Summary: If there was one word Phil Coulson would pick to describe himself, it would be loyal. If Clint Barton had to pick a word to describe Phil Coulson, that wasn't profanity, it would be tenacious. Rated for language.

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Lessons in Tenacity

Lesson Five: First Mission Abroad

Phil knocked gently on Fury's door, anxiously adjusting his suit jacket. There was no reason to be nervous, he told himself. Clint's first mission had gone swimmingly, with none of the kinks or snags that usually cropped up during a maiden mission.

So, he thought as Fury called him in. Why am I here?

What he voiced aloud instead was, "Good morning, Director. You wanted to see me?"

"Yes, I did," Fury replied calmly, one hand extended to offer the unoccupied chair in front of his desk. "I wanted to talk with you about Agent Barton."

Phil took his seat, his brow deliberately smoothed of any curious wrinkles. "Agent Barton completed his initial mission satisfactorily, sir. Perfectly, actually, if I may say so."

"You may," Fury allowed, inclining his head in Phil's direction. "I'm not unhappy with his performance so far."

Phil shifted in his seat, getting more comfortable in light of Fury's praise. "Then what would you like to speak with me about?"

"Agent Hill and I noticed something during Barton's last training session that is of some concern."

"Last training session," Phil muttered to himself. His eyes lit up as he realized which simulation Fury was referring to. "Trust me, I think he's learned to clear the corners."

"I agree that having someone of his caliber forget such a detail was disconcerting, but that's not what I meant." Fury set his elbows on his desk and leaned forward, his face serious. "He still wears his dogtags."

Phil froze, his mind going absurdly blank. "Yes, I had noticed."

"And yet, he still has them," Fury retorted gently. When Phil remained silent, the director pressed. "They're a liability and you know that."

"Yes. Yes, I do," Phil admitted finally, after a few moments of quiet reflection. He looked up at Director Fury to find an oddly compassionate gaze coming from the normally stoic man. The unexpected concern struck a cord and Phil relaxed his standard impassive persona, sighing. "How am I supposed to get them without breaking the bond we've formed?"

Fury shrugged. "That's up to your discretion."

Phil couldn't help rolling his eyes, no longer concerned with being written up for insubordination. Fury held out his hands in a placating manner.

"He's your agent. You brought him in, and you handle him. This is one thing that you're going to have figure out on your own. No one knows him better than you do, and so there's no advice that I can give you that would be worth a penny."

Phil nodded. He glanced up after a moment. "Out of curiosity, what would you do?"

"Honestly?" Fury snorted at Phil's question. "I'd just ask him."

Coulson was fidgeting.

The act itself was innocuous, a rhythmic tapping of fingers against the desk blotter. The fact that the fingers belonged to Coulson was the interesting part. Clint had only known Phil for a few weeks, two months at the most, but he knew that the older agent never, ever fidgeted.

It was enough to set Clint on edge.

"Why do you keep doing that?" His sudden question burst through the odd silence in the office. Coulson's fingers finally arrested and he looked up at Clint, startled. He flicked his eyes down at his hand, somewhat abashed.

"I didn't realize I was doing anything," he muttered quietly.

When he said nothing else, Clint let out a sigh. "You didn't answer my question."

"I need to ask you something, and it's going to be unpleasant," Coulson finally admitted, lacing his now-still fingers and setting them on the desk. "And I really, really, don't want to do it."

The archer's eyes sparkled. "I wear size -,"

"Do not finish that sentence," Coulson warned and Clint bit back on a grin.

He leaned back in his chair, propping his booted feet on the corner of the desk. "Fuck, just get it over with already."

"I need your dogtags."

Clint stilled, shifting to face the older agent at his unexpected statement. "What?"

"They are a liability," Phil murmured gently, his confidence seemingly bolstered. Clint stared at him with something akin to betrayal in his eyes, and Phil bit back on a wince. "They've got your name, your social security number, everything. They are completely traceable back to the United States and to us."

"They aren't SHIELD issue," Clint muttered sulkily, attempting to protest.

Phil shook his head. "Do you really think that's going to stop someone that is interested? Because, I don't."

Clint's fingers twitched as he repressed the urge to clutch at the warm metal beneath his shirt. "I kept them for my last mission."

"A mistake on my part," Phil acknowledged. "And one that Director Fury dressed me down for. While nothing went amiss there, that may not be the case this time."

Clint sat for a moment, his lips curled downwards in a severe frown that deepened the longer he thought. Finally, he reached a hand up and yanked the chain from his neck, dropping it to the table jerkily.

"Here," he said, shoving the bundle of pendant and chain towards Phil. His ease of movement belied the discomfort Phil could see in his eyes, and the older agent smiled sympathetically at his charge. Clint glared at him. "No way to trace me back to you now."

The young archer left immediately, his shoulders tight with tension and Phil sighed, dropping his head into his hands. He pressed the heels of his palms in his eyes, hoping the pressure of his hands would relieve some of the ache in his head.

The sun glinted off of the bits of metal and chain heaped on his desk, throwing flashes of light into his vision. He reached down, fingering the raised letters on the tags. After a few minutes of silent contemplation, he stood abruptly, gripping the tags in his hand, and left his office.

He was down at Ben's new office in less than five minutes. The young man looked up, alarmed, at his sudden entrance. Phil tossed the dogtags, the chain sliding loudly across the paper that Ben was reading. He grinned at the young scientist.

"How are you at metalworking?"

Clint was unusually quiet.

Phil knew why, of course, had watched him reach a hand up to finger the dogtags that were no longer there at least a dozen times over the course of the plane ride. It was enough to make the older agent squirm uncomfortably. He'd known that the tags were important to Clint, that much was obvious, but Phil had never really known how important. Clearly, they were more than just something familiar; they had become a talisman to the archer.

Deciding that his best course of action would be to distract Clint, Phil leaned forward as much as the seat harness would allow. "Have you memorized the brief?"

"Yes." Clint rolled his eyes, crossing his arms. "This isn't going to be that hard of a mission."

Phil shrugged. "It's similar to your others, I'll admit. But that doesn't mean there can be room for mistakes."

"I'm not going to make a fucking mistake." Phil leaned back in the wake of Clint's vehemence and the archer sighed loudly. Dipping his hand into the bag at his feet, he removed a flask and took a drink. "Sorry."

"It's fine," Phil replied warily. "Got a problem you want to talk about?"

"The brief," Clint said succinctly, taking another drink and putting the flask back in his bag.

Phil made a leading gesture. "What about it?"

"I did read it," Clint said, leaning his head back. "And it's kind of familiar."

Phil mentally scanned the mission brief, desperately trying to remember why Clint would think that, when it hit him. The mark they were after was notoriously shady, someone who wouldn't hesitate to use women or children as shields in a manner similar to that of the mission that resulted in Clint's dishonorable discharge from the army. "Oh."

"Yeah."

Phil leaned forward again, clasping his hands in front of him seriously. "Clint, you know that I will back you, no matter what happens out there."

"And who's going to back you?" Clint sounded tired, his face oddly young in the dim light of the plane, and Phil found himself alternating between sympathetic and exasperated. Clint's hand went to his neck again and sympathy won out.

"Just trust me on this, Barton. Everything is going to be okay."

The plane began its descent and both men shook the conversation away, maintaining a comfortable quiet until Clint prepared to leave the safehouse for his mission.

"Take a jacket." Clint turned from the door with one raised brow to see Phil holding a coat out towards him. The older agent shook the garment for emphasis. "You might be there a while, and it's going to get chilly.

Clint snorted. "You sound like my mother."

"The last thing I need is Fury's star sniper catching pneumonia because he's a stubborn ass," Phil replied, rolling his eyes. He tossed the jacket at Clint, who caught it reflexively. "And I'm not your mother."

"I think I just found your new callsign," the archer announced, grinning, and pulled the jacket on.

Phil's eyes narrowed. "My callsign is Patriot."

"See if I use that, ever."

He laughed as he left, the lighthearted banter proving a subtle balm to his nervousness. He climbed the emergency stairwell to the roof, propping the door open with a brick. Making his way over to the wall, he dropped to his belly and shuffled closer to the edge, settling in to wait.

He stayed in the same position for hours, watching his mark in the building across the alley. Finally, Clint shifted, just slightly, and froze when he heard a soft clink emanate from one of the endless pockets of his jacket. Keeping his eyes on the mark, he unzipped the closure and reached a hand inside. His questing fingers found metal, smooth and cool and uncannily familiar, and he pulled the pendant out.

"Son of a bitch," he breathed.

They weren't his dogtags, he told himself repeatedly. They weren't, but they were damned close. The tags hung from a standard ball chain, the sharp edges of the metal folded back. He passed the pad of his thumb over the raised lettering.

Hawkeye

The memory rose in his mind as if it had been yesterday, that seedy bar in Oklahoma taking shape around him. Drunk as he was, Clint still sank dart after dart into the board's bullseye, to the point that the red cork was almost nonexistent. Phil had loudly proclaimed him to have the eyes of a hawk, and he'd laughingly called Clint 'Hawkeye' for the remainder of the night.

Clint had almost forgotten about that exchange in the wake of his crushing hangover the next morning, and he'd assumed that Coulson had too. It seemed that he was wrong.

"Patriot calling Hood, are you alright?" Coulson's voice was softly urgent, and Clint realized that he'd been being paged for some minutes.

"Yeah," Clint replied, startled to hear his voice hoarse and croaking. He cleared his throat. "Yeah, I'm fine."

There was silence on the other end, and Clint could swear he heard a warm smile in Coulson's voice. "Then pay attention. We've got movement on the inside."

Ignoring the quiet instructions coming through his commlink, Clint pushed himself up onto his knees and swiftly drew the chain over his head. He suppressed a shiver at the cold metal touching his skin and relished the familiar weight of the tags as they settled against his breastbone.

Picking up his weapon and rising to his feet, he grinned, feeling so much more himself. Coulson was still chattering on the other end of the line. Amusement threaded through his voice as he drew back the bowstring and took aim.

"Mother," he interrupted fondly. "Shut the fuck up."

Fin.