This story is about how Phil came up with the Avengers Initiative.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything
When you care about somebody you do everything within your power to give them what they deserve.
Phil Coulson became a living legend at S.H.I.E.L.D. after he had not only caught, but also became handler of the annoying, yet deadly Clint Barton, the nuisance that had been on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s radar in a bad way for a long time.
Fury was the one to decide the young man might be an important asset for the agency with his skills as a marksman.
Coulson had been sent to deal with the archer. No one really bored him with the detailes. They told him all he needed to know. Bring Clinton Barton in. So he could have brought him in as a rookie or as the assassin on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s radar. Phil, too, decided they needed the man, so he was going to persuade him. It hadn't been a hard task. Phil Coulson had had, after all, the great Nicholas Fury as his handler in his early years.
Phil's mission ended after bringing Barton, now Agent Barton in, but seeing as no one else wanted to have anything to do with the problem-maker former assassin, Phil took Barton under his wing.
Becoming friends with Clint had a surprising effect on both men. Barton took the codename Hawkeye after Phil told Fury about Clint's skills. Everybody had known the man was good, but not the never-misses kind of good.
Agent Phil Coulson, the strict agent learned to have fun once in a while. That was all Clint's doing. And the archer had been extremely smug when he got Coulson drunk. Of course Clint had been drunk too, but that had happened way too often before the agency to think of it as a special occasion. Their drunkness almost made them mess up the whole mission. They had been lucky it hadn't involved any kind of weapons. They only needed to gather some information.
Even though Fury gave them both hell after the mission and after Coulson taking all the blame himself, so that Fury wouldn't fire the archer that had stepped way too often out of line, that time, ironically made them bond beyond friendship. They had been the family none of them had.
Natasha Romanoff, Natalia Alianovna Romanova, Natalie Rushmann, no matter who she tells you she is, she is widely known under another name. The Black Widow. And she had won her title. Not by killing her mate, but by being a survivor when the Red Room made her fight other little girls, her only friends in the dark, cruel world. She won. She killed them all. Some might say we all have a choice to make. That's the cruelest thing you can say. Not everybody's that lucky. At least she made their death as painless as possible. Yet not even with her messed up morals did she think that she was generous or thought better of herself because of that.
After leaving the Red Room (actually tearing it apart), she lived by doing what she knew best. She had spied on and for her own country. It depended only on which one paid better.
And just like Agent Barton, she managed to attract S.H.I.E.L.D's attention. After all, the agency has eyes everywhere, even on the extremely well trained spy.
Budapest.
No one really knows what happened there. Not even the three people that had been the main characters in that fight. But of course, one of them had been earning money off the lies she told, another had picked up the habit after realizing that's how things actually work on this fucked-up world, and the other one had been trained by the man whose lies have lies.
Either way, the Budapest mission became one of those missions no one ever talks about, yet everybody knows about them, knows they happened. Just like the mission after which the Cavalry got her code-name, they all had their stories to tell about Budapest.
There are some things that might be true as they had been written in the report Agent Barton and Agent Coulson gave Fury after the mission.
Budapest was supposed to be the final battle the agency had had with the Black Widow. After years of playing a game of cat and mouse in which none of the parts ever attacked directly as the agency hoped they could catch the spider without any collateral damage.
She was supposed to kill a director of another agency. Fury may or may not have taken that personally. Well the actual reason was the Council, who wanted the widow dead, no matter what. Barton and Coulson had slowly become the best attack team the agency had available, so they were sent in.
Natasha had been sure some agent from some organization expected her there, but she had not expected them to fight with medieval weapons. She almost laughed out loud when she saw an arrow barely missing her. She barely managed not to make a cruel joke within the lines of 'f you want to play Robin Hood's part, you might at least try not to miss'. But Barton smiled when he saw his arrow hit the wall behind the read-head woman. He pushed a button on his belt and before Natasha had time to move, the arrow exploded, tiny pieces soaked in a paralyzing serum entering her skin on her face and neck. A horrible feeling spread through her face and neck, down to her shoulders. She ran before the archer managed to jump and catch her. She made the mistake of underestimating her opponent. She would have shaken her head at her own foolishness, but she couldn't. She couldn't even feel her face. It was a good thing. If she were the one to shoot, her arrows would have contained some kind of poison.
Clint followed the woman closely up the street. He couldn't shoot with the innocent bystanders. They already looked odd at him for running after the Widow, while she was doing her best to act as though she was just jogging. Clint tried to do that too, but while she was wearing a hoodie and sweatpants, he was wearing his uniform. He decided to war it because he wasn't supposed to jump down the roof he had been standing on. All he had to do was slow her down, while Coulson would have agents waiting for her at every corner. He had been warned about the red-head assassin. They had told him she was good, but the fact that she took care of Coulson's agents told him they had underestimated her. At least Coulson was still where he was supposed to be. All he had to do was drawn her towards the street his handler told him about, where he waited her with the rest of the agents and that meant three at most.
As if being followed by the archer hadn't been enough, while scanning the surroundings for a place to hide, she bumped into someone. In front of her stood Ivan Petrovitch, the one that took her in the Red Room and made her become who she was. Of course the Red Room had been already destroyed by their best product, herself. She had been so sure Ivan had died in the flames with his beloved organization. Not so shockingly, Ivan had wanted revenge, killed most of the agents that were meant to catch her. Of course she hadn't known that at the time, she had just assumed she made whoever ran S.H.I.E.L.D mad enough to send a single agent after her, the archer. Barton had recognized the Russian man from some older files so he had helped the widow. Ivan had, of course, upgraded himself with some version of the super soldier serum which he had given Natasha back in the Red Room.
If he hadn't been stupid enough to think he could take them down by himself, Clint and Natasha wouldn't have lived. But then, Ivan had thought he had killed all the agents that followed his former protégée, so he hadn't been exactly stupid. Clint had managed to fight even with Coulson yelling in his earpiece wondering what the heck was happening and why didn't he answer.
Natasha had frozen in place the first few seconds after seeing Ivan which almost got her killed but for the archer who immediately started shooting at the newly found threat. After knocking Ivan out, she turned to the archer.
'Thanks'
Then she ran away. Clint didn't stop her, but he vowed he would catch her the next time. Which he did. But despite catching Ivan Petrovitch, he didn't catch the Widow, so the Council made Fury suspend him almost three months. During those months he had caught the woman. His obsession to find her had been more than unhealthy.
It hadn't been for revenge. He needed to find her because she was like he had been once. Lost. He had never intended to kill her, despite what he had told everybody else. He hadn't made a different call. He had known all along he wouldn't kill her.
Coulson warmed up rather quickly to the idea of the spy becoming an Agent. However he let out a couple of swear words when he found out he would be the one responsible for her. Like Clint hadn't been enough.
Seeing Clint and Nat be sent in the most suicidal places always having the most impossible missions pissed him off. He had tried to talk with Fury about it, but the director couldn't do anything about it either. Both Barton and Romanoff knew the exact amount of danger they would be exposed to before every mission and that was why they never asked for any extraction team. They had enough red on their ledger and other agents would make things complicated. Especially because of their trust issues.
The Council had been against Romanoff's becoming an agent. Still, no one knew exactly what she had done back in her assassin/spy days to anger them so and Romanoff never told a soul. Barton had never been liked among the bosses and the fact that he had decided to bring her in made them dislike him even more.
Even though Strike Team Delta was the best team the agency had, Barton and Romanoff had always been treated like freaks by the other agents.
That's when Coulson came up with the Avengers Initiative. He had met Stark, knew all about Banner and Steve Rogers and after the New Mexico fiasco he had found out they weren't as alone in the Universe as everybody thought, so a team of remarkable people to defend them had been the best idea he had ever had.
Of course Strike Team Delta couldn't fight aliens by themselves, so that was when Iron Man, the Hulk and Captain America came in. It should have worked perfectly. He had even given Natasha the mission to make sure Stark was the best choice. Coulson knew the billionaire well enough to say he was great at saving people. But he had been curious about what Natasha and Clint thought about him, as there is no way Rogers wasn't suited for the team. But Clint had been sent to Mexico, so Nat was the only choice he had.
Natasha had evaluated Stark and her answer was Yes, Iron Man is suited for the team. Tony Stark isn't, but hey, the man thought he was going to die, so Phil didn't blame him on being a little unstable.
Fury might have guessed how the idea came to Coulson, but even if he did, he never mentioned it. After all, he too had thought for a long time he needed to do something for the archer and spy.
No matter if they're blood or not, you'd do anything for your family. Even start a superhero boy band.
But not every story has a happy ending. The Council didn't approve of Phil's idea.
That's why Phil didn't mind dying. At least his death helped Nat and Clint have a better life rather than being sent to their death every few days.
But what he didn't know then was that the team didn't just had each other's back so that none would die in a fight. Nat and Clint lost him, but gained another family.
And after "coming back from the dead" he didn't think there has ever been any other person to be so glad they have died.