Written for day 3 of challenge week at fic-promptly, fill your own fills.
Phil hadn't lied, not completely anyway, maybe he had been economical with the truth. Pepper had been trying to get information out of him for months about who he was dating, and telling her the complete truth was out of the question.
Telling her about the cellist in Portland had been a spur of the moment decision, but it was easier than explaining his non-relationship with Clint. He hadn't lied really. Cellists used bows, and so did his archer, and they were only ever together in Portland, so he reasoned to himself that he hadn't been too far off the mark.
He and Clint never spoke of what they were outside of the house that they kept in Portland, completely off any of SHIELD's records. They weren't together or in a relationship outside of that house, it was too much of a liability for an asset to date their handler apparently, so they had never become official. All they ever had were stolen moments whenever they could both get away from SHIELD.
It wasn't what either of them wanted, he knew that, but for now it was all that they could have. Maybe once the Avenger's Initiative was off the ground they could take some time and try to figure out how to make things work for them outside of their own little world they had created away from New York.