9:00 AM Breakroom
Never in a thousand years would June have imagined an organization like SHIELD to be both rigid in rules but lax in protocols. Although, she assumed by now that an agent like the infamous Hawkeye had gone through the entire manual and worked out the loopholes in his first afternoon of employment. At any rate, there seemed be no one controlling the agent, save perhaps his own handler and the occasional correction from the director.
She considered this as she sat across from him in the breakroom, nursing a cup of coffee and half listening as he went on about some SHIELD injustice or other that he didn't think should apply to him.
"…come into SHIELD and can barely tie their own shoes. Are we running an agency or a daycare? And another thing…"
"So your idea is to keep them in line by throwing pranks at them?" She'd noticed the first day. Jelly doughnuts filled with glue, fake bugs in the lockers, air horns strategically set up to go off in meeting rooms. Her favorite had been the decaf and caffeinated coffee carafes switched—it had had the best response. Agents normally sedated had been jumping off the walls and the energetic ones had lagged around like sloths. Clint had somehow played the innocent bystander card with the full responsibility falling on a tech assistant. He had yet to stop slipping death notes in Clint's inbox.
"Pranking is the most effective form of workplace tension ease. Besides…" he broke a crème-filled doughnut in half and sniffed it before shoving half in his mouth. "…no one pranks like me."
June calmly sipped the rest of her coffee, then snapped forward like a viper and stole the second half of his doughnut. She sat back, chewing it smugly and licking her fingers while Clint glared. "I think you could be challenged on that title."
"By you?" He made a point in looking her over slowly as though running her through an inner potential scanner. "You might be a sneak, but you hardly have the creative inspiration needed for this venue of work."
"Venue of work!" She laughed. "You take this too seriously. A prank is a prank. And based on your track record, you're about to be caught. Everyone knows there's a breadcrumb trail and it leads straight back to…" she trailed off purposely, silently pointing at him to emphasize the last word.
"You think you can handle it?"
"You think you can handle the competition?" She looked him straight-on, unblinking. "I might just take that title from you and rub your nose in my elaborate pranks." As he deliberated, she came up behind him to slip her arms around his neck. "Is that proud hawk that scared of getting his feathers ruffled by another bird?"
"Like a lion is scared of a parakeet." He leaned back, pulling her down for a slow kiss. "You're on, Agent Monroe."
"Mmmhm… better watch your back, Agent Barton. This is war." They sealed it with another kiss.
The director walked in, selected a chocolate doughnut, and then threw them a rebuking one-eyed glare. "Control yourselves, agents."
9:45 AM June's Office
June had only left her coat-closet office long enough to deliver a handful of mission reports and scan a few documents. In that time, Clint had apparently shoved aside his own work on favor of blowing up a hundred balloons and taping them to completely cover her desk. If that wasn't irritating enough, her walls had been slathered with the ugliest shade of orange known to mankind. She surveyed it all, hands on her hips, before she marched right around and down to tech and development.
10:00 AM Clint's Office
Clint shoved aside the top file and pulled out the one beneath it. Flipping through this one, he made a face and replaced it back in the pile. "Stupid mission reports," he muttered. He twirled a pen around in his fingers and glanced at the clock, wondering whether it was too early to slip his files onto Coulson's desk. As soon as the phone rang, he snapped it up.
"Department of Humor and Mayhem. This is…"
"BARTON. QUIT SMELLING THE FLOWERS AND GET YOUR ARSE IN MY OFFICE."
Clint yanked the phone a foot from his ear. "And a cheery morning to you too, sir. How can our labor monkeys assist you today?"
"GET IN MY OFFICE NOW OR YOU'LL BE BEGGING ON THE STREETS."
"Right away." He replaced the phone. "Dictator Fury." Snatching up the files the director was probably going to rant about, Clint strolled down the hall only pausing to misdirect two lost agents. By the time he reached the director's office, he paused to compose himself before walking in. "So I finished Mumbai, Berlin and Prague but I have to thoroughly debrief Agent Monroe about the events of Milan. Preferably with a jacuzzi and a bottle of strawberry vodka."
The director threw him a glare. "I told you you're not getting a raise. Now get out of my office and sit down at your desk like everyone else."
Clint blinked. "That's why you called me down here, wasn't it? To go over the details of the missions?"
"I didn't call you down." He stabbed a finger towards the door. "Get moving or I'll deduct from your paycheck again."
He didn't have to be told twice.
When Clint got back, it was just in time to pick up the ringing phone. "The Depths of Chaos and Despair. Chaos speaking."
"I THOUGHT I TOLD YOU TO STOP FOOLING AROUND AND GET IN MY OFFICE."
"I was just there, sir. You kicked me out." Clint strained to hold the phone away from his ear as far as he could. Even the director's breathing was like a hurricane.
"I WON'T SAY IT AGAIN." The phone slammed down before Clint could give another response.
"Unbelievable." This time, Clint took all the files on his desk. One of them had to please Sir Sourpuss. But again, as soon as he stepped through the door, the director gave him a look that spelled the wraith of the titans.
"Barton, if you can't sit down for five minutes, I'll send you back to rookie training!"
"You called me twice to come down here," Clint said flatly. "You know what… take them all, take everything!" He dumped the files on the free patch of desk and marched out before the director could yell at him again.
By the time he got back to his office, Clint snatched up the phone before it could ring again and dialed the extension to R&D. "Hey, you guys missing a voice changer? Yeah, I thought so."
10:35 AM Women's Lockers
"It's standard newbie protocol. You help me show the rookies which end of the gun to fire and stitch them up when they shoot each other." Natasha zipped up her catsuit, then turned to check her hair in the mirror. "At the one hour mark, you get relieved by another newbie."
"Simple enough." June turned to her locker, purposely waiting for Natasha to leave before she changed.
Natasha laughed at her. "You're as uptight as a district judge. What are you going to do when you start going on seduction missions?" She applied a liberal amount of cranberry red lipstick before blotting it into a tissue and throwing another smirk at June as she left the lockers.
June reached for her uniform, finding it thinner than she remembered. Unfolding it, she found one of Natasha's "mission" dresses that left little to the imagination.
"You've crossed the line, Clinton Francis," she muttered, stuffing the dress in Natasha's locker and fearlessly going down the hall to the men's lockers where she swiped Clint's spare suit. It would do.
11:45 AM Coulson's Office
"I need a mission, Phil."
"You just had a mission."
"I need another one. I also need a secretary to do the paperwork while I'm gone so all I have to do is add a few signatures."
"You most certainly do not need a secretary. What you need to do is your job." Coulson poked the whining agent in the leg with his pen. "The director will think I'm coddling you and then he'll take away both our jobs."
Clint shifted his position on the desk. "Hey, I'll take your job if there's an opening."
"Leaving me to take yours, I'd imagine." Coulson permitted a brief chuckle. "If you haven't debriefed June on her latest mission yet, that's your top priority."
"Yeah…" Clint drew out the word. "See the thing is June and I are having a bit of a war and the last thing I need is for her to…" he trailed off. "She hasn't left any weird packages around here yet, has she?"
Coulson raised an eyebrow. "Am I being drawn into your skirmishes now?"
Clint raised his hands in submission. "I'm just warning you… if any weird packages show up at your door, get rid of them."
"Duly noted. Now get off my desk or I'll make you polish it again."
12:00 Mess Hall
June smirked into her salad when Clint made a beeline for her. He looked her over twice and tugged on the baggy suit.
"What's this? Stealing my shirts wasn't enough and now you're stealing my uniform too?"
"I like it," she protested. "It smells like you. I needed all the assurance I could get working with those new recruits." She raised another forkful of greens to her mouth and waited for the bomb to drop.
"A voice changer? Really? How juvenile can you get?"
"This coming from the man who finds it funny to swipe my suit and expect me to prance outside in lingerie. I expected more sophistication from the master prankster."
Clint scowled. "The expert doesn't make every prank his best." He swiped the fork from June and took the mouthful. "Coulson wants me to debrief you on Milan so I can get the file written up by tonight. I propose we come to a truce so we can actually get some work done."
"You mean so you can get something done. I got quite a lot done, thank you very much." She snatched her fork back, but smiled when she speared the greens and deposited them into his mouth. "By the end of today, my picture will be on the wall for most accomplished employee. By the end of the week, I'll have that raise you've been whining to the director for."
"I don't whine."
"Yes" she leaned forward to kiss his nose. "You do."
He leaned into her, resting his cheek against hers. "So about the debrief…"
"I have a space in my calendar around two. This really handsome agent invited me to hang out in the lounge and I think I'll be working from there for a while."
"Oh yeah?" he grinned. "What were you and this agent planning to do by yourselves in there? Nothing… against protocol, I hope."
"He explicitly stated he was looking forward to breaking as many rules as possible." June turned to throw her partner a sly smile. "And between the two of us, I'm holding him to that promise."
"Sounds like some agent. Maybe you should introduce me sometime." Clint matched her grin. "I hope a troublemaker like him knows how to evade detection."
June laughed. "He seems to be doing just fine so far." She gathered the remains of her lunch and tossed them in the closest bin. "Careful, Hawk, you may actually have a bit of competition." She breezed past a table full of junior agents who watched her in fascination before glancing at Clint to catch his response. At its best days, SHIELD was as engaging as a soap opera, or a highschool lunchroom. Those were the days when the director ate lunch in his office. When he was out among the agents, silence reigned supreme.
Clint shook his head at her back, still grinning. "I married the best agent in the entire world."
1:00 PM Lounge
Natasha sauntered into the lounge, picking up a discarded blazer and setting it on a chair next to the couch where two agents were currently either pretending she didn't exist, or were completely oblivious to her presence. "You two have about thirty seconds to pull it together before the director chews you out."
"Get lost, Nat," Clint muttered around June's skin. "I'm patching her up."
"Took a knife to the stomach. Agent Barton's helping me recover." June said, breathless. She gasped involuntarily when he found a sweet spot just below her chin.
Natasha's eyes fell to the fresh bandage on June's lower stomach. "I'm sure Agent Barton's skills at rehabilitating his partners are legendary. You'll still get an earful."
As soon as Natasha had left, June's hands flew to button her shirt. "I think I'm quite recovered now."
"Nah, you still look a little pale. What's the dictator going to do?" he guided June back to lay on the couch, hands fumbling to yank off her shirt completely. "Court martial a sick agent? Besides…" he held up a finger, warning her to stay as she was as he searched the cabinets against the wall. "…it's about time we pulled one over on Fury."
A smile passed across June's lips when Clint came back to her side with a set of acrylic paints and brush. "Tell me more."
The director was sick of agents coming to him and whining about their problems so when he got to the lounge, he was hoping for fifteen minutes of peace. Instead he came across Agent Barton performing a frantic CPR on a blood-spattered Agent Monroe. There was a large bloodstain clotting the hair at her left temple, blood dripping from the corner of her mouth and an even more worrisome amount of blood trickling down her low abdomen and pooling on the floor beneath her. In short, he was speechless.
"Sir, I-I just found her like this a few minutes ago. Call medical. Call medical—she's bleeding out and not breathing!"
"Keep her stable." The director ran for the nearest phone in the hall and dialed medical, giving a brief description of what he'd seen and telling them to get a move on it.
But by the time he escorted the medics into the room, there was no sign of either agent. There wasn't so much as a drop of blood on the floor.
One of the medics gave the director a troubled look. "When's the last time you've slept?"
1:45 PM Main Garage
Just before their meeting, Clint realized he'd left the recording device and a bottle of cherry vodka in the trunk. June must've realized it sooner because he stopped, jaw dropping in terror when he laid eyes on his precious Porsche that had been mangled worse than a tin can in a vibranium shredder. The device and vodka were sitting on the caved-in roof tied with a bow and a lipstick-print calling card.
"JUNE ANA PETROVNA MONROE BARTON, YOU ARE A DEAD WOMAN!"
1:50 PM Woman's Room and Showers, Sub Level
An excessively increasing itch had forced her to cut her meeting short with Coulson and now June locked herself in one of the stalls, tearing off her shirt to find a large red rash where Clint had applied the paint. "Essence of poison ivy?" She moaned in frustration when she felt the itch spreading to her thighs and other areas that would make for a very uncomfortable afternoon if she didn't deal with it now. Running for the closest shower, June tore off the rest of her clothes, leaving them in a heap as she darted below the ice-cold spray and sighed in relief as she began attacking the infected areas with a bar of soap.
"Bastard" she muttered, a hint of affection tainting her voice. "Hope you like your new car." Once she was lathered, rinsed and no longer itchy, June reached for a towel only to blink in surprise when she saw they'd all disappeared.
"Wonderful." She glanced between the rolls of toilet paper and her tainted clothes, before she sighed and grabbed her phone from her pocket. "Natasha? I need a favor."
"Barton caught you up in his web of pranks, didn't he?" But then Natasha didn't need an answer. The heap of clothes on the floor and June shivering and hugging herself in the shower was evidence enough. She tossed over the towel, which June caught gratefully and wrapped around herself before taking the change of clothes. "I would have warned you earlier about what he's capable of, but you seem to have found that out already."
"He should be more scared of what I'm capable of."
"The more you throw at him, the further he'll back himself into a corner and get even more desperate."
June only laughed in response. A laugh that, to Natasha's ears, sounded oddly maniacal.
2:05 PM Clint's Office
She was several minutes late, but not suspiciously so. He would later find out that her delay was necessary—later when she was far, far away from him. But for now, she came in with a smile to see the vodka already poured and a glass waiting for her.
"Bit of liquid courage to loosen your tongue, Agent Monroe?" Clint teased, handing her the glass.
She accepted it graciously, taking a seat in the middle of his desk. "You do know it's customary to finish the entire bottle in one sitting."
"Which is why you won't be drinking it alone." He produced his own glass, filling it to the brim and tapping it with hers before he took an uncustomly large swallow. "Now, to business." He sat across from her to sweep her legs into his lap. When he removed her shoes and began massaging her feet, June let out a luxurious moan.
"Vodka and a foot massage? You spoil me, agent."
"I'll use whatever methods it takes to get this intel from you." Leaning over he turned on the recorder and set it beside her on the desk. "Now, for the record, your name and designation."
"June Monroe Barton, field operative for SHIELD, level four. Happily married," she added the last as an afterthought, just before the recorder caught another moan from her. "They're going to think you either tortured me or did other unspeakable things to me to drag the intel from my weakened body."
"Let them wonder." He took another sip of vodka. "Now, your recent mission to Milan… can you give the details, Agent Monroe?"
"I had been tasked with assuming the identity of an American heiress and using my wealth and contacts to infiltrate a high society club suspected of being a HYDRA sympathizer. According to intel, this group was responsible for assembling HYDRA contacts, collecting weapons and serving as one of the enemy agencies intelligence stations." She leaned back, stretching her toes. "I became Lady Annie James. On the field, I had limited contact with SHIELD, but a few agents had already been established in the general area and were there as my backup. Unfortunately…" she met Clint's eyes with a pout "…my partner was not one of them."
"You poor thing." He kissed her toes, eliciting a sigh from her. "Now" his voice gained a few notes of mischief. "What happened on the op? I need as much detail as possible for this report."
"On the first night, I…. Clint…" June broke off with a breathless gasp when he began to kiss the arch of her foot. "Clint… the report…"
Clint smirked back at her. "I'm going to need more detail than that, agent." He slowly, agonizingly, began to massage his way up her calf, eliciting involuntary gasps and moans from June as his hands ran deep into her muscles.
She snatched her glass and downed the contents in a single swallow, fighting to regain her focus. "On the first night, I staked out the club from a distance, making sure I wasn't…" she broke off with another sharp gasp when he reached her knee and she fell back onto his desk with an audible thud. "Clint… Clint, please not now… not during the report."
"I need a little more focus from you, agent." Clint's hands mercifully stilled, although they moved suspiciously up to her waist. "You surveyed the targets. What next?"
"I compiled a profile and recorded their activities…" she trailed off in another breathy gasp when he reached underneath her to tickle the spot at the small of her back. "A-agent Barton…" giving the report was all but impossible now as she fought the urge to start laughing, her breath coming out in gasps. At some point, the recorder had been pushed closer to her so each sound from her mouth would be even louder than it actually was.
After a few minutes, Clint ceased the torture, then, to her indignation, picked up the recorder. "After a sincere effort to pull the information from her, I've determined that Agent Monroe has been compromised and is unable to give a mission report at this time." He clicked the recording off and gave her another smirk. "And this goes straight to the director."
June sat up, eyes blazing. "You insufferable, incorrigible…" before she could make a grab for him, he darted out of her reach, slammed the door after himself and ran gleefully down the hall for the director's office.
She stayed where she was for a minute, sulking, before she straightened her clothes, slipped on her shoes and then stood on his desk to reach up and move aside one of the tiles to slip a present right near a heating vent. Fixing the tile, she hopped down and, with a stifled laugh, headed down the hall back to her office.
3:15 PM June's Office
She was counting down the hours until the day ended and she could throttle Clint at home in peace, when the dreaded call came.
"Agent Monroe?" the director sounded wary, which was never good.
"Yes, sir?" she wound the cord around her wrist, tensing as she waited for the bomb to drop. "Is there anything wrong?"
"I listened to your debrief. I was going to send you home to recuperate, but it's about time you had another session with the psychiatrist. Your duties are suspended until he declares you fit for duty."
It took a very conscious effort to keep the fury out of her voice. "Yes, sir. I'll go there right away." She set the phone down, none too gently. "Clint Francis Barton, you are a dead man when I get my hands on you!"
3:30 PM Clint's Office
Clint lay back in his chair, snickering as he imagined the look on her face when she got sent to the therapy session. "Just try to outdo that one, Monroe. Know what? You can't. You can't because I'm the master of pranking." By the time she'd be let out of therapy, the day would be nearly over or she'd be sent home so he didn't have anything to worry about from her. Home would be another matter, but they had agreed on the prank war, hadn't they? A little thing like a mission debrief wouldn't get in his way of a spectacular prank.
Still basking in the glow of his own brilliance, Clint finally found the motivation to get something done. Maybe he'd get his picture on the wall before hers and then he'd really be able to show her who was the better agent.
He'd gotten enough on Milan to at least start on the file so he busied himself with typing up the details he remembered and sipping at the vodka while he worked. At the fifteen minute mark, he breaked for another glorious five minutes to reflect on his prank. He took a deep breath, gagging when a foul smell rose to his nose. It smelled like something had crawled into his office to die in agony after a short, sorry life.
It also smelled like revenge. June's revenge, to be exact.
He searched around for several minutes until he found it hidden in the ceiling, a rotting catfish so vile he didn't even want to touch it. The eyes were glazed, or molded over, and he could swear that something fuzzy had started to take up residence in its gills. It took all of his willpower not to retch then and there. Grabbing his computer and files, he ran for the door and didn't stop until he'd reached June's vacant office. She wouldn't need it any more today.
3:45 PM Psychiatrist Facilities, Main Level
June barely managed to make it through the useless flashcards and word associations, fuming all the while. She was more than mentally sound—if anyone should be done here, it was Clint! Let him and his stupid urge to prank be trapped in here an hour staring at flashcards and being asked how each one made him feel.
"Agent Monroe, the director expressed concerns that your last field mission left mental damage." The shrink, Peters, flipped through her file as he spoke. "Your file says you sustained a concussion."
"A mild concussion," she corrected. "It was hardly anything. I had it checked over when I returned and I didn't even have to stay overnight for observation." For good measure, she added, "there was nothing wrong with the mission. There's everything wrong with Agent Barton. The tape…"
"Yes… the tape…" Peters looked up over the file, eying her in that clinical way June hated. "The director had me listen to it. It sounded as though you were having an episode during the recollection of the events, or that you and Agent Barton were…" he paused, clearly uncomfortable. "That you were…you know."
A smile flickered across her face, but she dispelled it almost instantly. "That we were what?" she asked nonchalantly.
"He thought that you and Agent Barton were having relations," Peters said bluntly, his face turning a shade of pink. "Though we both found it odd that all the noises we coming from you."
June reddened. "We weren't. Agent Barton was purposely toying with me so I'd be called into question and ordered here. And, so you know, Agent Barton makes plenty of noises of his own when we make love."
"And why would he be doing that—toying with you?"
"Clint insisted he was the prankster of the century and I had to prove him wrong. We've been pranking each other all day, but this? This was over the line."
Peters brightened, having found the object of her frustration. "And how long has this sexual and mental frustration with Agent Barton been bothering you?"
"Since this morning." June shifted her position, crossing one leg over the other and blowing out a soft sigh of frustration.
He made a note in her file. "And how has your relationship been so far?"
"He and I adore each other. We work well together on the field and we know each other's offs and ons."
"I see. And in that relationship, how would you rate the…"
June cut him off with a withering stare. "If you ask one more time about our intimate activities, I will ram that file down your throat. All you need to know is that it rocks." She glanced at the clock. "Are we almost done here? I have to go murder my husband."
4:00 PM June's Office
He finished up what he could on the file then directed his attention to the room and how he could surprise June the next morning. But then he looked to the framed photos on her desk—one was them posing in front of the quinjet on their first mission. The other was one he'd somehow never noticed before, June had caught him framed against a sunset, staring off into the distance with a grin on his face. While the pranks had been fun, he knew there was no way he could top the last one without earning June's scorn. He thought of her trapped in therapy and did start to feel a little guilty.
Until he remembered what she'd done to his Porsche.
4:25 PM The Director's Office
The prank earlier—of which he was positive it had been a prank—still bothered him. He'd put up with Barton's nonsense long enough without having to worry about two of them. This would be a problem until he found a way to motivate them. The display in the breakroom had been nothing short of inexcusable. And the tape would give him nightmares for weeks.
With a grumble, he shifted the files around and around on his desk until he came across a small cubed box hidden beneath them. Intrigued, he pulled off the tape and had barely lifted the lid when dozens of cockroaches exploded out into his face.
"GET ME AGENTS BARTON AND MONROE RIGHT NOW!"
Five minutes later, a relieved June was pulled out of therapy and fixed a hard stare at Clint, who pretended not to notice as they both stood in the raging director's office.
"WHO PUT THE &%#$% ROACHES ON MY DESK?!"
June and Clint glanced at each other. Clint knew full well he hadn't resorted to the bugs-in-the-box ploy and by the look on June's face, he knew she wouldn't waste her time collecting that many bugs just to misplace the box.
"It was that agent in tech who's been trying to frame Clint for the past two weeks," June said. "Why else would he hide it among the files Clint brought you?"
The director stared at them both, breathing hard through his nose like a bull about to charge. "I want both of you out of this building right now. These pranks have gone far enough."
Clint thought about the catfish rotting in his office and hoped he and June would be long, long gone before the director started smelling it.
He stabbed a finger towards the door. "If you don't start marching in two seconds, I will call a squad to escort you both out!"
Neither needed to be reminded twice and immediately took their leave.
"So how are you planning to replace my car?" Clint hissed as they headed for the door.
June laughed, producing the keys from her pocket. "I didn't touch your car. That one was just a decoy. Yours is on the garage level above." She leaned in close, but pulled back before he could kiss her. "I think we both know I proved I'm just as good a prankster as you."
Clint scoffed. "Okay, fine, you got me with the car and the voice changer… and the fish was gross."
"The balloons and dress were immature, but the stunt in the lounge was ingenious…" she made a face "…and the itching powder and removing the towels was thought-out. As for the last one…"
"Oh c'mon, you had to admit that was good. The tape and the resulting psych session was like two pranks in one." He grinned coyly. "How'd that session go for you?"
June's face hardened and she whacked him on the back of the head. "You are never pulling that prank again."