Summary: Barton brings Natasha in to SHIELD and Coulson is prepared to receive her

Method to the Madness

Agent Coulson was a sticker for the rules. Everyone knew that. He had the agents' manual memorized. He could, and would, recite exactly what rules you had broken, what procedures you had foregone, and write you up for every single one of them.

If Clint had gone by the reputation alone, he would have hated Agent Coulson. Clint knew he thought outside the box most of the time, to the extent that he wasn't entirely sure what the box even was. Rule-bound people hated him and he generally hated them in return.

But he'd also learned to do his own reconnaissance. Which was a good thing because while everyone said that Agent Coulson was a sticker for the rules, they should have been saying that he was deeply knowledgeable of the guidelines. He really had memorized the manual, but only because he knew the stories behind each one of the rules. He knew the blood, sweat, and tear, as well as the statistics and probabilities, that went into writing those rules. He knew when to apply them and when to risk it all.

In the great game that was the international intelligence field, he was a card shark who absolutely counted cards. He was the best manager Clint could even imagine having.

Coulson was the reason that Clint knew that for most reports, he needed to type them up or at least use a black or blue pen on white paper and print his reports because they'd be copied and OCR'd. But for the eyes-only stuff that would be kept in hardcopy in an environmentally sealed safe, he could write his reports in crayon for all Phil cared. Phil had even provided the crayons.

The real secrets got written with the yellow crayon.

No one was going to scan or OCR those. No one was going to do it legally in-house for security purposes and no one was going to sneak in and do it secretly for the enemy because it was a report written in fucking crayon.

It was an added level of security.

It was also an amusing way to relax after what was generally some pretty horrific missions.

Clint looked forward to introducing it to the Black Widow.

"So, did you get it?" Clint didn't wait for a response before looking around Phil's office and seeing the shopping back from an upscale art supply store. "Nice! Thanks!"

"Do remember that I'm not your personal shopper."

"Sure thing!" Clint grinned, not meaning a word of it.

"Anyway, I assigned it to a probationary agent."

"Ah…" Clint said. "Assigned?"

"Mm-hmm. I gave him the name and address and told him to go buy the second most expensive art kit for adults. And then report back."

"What did he report?" Clint found himself morbidly curious. It was like a train wreck. Clint could see it all in his mind's eye. A bright young agent told he had a mission by a senior agent: to go in (undercover!) to a strange business (case the joint!) and purchase a specific type of item (send secret a message!), and then report their observations… There's no way that bright young agent was going to report not seeing anything shady.

"You get to be the one who will go back to the supply store within the next month or so to confirm that it is not a terrorist cell, drug cartel, and/or hub of human trafficking."

"Yes, sir." Clint rather thought he would take Natasha with him on that reconnaissance mission. She'd smiled at him before, but he was still searching for a way to make her laugh.

At least the art kit was a pretty good one. Pencils, pastels, even water colors.

"No crayons?"

"Those I pick up at the gas station." Phil tossed him a box.

Natasha had looked at him like he was insane.

But she'd also spent hours spreading ink like blood on page after page, of her Red Room debrief, full of blue prints and portraits and horrors too strong for words. The in-house psychologist had wandered by to drop off some cookies for them both. Director Fury had stopped by and complemented the brush strokes even as he was clearly memorizing the faces.

Clint kept himself busy first drawing out his own report of the assassination mission turned rescue mission and then just drawing ideas for future missions.

By the time Natasha was finally done, she'd used up a good portion of the paints in the kit and she looked washed out herself. But washed out in a good way: like some amount of the pain and torment had drained away.

She'd still looked uncertain when she gathered up the pictures at Clint's direction and followed him into Coulson's office.

Coulson nodded his approval of the reports and handed Natasha a copy of the agents' manual. "I don't expect you'll be getting many missions that are standard enough to require the manual, Ms. Romanova, but it's a useful resource to have nonetheless. It can be a source of structure if you let it."

Natasha had accepted the rulebook like a lifeline. Like something that could tell her what to do now that her whole world had been changed. "Thank you."

And Clint thought, yeah: he didn't like people who used rules to confine and bind, but he could definitely appreciate people who used them as a map to the madness they all dealt with in this mad, bad world.