flat, but the tone brooked no arguments. "Checked the guys out before. Would've shanked them if they'd hurt me. If I didn't first."

"But this was all his idea, I take it."

"I dunno. I guess so."

"I would think so. God, you must've just hit puberty, if that. I doubt the thought would've occurred to you."

"I wasn't exactly a late bloomer, yanno." Clint sounded genuinely stung, and Phil reminded himself of all the psych training he'd done for SHIELD, to say nothing of all the years with Aldridge picking up bits by backwards-engineering the techniques the shrink used on him.

"I didn't mean it as a bad thing," he said carefully. "It's not a bad thing. It's normal." And your brother is an abusive dick. Of course you goddamn weren't, in those circumstances.

"Something I definitely ain't." Clint shrugged and swung his legs up off the couch to stand, heading for the door. Conversation over. "So you wanna come on Saturday or what? I'll let Nat know."

It was important to maintain what bits of normalcy they could in this relationship, around unprofessional personal feelings and the baseline abnormality of SHIELD on a standard Wednesday. "Sure. I'd love to."

"Sure. See you Friday, then." And then he was gone.

Coulson gave it thirty seconds for Clint's footsteps to recede down the corridor before he performed an actual, real-life, and truly spectacular headdesk.

---

Undercover (01 : 10 : 03 : 02 : 18 : 30)

"Natasha is so fucking capable it's kind of an insult," Clint informed his coffee mug, apparently reluctant to turn his full ire on Phil, "but she's been here five minutes. And we're all going undercover?"

They had claimed the corner table of the little cafe which had become their favourite since Paperwork, and they were both keeping their voices low, and it was quiet, but Phil still glanced around subtly to double-check they were clear. "Right. Three months minimum. She's a paralegal, I'm an accountant, and you get the fun job. Security contractor."

That did at least raise a bit of a smile. "Homeland security?"

"Literally homeland. We're going to be in Alabama."

"Alabama? Come onnn. Why don't shady possible-terrorist operations set up home in a fun city? Vegas would be cool."

"Sure, but this is real life."

Clint rolled his eyes, but he was grinning a little. "I guess."

"Keep up your Dari and Pashto and we'll be out in the dunes wishing we'd stuck with Alabama in no time."

"Doing pretty well on those, actually. See?" He nicked Phil's rollerball from where it lay beside the folder which sat between their coffee mugs and scrawled Alabama sucks on its back cover in a fluid Arabic script.

"Told you. You're Roman alphabet dyslexic. You'll probably do well in Cyrillic and Greek, too."

Clint snorted. "Whatever. I just don't read."

God, Phil thought, imagine that being a light, friendly, self-deprecating joke the first time we sat here. It was unthinkable. It was incredible how far he'd come.

"You read in two dialects of Arabic just fine." Phil had proven this more than once now; the first time had been a post — it very lightly applied to Clint's forehead to let him know that Phil was slipping out to the corner shop for milk to make pancakes, in case he stirred from his couch nest and was concerned or confused by being alone. They hadn't explicitly mentioned it, but the moment he got back Clint had asked if he'd just got milk or coffee creamer too, so the trial had clearly been a success. Since then, he'd managed to subtly prove to himself that despite learning from scratch as an adult, Clint's comprehension was already considerably more fluent in Arabic than it was in English, negating any worries of having forced him to struggle through the note. He'd requisitioned them both Arabic — script cell phones since then, for general use just between the two of them, on the guise of practise; he couldn't help noticing, though, that the texts he got from that number were notably longer and of a higher reading grade than the English ones, and came back quicker too. Give or take the odd grammar mistake which came naturally with learning a second language, he was damn good.

"Arabic doesn't fuck around like English does. Anyway. Alabama?"

"Yeah. All the intel is in the folder you just graffiti'd. I translated it to Pashto; thought I'd give you a challenge." Or rather, less of a challenge than reading ninety pages in English when you don't strictly have to.

"Gee, thanks, boss. This is gonna be a real fun evening."

"Enjoy. I've got the bill." Phil shunted the folder over Clint's way and pocketed his pen (Clint had been eyeing it up for a while now, and no fair-weather Cap fan was getting their dirty paws on that pen, no matter how much Phil liked them) before standing up to leave. "See you tomorrow, Clint."

"Not if I see you first," Clint said good naturedly, flickering a hint of a wave in his direction. "Not when you're in a mood to give out paperwork."

---

Tea (01 : 11 : 03 : 03 : 01 : 06)

Phil had done undercover before, so many times it was second nature. Often even a bit fun. He'd led a small ops team in such things enough times that that shouldn't have been an issue. There was something very liberating about being someone else all the working day and the occasional work-related evening. Perhaps surprisingly, it didn't generally set off the anxiety or introversion — probably, he thought, because the whole thing had a safe shell over reality, a patina of pretence.

But for some reason, this one had set his teeth on edge from day one.

Maybe it had been seeing one of the in — house lawyers blatantly treating the new paralegal — Natalie, for now — in a manner that should have gotten him a disciplinary on the grounds of sex discrimination (and possibly a slap) within the first week. Natasha hadn't even mentioned it in their briefings, which was another level of worrying. Maybe it was the lax attitude to internal information security (and exact opposite regarding external audit scrutiny, down to outright lying about the balance sheet of the front company, never mind the illegal operations) which made his operational analyst side twitch. Maybe it was the open, joking attitude to both race and gender inequality and apparent core business value of 'queers, har har, am I right?'— so entirely unsubtle it might as well have been on page one of the employee handbook.

Whatever it was, it made it much harder to shut off his neuroses and keep cover. The armour never showed a crack, but underneath it got harder every day.

Coming into the business at around the same time meant it was hard to even see the rest of the team during business hours. Phil had done ops before, generally with Sitwell, where they'd staggered their start dates and quickly established they had worked together at some other place on their entirely fictional resumes. It would have seemed out of place there, especially with Natasha supposedly being not long out of college and Clint ex — army. And they couldn't risk being seen together outside of work, either; even Friday nights were off the table until or unless any of them managed to fit in a natural meeting in the office and supposedly hit it off there and then. Phil had slightly more reason to speak to Natasha, since the finance and legal operations had more overlap, but even then it was pushing it for a management accountant to approach a paralegal for much. Clint was almost entirely a lost cause, except for catchups on an encrypted secure line well outside of office hours.

Maria Hill and Nick Fury were right on the other end of that secure line too, and backup would be there in under seven minutes should the need arise. They weren't alone, but damned if Phil didn't feel it.

When the secure line cell rang late on a Friday night, Clint's ringtone, he wouldn't admit he leapt on it like a lifeline. The 'hey' was mercifully a lot more casual than he felt.

"Hey, boss. Y'okay? Didn't wake you up, yeah?"

He'd been doing circuits, around the plush open-plan kitchen and living room of an apartment befitting a deputy financial controller, circling the kitchen island and past the couch, round the corner table, past the bookcase and bulletproof front windows, back through the archway and around the island again, for the last twenty minutes. Half a Trazodone dose might knock him out. Might not. Halving it for this long was doing nobody any favours, least of all himself.

"Yeah, fine, and nope, just doing some paperwork."

"Alabama paperwork or DC paperwork?"

"Uh— DC."

There was a pause, a shuffle on the line, then, "You sure you're okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." Not falling apart significantly more than usual, anyway.

"Really sure? Just… you sounded a little off on the conference call to HQ earlier tonight."

Shit. So he'd noticed. That wasn't good. If Clint had twigged, who else? Fury? Hopefully not — Nick was damn good, but relied on Phil telling him when he needed a break. As a boss and commander, he was understanding and made reasonable allowances where their job permitted it, but he very rarely made the first move. Occasionally after a tough op he'd order Phil to take a day, but he couldn't bring to mind a time in the last six years Fury had called him out in situ like they were now and told him he needed to give it a rest. Asked once or twice, sure, professional concern, but those questions could easily be put off. Phil had been putting those questions off all his life, ever since elementary school when a kindly Math teacher had tried to tell him he was going to burn out. He'd gotten the highest grades in the finals and spent the first two weeks of summer doing his utmost not to speak to anyone outside of absolutely necessary.

Less easy to dodge with Clint, for some reason.

"Just tired," he said after a moment, which was almost true.

"Not sleeping so well?"

"Yeah. Just a little on edge. It's natural."

"I get that. I've had some bad nights here too. Listen, do you want me to come over? I can settle up on your couch, let you take a full dose and get some proper sleep knowing you've got backup."

God, it was tempting. But…

"Thanks, but it's too risky. Can't guarantee our places aren't being watched. I don't really have reason to believe our targets have cottoned on, but I don't wanna take the risk."

"Boss, it's cool. I've looked you up on the internal address book thingy like four times, if they're paranoid enough to check our computer histories. There's nothing that weird about meeting a guy at work and hanging out, is there? You tell me. I'm not exactly an office lifer."

"Maybe not ordinarily. Not at this time of night though. That looks like a hookup."

"You care what they think? I mean, you've made it clear enough it's not."

He sounded almost… hurt. Almost. It was slight enough that Phil could ignore it.

"Wish I didn't, but I have to. Keeping up appearances matters in an op like this."

There was a definite sigh on Clint's side. "Okay, okay. But you need to get some rest."

"I know. I will. One night of a full dose wouldn't make much odds at this stage, anyway. I've been doing halves this whole time — doubling that would likely knock me out for half the next day without any immediate—" He stopped himself saying 'antidepressant effect' just in time. He knew what this was and he suspected Clint did too, but now was not the goddamn time. He had never let being screwy in the head get in the way of work. Not the depression, not its attendant anxiety and introversion, nothing. Never. He had coping mechanisms, goddamn it.

Except that one time…

No. This is not going to go down like that one.

Clint was silent through the long moment until Phil said, "You know."

"Yeah," he said quietly. "I know. And I know you're doing great. And I know you're the only guy I've ever trusted to make the call for me. You know that too, yeah?"

"Yeah. I know."

Another long pause.

"You know, boss, it's Friday night. Nobody's gonna blame you if you have a couple glasses of scotch to relax."

Silence for long enough for a couple of civilisations to rise and fall. Well, maybe not that long. Maybe enough for Dylan Hunt to take a nap on the event horizon of a black hole. Andromeda reference; Christ, it was worse than he'd thought, then.

"Yeah," Phil said quietly, at last. "I guess not."

"If you wanna, you know."

Pause while the planet Bajor fought off the Cardassian occupation and got back on its feet.

"Yeah."

"You okay?"

The iceberg Cap had nosedived into melted slowly. Sea levels rose a few inches.

"Yeah."

"You're not."

"No, I'm fine."

Get off the phone so I can get pissed in shameful solitude.

"You want me to stay on the phone?"

No! Get lost. Fuck off— god did I really just think 'fuck off' to Clint?

"...Yeah. If you don't mind."

"Sure thing." A pause. "Did I say something wrong just now?"

There was next to no doubt Clint had come across alcoholism before, living the life he had. But it had probably never been conceptualised as a problem; some people just drank. Maybe those people got a little loud and a little violent when they did. Maybe they didn't make it up for work the next day and it was just shrugged off. Or they did, but only because they hadn't stopped for long enough for the hangover to kick in.

But Phil wasn't like those people. Phil could get drunk and he wouldn't be loud and violent and hurt Clint like — like who had in the past? Phil just needed a scotch or two to relax after a long week, keep his brain quiet. Hell, Phil could keep a handle on it, get up and go on Saturday morning, get the groceries in, not think about it again until next Friday, or maybe Thursday but just a couple because work the next day, right?

The misplaced trust broke his heart and strengthened his resolve.

"Nothing wrong," he said softly. "But I'm not gonna touch the scotch."

"I won't tell."

"Clint. Don't."

"But why not? If it'd help… you're safe, you know, if it knocks you out like the Trazodone does. I'll come sit on the roof opposite your window if you want. Just to be sure."

"Clint, stop it. Look, I— I know you're trying to help. And I appreciate it. But what you're doing is called enabling and it's not gonna help me. You've met drunks before, right?"

"Sure. Been there myself a time or two. But you're not like them."

"Yeah, sure, I'm not going to bawl you out or give you a black eye, I don't get like that. But it wouldn't just be one drink. Maybe in company, I can handle that when I'm completely okay, but I— I'm not completely okay right now, and it wouldn't be one or two, it'd be all night and tomorrow and most of Sunday and I might just about drag myself out of it for long enough to tackle Monday or… I might not, and I don't… I can't go back there, Clint. I don't ever drink on my own. Not even with just one other person. Very rarely even in company. I know my own head. I'm not taking that chance."

Another silence, during which Bilbo turned eleventy-one and Frodo had time to chuck the Ring back whence it came.

"Okay," Clint said at last. "I don't get it but I respect it."

"Thanks."

"Any time, I guess." Attitude to alcoholism got added to the ever — extending list of Things We Need To Talk About, right under attitude to healthy sexual partnerships and relationship with bologna. A year and nine months they'd been working together, and for all they'd come so far, there was still a long way to go.

But that… that wasn't the right way to think about it. Not helpful. Never look back, he reminded himself, suddenly thinking of that very first day, when he'd crashed into bed and woken up next to no time later, nine hours after he'd brought Clint in, and the scotch and cigarettes had looked more tempting than they had, at that time, for months. Don't turn around. Don't look back. Always carry on. Left out of the bathroom and straight on to the kitchen.

Or in this case, left around the coffee table and straight on…

"Doing okay, boss?"

"Yeah, I'm okay. Gonna go make myself a mug of tea."

"Tea? For real?"

"My mom used to make me tea when I couldn't sleep. Chamomile. I've only got green, but…"

"Kinda does the same job?"

"There's something weirdly calming about tea."

Clint paused a moment, probably listening to the muffled rustling and the kettle churning and the clink of a teaspoon. "You're not gonna get shit for this, are you?"

"For what?"

"The stuff you were saying about drinking. Kinda seems a bigger deal in boring corporate-people world."

Phil paused, a little touched by his concern. "Fury knows I had… a situation in the past. And nobody's going to be listening in on this line unless I tell them to, anyway. It's okay."

"Okay. Good." Another moment of silence, then, "What else did your mom used to do?"

"You mean when I couldn't sleep?"

"Sure. Or… whatever. I dunno. Never really had one myself."

Story time. Phil wondered, a bit cynically, if it was a ploy to distract him. If it was, it had enough sheer brass balls to actually work.

She'd made cookies. Not necessarily when Phil or his sister couldn't sleep; just in general. They got on to 'in general' fairly fast. She'd loved to cross stitch — still did, though her eyes weren't so great now. She'd volunteered for every school event going, even though she had a full time job too. She never stopped moving — cleaning, sorting, cooking, crafting. She'd prepared and cured the meats Phil and his dad and the uncles and cousins brought back from their annual hunting trip. She'd clucked and commiserated and offered to fly out when Mike left. She was constantly accompanied by a scruffy tan terrier, Hale — the remaining half of Hale and Boyd, puppy siblings who had come into their lives unexpectedly fifteen years ago and been named by Phil since he happened to be home for Thanksgiving around that time.

When he finally fell silent, he was a full mug of green tea down and Clint hadn't said a word outside of 'mm?' and 'go on' in probably fifteen minutes.

"Sorry. I was… rambling."

"A little. Did it help?"

It was ridiculous really, stupid, that talking about home could help at all. And yet. "Yeah. Thank you."

"Any time, boss. Your mom sounds kinda awesome."

"She is. You know, you should come out for Thanksgiving."

A pause at Clint's end. "Uh. For real?"

"Yeah. I mean it." It wasn't like he was going to get many other offers, after all, most likely. And chances were he'd never had a proper Thanksgiving.

"Jesus, boss. You wanna introduce me to your mom?"

"Yeah, sure I do. Though you'll have to be an accountant or something. She knows that's bullshit but she doesn't know what the truth is. And she knows not to ask. We just kind of keep it up and change the subject."

Clint hesitated again. "Hey, off topic. You're actually qualified, aren't you?"

"Yeah, actually. Hence the deputy FC role here. But she won't ask you hard questions, promise."

Clint whistled under his breath. "Anything you can't do, boss? It'd be a shorter list."

"Stay sane undercover, apparently."

"Seems like you're doing okay to me. Yeah, okay. Thanksgiving."

"Yeah? Cool." Phil paused for a long moment, testing out the silence, and found it companionable. Pleasant. Calm. "Hey, I'm going to try and get some sleep, if you're okay."

"I'm cool. Was just calling to check in on you."

The thought gave him a warm and fuzzy sort of feeling. Again, ridiculous, but whatever worked right now, he'd take.

"Appreciate it. I'm okay. Better now. Thanks, Clint."

"Any time, boss. You've got my number."

---

Going to a doctor out here was a stupid plan, and Aldridge was out of the question, being under deep cover, but SHIELD medical knew the score. Phil even reluctantly allowed them to keep an eye on Aldridge, though he'd done full background on the guy personally and would have rather kept the two separate. But needs must.

"You know it's not going to have immediate effect, right?" the medic on the other end of a secure phone line said.

"I know. But I also don't know when I'm gonna be back."

"And I'm not going to take you off Trazodone. This will be an additional and temporary, not a phased replacement."

"I know."

"Okay. I'll get something out in a secure drop. Instructions in the package."

"Thanks. I appreciate it."

"No problem, Agent. You sure you don't need to tag out? I can get it signed off on medical grounds."

"Don't you dare." Phil thought of Clint's bright eyes, catching his gaze subtly in the corridors, and the brief but regular late-night calls. "I've got all the support I need."

---

Go Time (02 : 02 : 03 : 03 : 00 : 43)

Go time came unexpectedly, as was often the case. Coming unexpectedly enough that backup wasn't an immediate option was a little more rare, but certainly not outside the realm of possibility.

In a wreck of an office, desks overturned, papers all over the floor, Clint shouldered his bow and looked around the fallen. A few fatalities; mostly casualties who wouldn't be getting up to present a problem any time in the next hour. The door was sealed; the building was secure. Backup were on comms, ETA under ninety seconds now. It had all gone down in less than six minutes.

"You're kinda kickass, boss," he said lightly, not bothering to hide a grin.

Phil set a stapler down on one of very few remaining upright desks and offered a smile back. "Appreciate you noticing, specialist."

"Faggots," interrupted the FC from a pool of blood on the floor, two badly broken legs and no access to a firearm since Phil had neatly kicked it out of the way two minutes ago.

There was a single gunshot and, despite both legs being broken, the FC coiled up with a scream of pain, instinctively avoiding the spot right by his groin which now sported a neat entry wound to the floor itself. There was a tidy hole in his pressed grey suit trousers, too, but the flesh underneath was unharmed. It had been tempting to shoot his balls off, but no sense in having him bleed out before he'd answered a few questions.

"Did you even look there?" Clint inquired lightly.

"Nah. I have a sixth sense for bollocks and I've wanted to do that for a long time. By the way, can I get you a coffee after we get out of here?"

Clint grinned. "Only if it's a date."

The FC spat — disgust, not excreting unwanted blood — right as Phil beamed and shot back, "You bet it is."

---

Debrief (02 : 02 : 03 : 02 : 00 : 03)

The FC sang like a canary, which was great for the operation and considerably less so for Phil's personal life.

"There's paperwork for this sort of thing." Agent Hill eyed him up sternly over the rim of a mug of steaming sub-standard Triskelion coffee. "And no guarantee whatsoever I'll sign off on it."

Phil sighed. He'd been back in the office four days and not even had chance for that coffee date yet, and already it was looking dicey. "Maria, trust me, it's not going to be a problem."

"It's fraternisation. Really direct fraternisation, given how closely you two work. I'm not sure I can sign off on that in good conscience, Coulson."

"If anything even works out, which it might not, it's not going to impact our working relationship."

"I know you. You don't leap into things. It'll work out."

Phil gave that due consideration for a moment. There were a lot of reasons to think Maria was wrong. Like a laundry list of Things We (Still) Need To Talk About, and the fact the entire thing — date — thing had been arranged on an adrenaline high and serotonin low, neither of which led to thinking straight. And there was no guarantee Clint was in it for dating, anyway, given the night he'd moved into his own place. Christ, if this was a long con to deliver fucked-up payback, gratitude for all he perceived Phil had done for him…

God. No. Not even Clint Barton was that messed up.

Right?

Obvious solution, there, just to be sure about that one.

"Phil?" Maria looked impatient.

"Sorry. Thinking."

Her expression softened, just by a whisker, to display something not too far from concern. "Wanna talk me through the process here? Because this… it's not like you, Phil."

"Okay." Phil took a deep breath. "But we're gonna have to go back a way."

---

Fletching (Minus 01 : 04 : 00 : 06 : 00 : 15)

"It's a hell of a good shot," the ME said, hands in lab coat pockets, staring at the corpse on the slab. "Weird, though. Take a look at this exit wound. Doesn't look like any bullet wound I've seen lately." He lifted the head, turning the neck to display the back of the skull to the two agents observing.

"Energy weapon of some sort?" Sitwell suggested, hanging back a bit so he wasn't eyeball to staring single eyeball with a pasty dead body. "Mutant, maybe?"

"I'm not getting any kind of ionic signature off him. Maybe, though. Can't rule it out at this point."

"Can we turn him a bit more?" Coulson set his briefcase down on the autopsy table alongside their John Doe and stepped forward to help as the ME moved to oblige. "There, in the hair. Fibres."

The ME bent close to investigate, frowning at the foreign material knotted up in the blood and hair on the back of the head. "I'll get them tested."

"Do that," Coulson said. "But I bet you're going to find they're synthetic fletchings. The fibre sort, not foils. Call me when you know."

He retrieved his briefcase and turned to leave, Sitwell hot on his heels. "How did you figure that? What is a fletching, anyway?"

"They're the three bits that stick out on the back of an arrow. My bet is the head of it was slightly barbed, so the only way to get it back was pull through."

"Straight through the guy's brain?" Sitwell looked faintly ill.

Coulson nodded. "Went in through the eye socket and it'd already got itself an exit wound at the back of the skull. Probably not that hard. I need to figure out the distance though — it didn't go clean through and keep going so… maybe a low poundage on the draw? Shit, I don't know enough about archery for this."

"I'm impressed you know anything at all."

"I've had reason to start researching. There have been a few high profile figures shot the old-fashioned way recently."

"You're on the case?"

"Literally, yes. And I think I'm finding other links going back half a decade at least. Whoever it is, he's been good to evade law enforcement all this time."

"Which is why we're involved? Why not the FBI?"

"Because I think you were right."

Sitwell blinked. "About what?"

"Mutant. You should see some of the distances this guy's got. The precision is superhuman — and if my math isn't out, he needs to be consistently pulling two hundred or more pounds to make the shots over some of the ranges I've seen. For context, I spoke to some hobby archers and the highest poundage in their club was eighty. Now he might be using a compound or crossbow, but that doesn't tie up with the physical evidence I've seen from past scenes..."

"Compound?"

"It's another type of bow, mechanical, so you can draw a higher poundage without feeling it, if I understand right. But I've been doing the numbers on it and that doesn't feel right to me, not on all of them. Notably, not on the longest distance kill we've seen yet."

"So we're tracking a mutant Robin Hood. Have you talked to Xavier?"

"Not going there unless I have no choice. This guy is a mercenary. Heartless. He doesn't need protecting."

Sitwell nodded. "Well, let me know if you need me. Are we still on for Thursday lunch?"

"You're buying."

"Thursday lunch on me then. See you there."

---

Ghost (Minus 01 : 02 : 01 : 06 : 01 : 41)

The first time Coulson saw the archer, he was just a shadow, vanishing around a corner just as he slammed down on the right level of the multi-storey opposite the kill site. He ricocheted a shot after him, but got nothing more than a delighted sort of yell for the trouble, the sprinting footsteps not so much as slowing down.

"Shit," he muttered, leaning against the wall as he heard the access door at the end of the corridor slam. "I need eyes on the roof!"

"We're on it, sir!" came the radio response, but they got nothing.

Robin Hood was a ghost.

---

ID (Minus 00 : 07 : 01 : 01 : 23 : 45)

It took another three months to track him down enough to even get a visual, and even then he didn't piece it together until later. And it was an accident.

It also meant the target knew he was being hunted.

Phil Coulson hadn't been pickpocketed in ten years, and not by luck. A combination of knowledge and preparation made him next to infallible, but not cocky. When he felt something move by his jacket pocket, he reached out on instinct, not quite quick enough to catch the thief's wrist.

"Just curious," said a dishwater blond with scruffy gelled hair and impossible eyes, before he grinned and vanished into the crowd, impossible to follow. Phil knew when to cut his losses.

There was nothing missing from his wallet, but his SHIELD ID had been put back in its pocket the other way around.

Later, looking back, realising Clint had more than likely just recognised the company insignia, probably not wasted time trying to read the card before returning it with the intention — presumably — of Coulson not missing it, he wondered if that had been a deliberate little joke to mess with him.

---

Moral (Minus 00 : 03 : 02 : 00 : 18 : 20)

Seven lost opportunities. Five near misses — on SHIELD's part; Robin Hood seemingly never missed. Three more vanishing shadows.

Coulson stayed late in the office more nights than not, poring through the files over and over for clues. There were no links between them, no similarities that would suggest a serial killer with a plan. Mercenary, then. And a damnably good one.

That did allow a kind of rough and ready tracking, but keeping tabs in mercenary sorts was often a hit and miss, guesswork kind of process. He didn't seem to have any single ongoing contract, or an affiliation to a particular group, or anything goddamn useful. Getting in contact to set him up was a dead end. It all came down to legwork, luck and a lot of hard work.

Maybe primarily luck.

Sitwell wasn't officially on the case, but he made a good sounding board over dinner after work one rainy Tuesday. Coulson thought he'd noticed a pattern, and when Sitwell got sick of him looking pensive about it and asked, he was only too happy to tell. Some things you kept to yourself; some you had to get out of your head before they drove you crazy. He'd learnt that a long time ago.

"Robin Hood isn't all bad," he said quietly.

Sitwell looked disbelieving. "Phil, he's a mutant mercenary serial murderer."

"No, hear me out. I know his kill history by heart."

"Because you're obsessed."

"I'm not obsessed. I have a job."

"What you have is OCD."

"OCPD, actually," Phil snapped, "and I use it. Ever heard of Monk?"

"No, actually. What weird sci-fi is Monk in? Firefly, isn't it?"

Useless. Arguably Coulson's closest work friend, and utterly useless. "No, you're thinking of Shepherd Book. Monk's in a comedy crime procedural. And he's got OCD, actually, but even so. The point is he's good at what he does because he uses that instead of being owned by it… Uh, mostly."

"What's the difference? With the P?"

This was well off topic, but since he had the mental fortitude to explain today, Coulson thought he'd better. "OCD is generally characterised by unwanted thoughts or feelings which drive the person to do something — hence 'obsessive compulsive' behaviours. Like a fear of germs leading to hand washing, or having to lock the door four times to be certain. Rituals."

Sitwell raised a sceptical eyebrow. "I have literally stood there and watched you lock, unlock and re-lock Lola. Half an hour ago."

"Okay, okay, but I still argue that's OCPD. The 'P' is 'personality'. Which is pathological concern for orderliness and perfectionism, having control over your environment. And I'm lucky it's fairly mild. The really serious sort cuts you off from changes to routine, new experiences."

Sitwell considered that for a moment. "That… would not be good in the field."

"Yeah. I can do field, but I've got routines for that too. Have to make it liveable. But look at this — we're out of habit here, it's not Thursday lunchtime, and I'm fine." Mostly true. The lack of being in the usual routine gnawed at the very back of his mind, but not so much so it interfered with enjoying the unexpected invitation out.

"Did this come from your shrink?" There was no accusation in Sitwell's tone, just genuine curiosity.

"Yeah. We've decided having clear understanding of my own pathologies is one way to deal with them. Though I've been using coping mechanisms and habits all my life without really noticing it."

"So," Sitwell grinned, harmless. "What you're telling me is you're mental, but it works."

"Pretty much, yes."

He shook his head. "You're something, Phil. So tell me Robin Hood's history off by heart, then."

"I won't bore you with all of it. The salient point is that five years ago he'd off anybody. Now, I've run into him on a SHIELD hit twice in six months. Admittedly it's safe to assume he's going for a kill and we're in it for custody, but the point is he's switched routines. He's got some morality. He only goes after the bad guys now."

"That you know of."

"I've profiled this guy inside-out and backwards. I know how he works. I'd know if the other homicides were on him. And I've got a link in to a guy in every letter agency who'll ping me if we get a hit that matches him, bow and arrow or no."

"No hits?"

"Aha." Coulson pointed with the tip of his fork. "Hits. But listen to the victim list."

"I'm listening."

"Child molester. Two loan sharks. A gang boss, would you believe. An abusive boyfriend. Get the picture?"

"Stuff we're not bothered on, but not good people."

Coulson nodded. "Exactly. He's grown a conscience. He's developing."

"He's still a serial killer."

Coulson paused, sighed. "So are we, technically, Jas."

"Phil, no, we just… do what we have to do. We keep people safe."

"Is that really that different to what Robin's doing?"

Sitwell was silent for a long moment. "You wanna bring him in, don't you."

"Wanna? I'm gonna."

"Fury cleared that?"

Coulson offered the faintest ghost of a smile. "He will."

---

Intake (Minus 00 : 00 : 00 : 00 : 00 : 04)

"I know who you are." It had taken months to corner him, and it was only in that same moment Coulson realised who had stolen his wallet for a look — see in the line at a Starbucks not so long ago. "And you know who I am."

"I know you're SHIELD." Robin had nowhere to run. It had taken ages, too many late nights, and one hell of a stroke of luck, but Coulson had finally got him cornered in his own crappy, run-down apartment. There were retrieval agents on the fire escape and snipers on the window, and Robin was smart enough to realise it, too.

Coulson flashed the badge, letting him catch a glimpse of his shoulder holster in the same movement. "Yeah. We've been looking for you for a while now."

Robin looked defeated, but there was still a shine of something defiant in his eyes. "If you're gonna kill me, just do it. Ain't nobody gonna call the cops on a gunshot around here."

"I'm not here to kill you. I'm here to offer you a job."

That caught his attention, his eyes flickering up both curious and cautious. "You know what I done and you're offering me a job?"

"Technically, I'm taking you into SHIELD custody and making you an asset. But your alternative is a hell of a long trial in a state with capital punishment, so…"

"Not much of a choice, then."

"It's a choice. Just a pretty clear one if I was choosing."

Robin considered it for a long moment. Coulson saw his eyes dart around the little one-room apartment. No doubt he had six separate ways out, and there was a SHIELD agent on every one of them. Bolting wasn't in the list of options.

"You got the pull to write off my rap sheet, then? Or what?"

"If you cooperate, yes."

"I got a contract due."

"Tell me. We can get you out of it."

Robin chewed his lower lip. God, close-up he was just a kid. Maybe eight or nine years younger than Coulson himself — a scruffy, lost early twenty-something, only three or four years out of being a teenager.

I can save you, he thought, and deliberately shut down the thought which intruded after it, like I didn't save them two years ago.

"Okay," Robin said at last. "Guess it beats the electric chair." He offered a hand, half-hearted, defeated. "Clint."

Coulson shook it. "Agent Phil Coulson. You wanna pick anything up?"

All he brought was a duffle bag, already packed, not very full, and a bow case.

I can save you, Phil thought.

---

God Complex (02 : 02 : 03 : 03 : 02 : 20)

"I want you to think about adding 'God complex' to your list of pathologies," Maria Hill said, the second time they met to discuss it. In the intervening time Phil had at least managed to get a shower, change, some sleep and a half-decent coffee, but the sheer quantity of debriefs needed and the level of paperwork outstanding meant he hadn't made it home yet.

There were reasons you couldn't have a cat and do field work.

"You're thinking of saviour complex, ma'am, and I protest."

"Either one. You can't save everyone."

"I'd take your argument better if I couldn't show you two years of steady improvement and a spotless record."

"Aside from all the times he's been subordinate to anyone who isn't you." Maria's glare wasn't terrifying, but that look was definitely a glare. "You have any idea how many times we've had to rearrange shit just so we can get Barton on it?"

"I guess about the number of times I've had to rearrange shit." Even with sleep and coffee behind him, Phil didn't really feel like he had the mental capacity for this right now. What he really wanted was to go home and not see anyone for about four days, except maybe Clint for some of it, and Natasha and Jasper could get phone calls to check in with them, he could handle that much. And technically, he probably could have gotten it without going into mental health reasons: it wasn't so unusual to take a little time off after a medium-term undercover jag. Practicality, however, won out. There weren't four days going spare to go be pathetic elsewhere.

"The point is, there's going to come a time we can't do that. And then he's going to be a liability."

Give up, said the voice in the back of his head. Phil knew that voice only too well. It was the same one as sometimes said May as well give up on today and twin to the one which occasionally tried to suggest One drink won't hurt.

"I don't think that's the case," he said instead, choosing to studiously ignore the voice and focus all his attention, laser-like, on sorting out the Barton Situation for now. "Two years ago, eighteen months, maybe even a year — yes. But not now. He wouldn't love it, and I'd hesitate to suggest that due to not knowing anyone else as well he wouldn't be as effective, but he'd do it if I asked."

"If you asked." Maria sighed. "Phil, you're damn good, and God knows you cover off things that are well above your pay grade on a regular basis, but you asking isn't always feasible."

"You make allowances for me, Maria," Phil said, and though his tone was completely even and professional he knew then, beyond all doubt, that he was Not Okay, because he'd never draw attention to ever having not been if he was. "And I acknowledge those and I'm grateful for them, and by virtue of that I've almost never let you down. Same for him. Different allowances, but same theory."

Maria's expression softened just slightly. "You've never let me down, Phil."

"Four years ago I—"

"That was not your fault. Anyone else would have called it the same way. I would have called it the same way." Maria paused for a long, long moment. "Do you know the Christmas legend?"

Phil nodded. "The story goes you took out a dozen hostiles and made it home in time for the family dinner."

"Close." She took a deep breath. "You were a grade two, I was a five. Didn't know each other. Long time ago. I led those hostiles almost to my stepmom's front door. Complete accident; it wasn't even carelessness, it was just a couple of tiny mistakes in the op, not all on me, that smart, bad people put together, two and two and got lucky, got four. I had backup. My date that year was SHIELD too. But we came damn close to blowing everything. It was mostly luck the whole operation didn't go sky-high. You know how many people have 'brought company home and kicked their asses' legends around here?" She paused again, giving him time to shake his head. Any number he gave would be pure guesswork. "Two. You and me. And we're not the only ones who ever fucked up and did that, either. We're the ones who kicked ass so hard it became a legend the probationaries get told in week one."

"I didn't know the details," Phil said quietly. "What happened to the date?"

"Works in the New Mexico office now. And of course you didn't. That's why it's the Christmas legend. And our probies get told the Bedroom Hostiles legend too. I hear you've got nothing to be ashamed of, by the way, according to most versions." Maria offered a slight smile. "You fucked up, yeah, but none of our people got hurt. Mike didn't get hurt."

"He left."

"Well, with all due respect, do you blame him? He was a civvy."

She had a point. Rationally, he knew that. "Yeah. Fair."

"The point is, there are a whole lot of SHIELD legends that came about because somebody fucked up, and somebody — often the same somebody — fixed that shit. That's what we do, Phil. Fix shit."

He paused for a moment. "I don't know if I'm not following, here, but seems to me that me and Clint fixing shit together is one of the best teams we've had in the history of the organisation."

"Don't get cocky." Maria's tone was sharp, but there was a smile in her eyes, threatening at the corner of her lips. "And don't think I won't come down on you like a ton of bricks if you fuck it up."

"So you're signing off?" He had to be sure. Psychoses or personality or just needing to be clear on the rules, the question had to be asked.

"I'm signing you off, yeah. And I'm ordering you to take the rest of the week."

"I don't need—"

"I got a report from medical."

That stopped him in his tracks. Expected, yes, but still a blow. "Maria, I'm not incapable."

"Nobody's saying you are. You respect the allowances we make so you can be damn amazing at your job? Grateful, you said? Take an allowance for once, jesus."

Phil paused, then nodded. "Just this once."

"You're not special, Coulson. I'd do the same for anybody coming back from mid-term UC work."

He knew that was at least mostly true, and that knowledge, half-forgotten until she'd said it out loud, made it more bearable. "Noted. May I...?"

"Dismissed. Go tell Barton he's got two days' leave too, on your way out. And Romanoff. Good work, team."

"Good talk, ma'am."

"Get outta here, Phil."

---

Easy (02 : 03 : 01 : 00 : 00 : 28)

Dating Clint Barton turned out to be a strange sort of easy.

They already had the trust there; Clint would have been out on his ear long ago — or worse — if Phil hadn't put the time in to make that work. They had a kind of understanding of one another, Clint almost instinctively seeming to get when Phil needed to be on his own and when he needed company. Equal and opposite, Phil could judge when Clint needed some company, and found — unsurprisingly, maybe — that it wasn't the drain on his social psychology that most people would be, to make the time for him. They already had a routine kind of set, Friday nights, though over the following weeks bedtime got later and later, and eventually came to a point that it drifted earlier again but together, pyjama bottoms and the midline respected in the same bed.

Jasper called him on it within three weeks. "You look brighter somehow. Freaking happy or something."

"I've not been miserable my whole life, Jas."

"Just most of it, then? Nah, I mean it, Phil. You're calmer."

Maybe it was true. Friday nights became the odd Wednesday too, and sometimes Sundays or Mondays, and more of Clint's still — limited stuff found its way into Phil's drawers, and a few suits found their way into a corner of Clint's wardrobe, and the mornings after always felt a little easier to handle when he hadn't been facing the first morning coffee alone that day.

Twenty-seven months and a week almost to the hour since he'd first brought Clint in, Phil walked back into the same old bullpen after a meeting, past the rows of desks to his own little office, and answered every 'hey, boss' by name and with a smile, and sank into his chair feeling free.

---

This Isn't It (02 : 05 : 00 : 00 : 06 : 16)

When it got to around the two month mark, Clint got antsy.

At first, Coulson profiled it as a fear of commitment, the idea of being too settled freaking him out. But he didn't demonstrate any attendant behaviours, like skipping out on dates or trying to get out of evenings together. And his work didn't suffer one bit — Phil would have thought, given how strongly he associated his handler with SHIELD as a whole, that moving away from one would mean distancing himself from both. They'd talked about compartmentalising and the necessity of separating their off duty relationship from the work one insofar as it was practical, and Clint stuck to the rules without so much as an awkward frown about it, but that seemed like a step too far. If he was going to run out on Phil, he'd run out on SHIELD, he was sure of it. It was one of the risks Phil knew, guiltily, he hadn't been able to fully comprehend and risk-assess when this had started out.

But it had worked out just fine for three months, and he'd started to relax a little, until Clint started demonstrating subtle signs of not being fully happy with the situation.

Before he could work out how to broach it properly though, Clint beat him to the punch on a quiet weekday evening, one of their now — standard stopovers. This time was at Clint's apartment; Phil had made himself a nest in an armchair with his work laptop and a pile of paperwork which needed finishing while Clint amused himself with fletching arrows, earbuds in and trailing to a library issued audiobook CD of something Brandon Sanderson. (Phil was doing a readalong of the print version, slightly surprised he'd managed to miss an apparently fairly popular high fantasy series.)

"Okay," the archer said, with a movement that implied a chapter had just ended, flicking the earbuds out and tapping pause. "Gotta ask. You got a minute?"

Phil held up a hand, or rather a coffee mug intended as a silent 'just one second'. "Bear with me, I'm just in the middle of… and save, and… okay. What's up?"

Clint looked almost uncomfortable for a moment, before he righted himself and Phil saw, actually saw the mental shutters go down. Okay, so this was big deal, potentially emotional shit, if he was preparing himself for the worst like that. "What are we doing here, boss— Phil?"

There were layers and layers of uncertainty behind those few words, Phil knew, but without more context he couldn't begin to unpick them. "Dating? Or did you mean something else?"

"I knew that. I guess I mean, what's it about for you?"

"Uh… you're gonna have to give me a little more than that, Clint."

"Okay, here's the blunt truth. We're dating and we're not fucking. What's that about? Because if you're asexual or something that's cool, but we're gonna have to… talk."

Phil started, and very deliberately put a block under his own mental defences to stop the portcullis hitting ground level with a clang. The last word made him distinctly uncomfortable, with its overtones of compromise and a unilateral assumption made of arrangements. He profiled it in his head in the momentary pause, weighing Clint's obvious disassociation between sex and relationships against how far he thought the archer would want to take that. It was definitely within the realm of possibility — maybe not likely, but certainly possible — that he'd consider something on the side to be a non — issue. We're dating, but I'm getting it elsewhere and that's cool, right?

No thank you. Selfish, maybe, but polyamory was not in Phil's personal relationship rulebook, and he point blank refused to feel guilty for that. Had enough to feel guilty about already without messing about on that as well; it'd be like apologising for being bisexual in the first place. It wasn't one to feel bad about; just a negotiation if it ever came up.

Pick your battles, and all that. He'd gotten good at choosing what to let anxiety go at, and when to shut it down.

And it might not have to come up, because there was another word in the question which also didn't apply.

"I'm not asexual," he said thoughtfully, using those few words as a buffer for more time to think about the deeper meanings inherent there. "Okay. Okay, you're probably not going to like this conversation. Just setting your expectations."

Clint stiffened a little, his expression actually managing to close off a little more. "Okay. I get it. Just tell me one thing."

"Sure— wait, what do you get?"

"That this is it, right? It's over. So what'd I do wrong?"

"Clint, Jesus, no—"

"Because I'm not good at letting people in, Coulson. And I let you in — you sneaked in before I'd even noticed, somehow — and I fucking tried for you and… I don't get what I did."

"Clint. Read my lips. This isn't it. God, I hope this isn't it."

Clint paused, daring to glance over at him with a flicker of emotion — hope, fear, and a truly heartbreaking shade of betrayal. "Okay," he said flatly, quietly. "So talk."

Phil took a deep breath. That detour had put him off from what he'd been meaning to say, and it took just a second to get back on track. The words were still there in the back of his head — he always kept the next bit ready, focused — but it took half a moment to check nothing had to be amended to take into account what had just been said.

No. Okay, good. That was one less stressor.

"You remember the night you moved in here?"

Clint frowned. "Yeah, sure. Why?"

"You would've then, right?"

"Yeah. I mean — why not, right?"

"You get why I said no?"

Clint hesitated for a moment, clearly stopping the instinctive 'yes' for 'yes's sake. "Not so much," he said after a moment. "Like, I get that dating and sex go together, but if you're not with somebody, it's like… whatever works for everybody there. Right?"

"Well, sure, I guess, yeah. But it was more the sense of obligation I got from you."

"Obligation?"

"I had the feeling you were only doing it because you felt like you owed me."

There was a long pause, then, very quietly, "I don't have much to offer, I guess."

"Clint," Phil said softly, "I don't want you to feel like that's all you've got to offer me."

"Well, no. Not in a work situation, I know. But this… the dating shit. Never really done that before."

"C'mere," Phil said, setting the laptop and papers and mug aside so there was room. It always surprised him how well all Clint's neat, muscular frame could tuck in given half the chance. And it was relatively rare he got offered the chance to curl up right there on top of him in an armchair.

"You okay there? Because… you know."

"I'm fine." Phil wrapped an arm around him and pulled him in close. "I trust you, okay? Ever noticed how I'm bringing you over the midline most nights now?"

A pause, then a little nod. "Wasn't gonna mention it."

"You're… safe. You know what I mean?"

A longer pause. "Yeah. Funny enough, I think I know exactly what you mean."

"So… on topic. I'm not disinterested, believe me. I just need to know, for my own peace of mind, you're doing it for the right reasons."

"Ugh." Clint shuffled and sighed, but was careful not to dislodge his position in the hug. "When did you get sappy?"

"It's not sappy. It's…"

"A 'controlling your environment' thing?"

He hadn't thought of it that way. "Maybe a little, I'm not sure. I'd have to think about it. My conscious thought is that it makes me uncomfortable to think we're only screwing because you feel like it's a way to… I don't know, say thank you, or stay worthwhile."

"I get it. I think." He looked a little uncomfortable, but Phil knew him well enough to tell he was trying, genuinely applying his considerable — if quirky — intelligence to the issue.

Phil figured he should give the guy a break. Trying counted for a lot; trying, in fact, was enough for now. Sometimes they both needed time to work on things in their own heads, and as long as it was there to come back to safely...

"We can work on it," he said. "Hell, we can work it out in a sex-positive way, long as we can keep talking."

"Do we have to keep talking right now?"

"I'm serious, Clint. Take work out of the equation, since we keep that separate. Even just us, you and me, the dating shit. You bring me coffee in the morning, you're a hell of a gym buddy, you sat through three seasons of Andromeda and the entirety of Star Trek, you geek about old spy crap with me, you get over the midline and you've never once even asked for that — how the hell can you think you owe me?"

Clint hesitated, obviously uncomfortable. "Because… because you basically taught me how to read. You put up with all my shit like this stuff. You fight my corner when SHIELD is sick of my shit. Because… without you I'd be dead, boss."

"You don't owe me. Okay? We're even."

"Phil?"

"Yeah?"

"Shut up and let me kiss you."

"On one condition."

"Jeeesus. Okay. What?"

"We keep talking. And we see where that kiss ends up."

In the moment before it all became a blur, Phil thought he saw a shimmer of something damp in Clint's eyes.

---

Hours later, buck naked with the sheets in disarray, Clint shifted from his position lying on Phil's shoulder just enough to nudge against his jaw. "Bone to pick."

"Again?"

"I said bone, not boner."

"I know, I know. Sorry. Go on."

"That was two conditions, before."

"Damn. You got me."

"Yeah," Clint said with a sly smile. "Damn right I got you. Take your traz and go the fuck to sleep."

---

Epilogue (12 : 02 : 00 : 06 : 00 : 36)

"Is there any point in doing this," Natasha inquired of the sparsely populated hall at large, "without changing your living arrangements, or your names, or having any plans to actually demonstrate it at work, or… anything?"

"Next of kin rights," Clint said lightly. "Tax break."

"Behave," Phil told him with a grin and a swat.

"It doesn't even count in DC," Natasha protested, half — heartedly, failing utterly to hide a smile at her best friends' obvious happiness.

"Counts here," Clint said with a shrug, more interested in assessing the gold band which would be gone come Monday in the office.

"Counts where it matters," Phil said.

"In New Hampshire?" Clint peered pointedly out of the window.

Phil rolled his eyes. "Yeah, okay, we know where we are. Hey, come on, we've done the formalities. Let's collect up the stragglers and find ourselves a reception."

Natasha laughed. "We all know it's planned to the last detail."

"Seriously," Clint agreed. "Our damn reception is more of a military operation than most of our field work. And you should see the honeymoon. We fly a week today — so we're back in the office until then, because my husband is a freaking workaholic — and—"

"We know," Frank Aldridge said, shaking his head with an affectionate grin. "You wouldn't believe how many times I've heard this."

"Excuse me." Phil feigned stung. "Confidence, Frank?"

"There are seven people in this room, Phil, and you've bored every one of them senseless with Operation Wedding."

"Besides, he's SHIELD now," Natasha added. "Since you stole him."

"Christ, all of you. Come on," Phil said with a sigh that held absolutely no ill will whatsoever. "Nick, Maria! Jas! We're leaving."

---

Unpredictable (12 : 02 : 01 : 03 : 19 : 55)

"Honeymoon's off, I'm afraid. We need you in southeast Asia."

Clint glanced up from reluctant paperwork and rolled his eyes, shunting a pen across the desk to stop neatly just inside Phil's shirt cuff across his office desk. "No rest for the wicked, Director? We were only supposed to be here till Wednesday."

"Life is unpredictable," Fury said, dropping a heavy stack of folders on the desk and turning on his heel. "Debrief in thirty."

Clint waited for the door to shut before he looked back to Phil. "How long did we last?"

Phil tugged the paperwork over the desk and split the deck in two parts, handing about a third off to Clint with a hint of a smile. "Long enough, Agent. Long enough."

Appendix: Times and Dates

Monday 27/11/1995 13:19

Fletching

Friday 19/01/1996 11:53

Ghost

Sunday 25/08/1996 13:49

ID

Tuesday 17/12/1996 19:14

Moral

Tuesday 01/04/1997 13:34

Intake

Tuesday 01/04/1997 22:48

First Day

Thursday 24/04/1997 12:46

Paperwork

Friday 20/06/1997 19:01

Aldridge

Friday 04/07/1997 21:36

First Friday

Thursday 09/10/1997 05:29

Hangover

Wednesday 14/01/1998 16:08

Not Him

Wednesday 01/04/1998 14:04

Anniversary

Thursday 04/06/1998 01:54

Apartment

Sunday 18/10/1998 04:19

Natasha

Friday 19/02/1999 08:04

Undercover

Sunday 21/03/1999 23:40

Tea

Thursday 24/06/1999 14:17

Go Time

Wednesday 23/06/1999 13:37

Debrief

Thursday 24/06/1999 15:54

God Complex

Wednesday 07/07/1999 14:02

Easy

Sunday 29/08/1999 19:50

This Isn't It

Wednesday 03/06/2009 14:10

Epilogue

Monday 08/06/2009 09:29

Unpredictable