Clint tried not to stare too much as he lifted himself on the chin-up bar. Phil was across the gym on the training mats with a bunch of baby agents, bringing them down a few pegs, and damn did he look good. Of course, Phil always looked good, sleek and sexily competent in his expensive suits, but there was something about the t-shirt and SHIELD sweatpants that made Clint think of home and domesticity. Combine that with the flexing muscles and the taking down of six baby agents in four swift moves, and he was like pure concentrated sex. Clint wanted him.
"I think you've held that position for long enough, Barton," Agent Melendez snorted at his side. "We get it; you have really great upper body strength." Clint snapped back to attention and realized that his arms were shaking with the exertion of him holding his entire body weight up for who knew how long. He was surprised his muscles hadn't cramped up from the strain of the position, really. He shot a cocky grin at Melendez, much more willing to let him believe that Clint was showing off than telling him that honestly he'd just been lusting after his husband.
He slowly lowered himself back down to the floor, flexing his arm muscles and fingers to try and prevent any cramping, eyes still watching Phil with the newbies. He had stopped kicking their asses, and was now showing them escape methods, though he looked frustrated with his chosen partner. Clint, feeling mischievous, headed over.
"Need some help, there, sir?" he called out as he approached. Phil released his captive and shot Clint a look that said he knew exactly what Clint was up to, and Phil would have no problem putting him on the floor (and making him sleep on the couch) if he dared to act out in front of the baby agents. Clint merely grinned and then rolled his eyes and shrugged when Phil's stern look didn't let up.
"Why, yes, Agent Barton, thank you," he finally answered, when he seemed assured that Clint wasn't going to be an ass. "Okay, so the absolute worst position you will ever find yourself in when doing hand to hand is on your back with your assailant on top of you," Phil explained. "Who can tell me why?"
"Cos you're pinned," one guy offered with a shrug.
"Well, yes," Phil answered. "But why else? Be more specific." The probies stared back at him blankly, and Clint could see him resisting the urge to sigh. Clint knew he'd come in to SHIELD with a bit more experience than most people did, but he couldn't imagine signing up for this organization when he was that wet behind the ears. "Okay, then. Cli-Agent Barton, could you lay down on your back, please?" Clint shot him a wink at the slip-up, but dropped down to lie on his back as requested. Phil stepped over him, settling down on his chest with one leg on either side of him, a classic school yard bully position.
"Okay, so I've got Agent Barton down on his back, and now I can hit him pretty much anywhere I want. But see, if I'm hitting him in the face," Phil demonstrated, placing his fist next to Clint's jaw, "He can't reach up high enough to hit me back." Clint obediently raised his own arm, showing that he couldn't reach much past Phil's chest. "So this is very much a bad position. Now break it."
Clint didn't hesitate, bucking his hips up immediately as Phil swung a fist towards his face, knocking him off-balance and forward, grabbing his arm as soon as his palms hit the ground over Clint's head and breaking the lock of his elbow. He wrapped his leg around one of Phil's and bucked his hips again, thrusting Phil forward and rolling them both over, putting himself on top. He did all of that in a span of a few seconds, and he could hear a few impressed murmurs from the probies.
"Good, that was very good. Now let me show you how he did it," Phil said, and the lesson continued.
They spent another half hour teaching different methods for escaping from holds and pins before Phil dismissed them to go do firearm training with Jacobson. The locker room door had hardly closed behind them before Clint had Phil pressed up against the nearest row of lockers, kissing him senseless. He could feel Phil's hands grasping at the waist of his t-shirt and he pulled back just far enough so he could growl, "God damn, you're so sexy."
This was a mistake, because it gave Phil enough time to let his brain catch up, and he firmed his hold at Clint's waist to push him away. "Not at work, Clint," he admonished. Clint briefly considered protesting, but one look at Phil's face revealed that he was completely serious and wouldn't take kindly to any form of coercion.
"Okay," he sighed. "But we are doing nothing but having a ton of sex this weekend, deal?"
"No deal," Phil answered as he stripped off his workout gear and stepped in to the shower. Clint undressed quickly and followed him, resolutely not pouting at Phil's rejection. The blast of hot water felt good on the fresh ache in his muscles. It was almost enough to get him to moan.
"Why not?" he asked when he pulled his face from the spray, running a hand over his eyes to rid them of any water.
"I have that father-daughter dance with Kate tomorrow evening," Phil reminded him. "She's been excited about it for weeks, remember?"
"Oh, is that this weekend? Already?" Clint asked, doing a quick run-over with a bar of soap and stepping back in to the spray. Phil hummed an affirmative.
"I'm actually looking forward to it," he admitted. "I don't get to spend nearly as much time with her as I'd like, and hardly ever doing things like this. She convinced her mother to buy her a new dress and everything."
"Yeah, well, that's not at all surprising," Clint snorted. "You two dote on her."
"Like you don't," Phil retorted. "Not two weeks ago she had you take her to three different stores on opposite sides of the city to find the perfect pair of back-to-school shoes, so I don't even want to hear it."
"Well, yeah, but that's different," Clint protested, turning off his shower head and grabbing a towel.
"How is it different?" Phil demanded, turning off his own shower as well.
"Well, I mean, you guys are her parents. She has to like you," Clint explained, wrapping his towel around his waist and heading to his locker so he could get dressed. Clint could tell that was the wrong thing to say by the way Phil's face clouded over.
"Kate loves you," he insisted. "You know she does. You don't have to bend to her every whim to earn her affection."
"If I'm not doing things for her, why would she keep liking me?" Clint asked, pulling his shirt over his head.
"I like you plenty and you don't do things for me," Phil retorted, and Clint could hear him getting angry. He tried to figure out how he could avoid a fight, while at the same time trying to figure out why Phil was so mad.
"Sure I do!" he insisted, a little bothered that Phil felt that way. "I make you breakfast and sometimes I bring you lunch, and I make sure you remember to sleep. I can do more…"
"I said that wrong," Phil interrupted him, sounding tired in that way he did when he was frustrated that Clint didn't understand what he was trying to say. "Of course you do things for me, and I really appreciate that. I mean that I'll love you whether or not you do anything for me. And so will Kate."
Clint knew, logically, that that was how things were supposed to work. He was supposed to do things for Phil because he loved him, and Phil was supposed to love him whether or not Clint did anything for him. But it was hard to put aside the mindset that he had to be useful to someone for them to want him around. It was how things had always been, before Phil, and it wasn't a thought process that he could just dismiss.
"Well yeah," Clint said, because he understood what Phil was saying, even if he couldn't entirely convince himself to trust in it. "But it doesn't hurt to make sure." He buttoned his pants and the strapped on his thigh holster, watching Phil as meticulously knotted his tie.
"I don't know what I'm going to do with you," Phil sighed, but he let the subject drop. Clint didn't think that was the end of the conversation, but he was glad that Phil was letting it go for now instead of getting frustrated with him.
"I can think of quite a few things you could do with me," Clint answered, winking suggestively. Phil only snorted and rolled his eyes, slipping his own holster up over his shoulders and then sitting down on the bench so he could tie his shoes back on. Clint joined him, lacing up his boots with practiced ease and then holding Phil's jacket open for him to slide in to it when they were done.
Phil looked like he was going to say something when the door banged open and several agents trooped through, laughing and joking about something or another. He closed his mouth, shook his head, and pressed a fast kiss to Clint's mouth before heading out the door. Clint worried that Phil might be madder than he thought and resolved to bring him some lunch later, to make up for not knowing how to love right.
At two-thirty, when he arrived at Phil's office with a wrap from the sandwich place down the street, Phil was on the phone with his shoulders slumped. When he glanced up at Clint and gestured for him to sit down, his face looked pretty upset. Clint hesitated, unsure if Phil was still mad from that morning, when he sighed out loud and said, "Kate I'm so sorry. I know you're disappointed, I am too. I wish I could change things, but I can't. Maybe we can get the next one?"
Clint couldn't hear what Kate was saying on the other line, but he could hear her yelling, and Phil didn't admonish her, he just flinched and hung his head a bit. Whatever was wrong, Clint knew that it wasn't about him, so he crossed the room quickly and sat down on the chair in front of Phil's desk, setting their food to the side.
"Kate, I…" Phil started, and then flinched and set the phone back on its cradle.
"Did she just hang up on you?" Clint asked, disbelieving. Kate was almost never rude like that, and when she was Phil certainly didn't let her get away with it. He didn't know why Phil hadn't called her back immediately and demanded an apology.
"What's going on?" he asked, handing Phil his food. Upset or not, he needed to eat, and he tended not to when he got really distracted. Phil reluctantly took out his wrap and started eating, though not with any sort of gusto or enjoyment.
"I got called out for the weekend, I'm leaving in an hour," Phil told him. "Kate's really upset about missing the dance."
"Can you tell me where you're going?" Clint asked, and Phil just shook his head.
"It's classified," he said, and Clint nodded to show that he understood.
"I'm sorry," he offered. "I know you were really looking forward to that, and Kate was too."
"She was crying," Phil reported dully, not looking up from his food. "She really wanted to go to this dance. God, I'm a terrible father."
"Phli, you're not a terrible father!" Clint protested. "You love Kate, but you have a really important job, too, and even then you hardly ever have to cancel on her…"
"I can't even take my only daughter out for the one thing she really wanted to do with me. It's not like she has anyone else…" and then Phil trailed off and raised his head so he could meet Clint's eyes.
"Phil?" Clint prompted, not really comfortable with the narrow-eyed look Phil was appraising him with.
"You could take her. It's a father-daughter dance, you're her step-father, it's completely allowed!"
Clint froze, food halfway to his mouth, and stared at Phil with wide eyes. It took him a moment to collect himself and set his food back down before he could protest.
"God, Phil, I can't do that! She wanted to go with you, it's totally not the same," he insisted.
"I know it's not really the same, but I think it might help. She was really excited, and even if she can't go with me, I'm sure she'd love to go with you. Believe me, I really wish that I could go, but I can't, and you're the only substitute. You don't have to go if you don't want to, but I would really appreciate it, and I think Kate would too."
"Phil," Clint whined. "I know what you're doing. With the coercion and the being reasonable and the guilt and damn it, give me the phone." Phil smiled and pushed the phone towards him, and Clint made the call before he had a chance to change his mind. The phone only rang twice before it was answered by Kate's mother.
"Hi, Michaela," Clint greeted. "It's Clint."
"Oh, hi Clint, are you calling for Kate? She's pretty upset right now…"
"Yeah, I know, that's why I'm calling. Can you see if she'll talk to me?"
"Of course. One second, all right?" Clint hummed an affirmative noise and waited until Kate picked up. Her voice was a little wobbly and she was sniffling when she answered with a soft, "Clint?"
"Hey, Katie-Kate," Clint greeted, smiling at the sound of her voice. "How are you doing?"
"It's not fair," Kate told him immediately. "Now I won't even be able to wear my new dress. Why doesn't Daddy want to go with me anymore?"
"Katie, your dad wants to go with you more than anything, I promise. He's really upset right now," he spared a glance at Phil, who was looking guiltier by the second. "You know how your dad and I do really important work that you can't really know about yet, and that's why he has to go. But I promise you, he would much rather be going to that dance with you tomorrow night, and if he could he would. But he really, really can't."
"Yeah, I know," Kate whispered. "Tell him I'm not mad, okay? And that I'm sorry for hanging up on him."
"Well, he's right here, and you can talk to him, but I wanted to ask you something first, okay?" At Kate's small noise of assent, he continued. "I know it's not the same, and that you really wanted to go with your dad, but I thought I might take you to this dance, if you wanted me to."
There was a long pause, and Clint wondered if Kate was about to get really upset again, when she piped up sounding happier than she had for the whole conversation. "Really? You'd go with me?"
"Of course I would," Clint answered. "But you don't have to say yes if you don't want to. It won't hurt my feelings, I promise."
"Yes!" Kate exclaimed, almost at the point of shrieking. "Yes, thank you so much, Clint, you're the best! I love you!" He laughed, reveling in that feeling of warmth he got whenever Kate expressed affection for him.
"I love you, too, Katie. Here's your dad." He handed the phone back to Phil and did his best to not pay attention as Phil talked to his daughter in hushed, apologetic tones. Clint knew all had been forgiven when his voice returned to normal volume and he smiled happily.
"Okay, honey, I'll let him know. He'll be around to pick you up at six, okay? I hope you have fun. I love you, too. Bye." Phil set the phone down and shook his head with an amused sort of resignation.
"Her highness demands that you wear the waistcoat you wore at our wedding," he told Clint dryly. "She says it will match her dress, and that if you do it she won't make you wear a jacket."
"Deal," Clint agreed immediately, even though Phil had already hung up the phone and stood up. "And, uh…where is that again, exactly?"
"The back of the hall closet. Now come here and kiss me, I'm going to be late for pre-mission debrief." Clint dutifully went around the desk so he could kiss his husband, hands clinging to his biceps because he was totally aware that, if anything went wrong, this could be goodbye.
"I love you so much," Phil told him seriously.
"I love you, too. Be safe." Clint wrapped his arms around Phil and hugged him tight, burying his face in Phil's neck for a moment to take a deep breath of his subtle cologne and general Phil-smell. "I'll see you on Sunday? Monday?"
"Probably very late Sunday or very early Monday morning," Phil confirmed.
"Wake me up," Clint told him, finally letting go.
"I will," Phil promised. "Have fun with Kate."
Clint watched him leave, taking his food with him so he could eat during debrief, and then sat down in Phil's chair to finish his own food. Phil would be fine, because Phil was always fine. He hated knowing that Phil was going out without Clint to watch his back, but he had to trust in Phil's capabilities. Otherwise he'd drive himself nuts.
Clint felt kind of stupid in his fancy purple vest ("waistcoat!" his inner Phil voice insisted), but Kate had asked so he was wearing it. He didn't remember feeling this dumb during the wedding, but maybe that had been because he couldn't think about anything but the way Phil was looking at him.
He knocked on the door, suddenly realizing that standing in front of it awkwardly would probably make people anxious. Michaela was in sweats and glasses when she answered the door, but she didn't seem bothered, smiling prettily at him. She hugged him and kissed him on the cheek and then ushered him inside.
"You look great!" she told him. "Kate's putting on her shoes. You want a cookie?" she gestured to a plate sitting on the table where a bunch of case briefs were laid out. "I was stress baking."
Michaela was kind of all over the place, frantic in a way, and she tended to switch randomly from topic to topic, but she was really nice and still very close with Phil, so Clint had gotten used to figuring out how to follow her jumps. He grabbed a cookie and took a bite, humming appreciatively at the chocolate exploding across his tongue.
"Thanks for doing this, Clint," Michaela said, her voice pitched low. "She was so happy when you offered, and she's really excited for this."
"Phil was really upset that he has to miss it," Clint explained with a shrug, and he asked me to take his place, so I couldn't say no. I mean, really, I'm not so sure about this, because I am extremely bad at people, but I…"
"Clint, it's a dance sponsored by her school, it's not rubbing elbows with royalty. I mean, yeah, she goes to a private school so I'm not going to lie and tell you that some of the people aren't pretty stuck up, but just have fun spending time with Kate and don't worry about anything else, all right?"
Before Clint could think of an assuring-sounding response, Kate made her entrance, grinning widely and spinning to show off her dress. Clint didn't really know much (or anything at all) about dresses, but he could tell that this one was a little fancier than a run-of-the-mill dress. It reminded him of a prom dress, really. The top part cut high over her collarbones and was the same color purple as his vest, but the skirt part was black and flowy and hung to the floor. Her spinning revealed that the back was kind of like a tank top and showed quite a bit of her pale skin (which made his weird pseudo-dad instinct want to make her put a coat on) and that the skirt had a long triangle part in the back that was the same purple as the top part with some silver swirls embroidered at the bottom. It was a pretty dress, but it was kind of formal, and that combined with the fact that Kate had requested he wear the fanciest thing he owned gave him anxiety about what kind of dance this would be.
"You look great, Katie-Kate!" he said, hoping he sounded encouraging instead of vaguely terrified. "Are you ready to go?"
"Mommy has to fix my bow," Kate told him seriously, brandishing a purple ribbon at him. "It slipped and I messed it up when I tried to fix it." Michaela sighed but gestured Kate to her, making noises about being more careful because did she really think Clint was going to be able to fix her hair if she messed it up again? Clint thought about protesting and telling her that he'd helped plenty of the girls at the circus do their hair and makeup before their acts, but then realized that it would doom him to a night of fixing Kate's hair. It was better to just stay quiet about some things.
"Are we good now, Your Highness?" Clint teased as Michaela finished tying her curls back into the ribbon.
"Ha ha, you're so funny," Kate retorted. "Let's go."
"I'll have her back by eleven," Clint told Michaela as he was ushered out the door.
"Have fun!" she chirped before shutting the door, no doubt looking forward to a night to herself. Clint wasn't sure fun was the word for it.
He felt less stupid once they arrived at the dance (which was in Kate's school assembly hall with sparkly decorations pinned up everywhere) and saw that everyone else was dressed just as formally as they were. It didn't do much to help with his tension, though. He felt awkward and out of place, but the bright smile on Kate's face helped to steel his resolve. There was a little table where two women were sat collecting tickets and chattering with each other.
"Hi, Kate!" a dark haired woman greeted as they approached. "Don't you look beautiful? And who's this? I remember meeting your father…"
"Hi Miss Callahan! Miss Callahan's my teacher," she told Clint.
"Hi, I'm Clint Coulson," he greeted, feeling a thrill at getting to use his legal name for once. Even though he'd had it changed when they'd gotten married, he still went by Barton at SHIELD to avoid confusion.
"Emily," she purred in response, offering a hand for him to shake.
"My daddy couldn't come tonight so Clint brought me instead," Kate told them, bouncing in place, looking like she wanted nothing more than to be done with the talking so that she could go have fun.
"That's really sweet of you!" Emily gushed. "It's so nice to see a man who likes children. Are you her brother?" she said, her eyes meeting his and a coy smile forming on her lips. Clint had to resist the urge to roll his eyes. What kind of teacher hit on a parent right in front of their kid?
"I'm her stepfather," Clint told her, trying for pleasant. "Like Kate said, my husband couldn't make it tonight, so I'm filling in." He didn't miss the disappointed look on the woman's face and the way her posture relaxed so her chest wasn't sticking out quite as far.
"Well, that's really nice," Emily said again, sounding much enthused this time. "Have a good time. I'll see you on Monday, Kate." Kate waved absently at her, completely oblivious to everything that had just happened, and dragged Clint further into the assembly hall by his hand. He took a moment to look around, noting all the possible exits before focusing on the people. Mostly it was a bunch of middle-aged men and little girls, which would have been very weird, in any other situation. There were a few women milling about, probably people who had volunteered to help run the event, and everyone seemed very normal and civilian. It went a long way towards helping him relax, though that part of his brain that lived and breathed SHIELD was as alert as ever.
"Okay, so what do we do?" Clint asked Kate, who was waving across the room at another little girl.
"What do you mean, what do we do? It's a dance," Kate told him, sounding less than impressed. She was such a little shit, but somehow she still managed to be completely loveable.
"I've never been to anything like this," Clint shrugged. "And I've gotta warn you, I'm not really a dancer."
"You danced with dad at your wedding!" Kate protested, clearly skeptical.
"Yeah, and I was very bad at it," Clint reminded her. "I'm not saying I won't dance with you if you want me to. I'm just saying you're going to have to guide me through it, is all."
"Yeah, okay," Kate agreed, but she still looked kind of suspicious, like Clint was deliberately trying to make her life harder than it had to be. "Didn't you ever go to prom or anything?"
"I didn't go to high school, Katie, I dropped out in the seventh grade. I was in the circus, remember?" Now he was trying to keep his voice low, as not to attract attention. He wasn't overly fond of admitting that he didn't manage to even make it to high school, but he was pretty good about ignoring assholes. Kate, on the other hand, didn't need the stigma, and Clint knew how cruel kids could be. Her eyes widened a fraction and she looked like she was going to start grilling him in the way that she did, so it was a relief when the girl she'd been waving to finally approached to say hello.
Her dress was just as fancy as Kate's, but a garishly bright pink, and her dad was done up nicely in a suit but frowning at his cell phone like it was revealing the secrets of the universe to him. Clint didn't want to judge, because who knew what was happening behind the curtain, but he couldn't help but feel bad for the girl all the same.
"Clint this is Julia, she's my best friend," Kate introduced, and the other girl smiled shyly at him. "This is Clint, he's my stepdad."
"Hi!" Julia greeted with a frantic wave. Before Clint could make any sort of response, she was dragging Kate off by the arm saying they should dance. It was probably very generous to call their strange combination of spinning around each other and head banging dancing, but he couldn't help but smile at the ridiculousness of it. He took a picture with his phone and texted it to Phil, even though he knew that Phil wouldn't get it until he returned. He thought he'd appreciate it all the same.
After that, Clint wasn't quite sure what to do with himself, so he wandered over to the refreshment table for some sickly sweet fruit punch. The woman working the table sent him a friendly smile, so he decided that staying there would be better than standing awkwardly by himself. She offered him a cookie, but he shook his head. Believe it or not, he did follow a pretty strict diet given to him by SHIELD medical, and cookies were only one of the things on the long list of what he should eat very sparingly. He figured the sugary punch and the cookie he'd eaten at Michaela's was more than enough to fill his tiny quota for at least a week.
"Suit yourself," she said with a shrug. "They're actually pretty good. You lose track of your daughter?"
"Well, not really. I think she decided it was more fun to hang out with her friend," Clint explained, gesturing over to where the girls had switched to what looked like a dramatic and clumsy tango. "But I'm not really bothered. As long as she's having fun."
"And you really don't want to dance," the woman said with a conspiratorial grin.
"And I really don't want to dance," Clint agreed, grimacing as he took another drink. He could almost swear the sugar was sticking to his teeth. The woman laughed and leaned under the table, which immediately had Clint tensing, but when she came back up it was with a bottle of water.
"Here, you want this?" she asked. "It just seems like that punch is personally offending you." The band around the cap was unbroken, so Clint decided that the water couldn't be unsafe. And he really wanted to try and rinse the sugar taste out of his mouth.
"Thanks," he said, taking a long draw from the bottle and swishing it around his mouth a bit before swallowing. The song changed to something that sounded like a weird country dance mix, and suddenly Kate was there, grabbing his arm and pulling him towards the dance floor. He flailed a little bit, because holy crap, ninja, but managed to straighten himself out by the time Kate had gotten him to the dance floor. It appeared to be some sort of line dance, and Kate's face was a mix of excited and absolutely devious.
"You have to do this one, Clint!" she shouted over the music.
"I don't know how to do this one! It looks kind of difficult!"
"It's just the cotton-eyed Joe!" she insisted. "It's not that hard, look!" Kate did the dance, which involved a lot of hopping and leg kicks and the occasional spin. Clint stared at her skeptically, but the look she gave him clearly said that he was not getting out of this.
"You have to at least try!" Kate insisted. "Daddy always does it!" And admittedly the thought of Phil doing that ridiculous dance was enough to have Clint cracking up, but Kate was not amused. Apparently the Cotton-Eyed Joe was Serious Business.
"Come on, show me!" she demanded. Clint sighed dramatically, but he tried to replicate what Kate had shown him. It didn't go well. He'd barely gotten through the first bit of it before she was laughing. Really, he was lucky he hadn't tripped over his own feet and ended up on his ass. He'd never felt so graceless in his life.
"No, no!" she cried, demonstrating again. "Like this. You gotta put your leg out and touch your heel to the floor, and then you kick it back behind your leg and then the same thing on the other side!" Clint tried to replicate her again, and this time he managed to do it without her laughing at him, but he had absolutely no doubts about how stupid he looked. Mercifully, the song came to an end in the next thirty seconds, and Clint escaped having to learn how to do the whole thing. Kate pouted, but within a few seconds her eyes had lit up in a mischievous gleam again.
"You owe me a chicken dance," she told him. "It's much easier to learn." Clint wasn't sure if the chicken dance would be better or worse than the cotton-eyed Joe, but for now he was willing to agree to Kate's terms. He was almost sure he'd regret it.
The Chicken Dance was most definitely worse than the cotton-eyed Joe. The night had been very long, including participating in a lot of Kate's weird dances, a dance competition for the girls, and one for the dads (which Clint had been able to bribe his way out of with a promise of a new pair of shoes the next time she spent the weekend with them), and a few dances with some girls who didn't have fathers to take them but had wanted to go to the party anyway. It was getting to be about quarter after nine, with the dance slated to end at nine-thirty, and Clint had thought that, just maybe, he would be able to avoid this Chicken Dance. He was not so lucky, unfortunately, because a campy sounding tune had begun to play and Kate's entire face had lit up.
True to her word, the Chicken Dance had not been as hard to learn, but that meant that he actually had to do it, because he had promised. Kate spent most of the song laughing her ass off and taking pictures while Clint glowered at her and did the stupid dance. Towards the end, though, she did start doing the dance too, and he felt a little better when he was able to laugh right back at her. The whole thing really was ridiculous. The song ended with a double clap and Clint thought he had never been so happy to finish anything in his entire life. Kate threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tightly, still laughing joyfully, and Clint got that warm feeling again. He loved that feeling more than anything, and he squeezed her tightly, lifting her off her feet when he stood up all the way.
Just as he did it, a slow song started playing, an R&B sound song about dancing with fathers, and Clint shifted his grip to just under Kate's bottom so he could hold her up while turning them in circles. Kate smiled at him and smacked a kiss on his cheek before resting her chin against his shoulder. He took it as the thank you that he knew it was, and smiled to himself as he continued to spin them on the spot. After a few seconds, someone tapped his shoulder, and a familiar voice said, "Can I cut in?" He was pretty sure that he and Kate had identical looks of shock when they jerked their heads up to look at Phil.
"Daddy!" Kate shrieked happily, reaching her arms out for Phil. Clint handed her over, looking Phil over for any injuries as he did so. He looked fine though, and he smiled at Clint in his reassuring way. "I thought you were working!" Kate said, her arms wrapped octopus-like around Phil's neck.
"We finished early," another looked cast at Clint told him that mission had been a complete and total clusterfuck and that he would hear what he could about it later, "And I wanted to see if I could make it, just for once dance." Kate grinned at him, and Clint pressed a kiss to Phil's cheek before heading back over to his buddy at the refreshments table to watch his husband and their daughter spin around on the dance floor together. He almost wanted to punch something so that he could feel manly again.
"Is he your husband?" the woman at the table asked, obviously noting his fond smile.
"Yeah," Clint answered. "He is."
"You guys are a beautiful family," she told him, and Clint grinned widely.
"Yeah," he agreed. "We are."