Mission Twenty: You're a Team Player Now?

Clint hadn't realized that Tony had actually planned for the team to stay with him after what had happened in New York. The guy was known for not taking on for an answer, so it hadn't occurred to him that what had seemed like a casual offer of a place to crash if they were going to keep taking down bad guys together was actually a fully-realized invitation.

But the evidence was impossible to ignore. There were actual rooms set aside for all of the Avengers, plus room for anyone they might pick up along the way. And when Clint had asked who he thought was going to be crazy enough to join them, Tony had shrugged and said something about rumors about kids trying to be heroes, but he hadn't elaborated. Though considering the mission Clint had recently run looking into the Van Dynes, he couldn't fault Tony for keeping his eyes open for others.

Once Tony showed him his room, though, Clint couldn't help but smirk at Natasha, because her room was directly across from his. And he was still limping from all the patching up medical had to do to get him on his feet again, so she couldn't even shove him like she would usually do when he gave her an expression like that.

But when he leaned over to whisper, "Not as covert as we thought we were, huh?", she did shove him, and he hit the wall with an oof.

"Oops," Natasha said, straight-faced.

"Yeah, I totally believe that 'oops'," Clint said, grinning as he righted himself by holding onto the doorknob before he let himself into the new room.

He grinned around the place, shaking his head when he realized how much planning must have gone into this. There were already shelves and hooks on the far wall for Clint's equipment, and there was, hilariously, a first-aid kit in the attached bathroom. The window was huge and showed how high up the room was, close to the roof.

And there were sunflower seeds sitting on the desk in the corner of the room.

"Okay, you had to have bought those recently," Clint laughed, though Tony wasn't even there, and he was more or less talking to himself.

He had to laugh at the collection of purple tee shirts and jeans that had apparently been set aside as an emergency stash of clothes, too, but he wasn't going to question it too much. Tony had put all this effort in for zero recognition; Clint wasn't going to make a production of it—

—at least, he wouldn't make a production until it was perfectly hilarious to do so.

He had just changed when he heard Natasha step into the room—so he knew she wanted him to know he was there. Otherwise, he wouldn't have heard her until she was right behind him either scaring him or kissing him.

He kind of preferred the sneak attack, but then, he'd been told in no uncertain terms that there was to be no horsing around until he was healed.

"So, secret's out, huh?" Clint said without turning toward her, waiting for her to come to him. He had seen the look on her face when he'd been in medical, and he knew she needed space to process it all.

"What, that you're the most accident-prone man I've ever met?" she teased him from the doorway.

"Not a secret."

"Then you must be asking about Tony's generosity. I didn't think that was a secret, but—"

"I mean, I know the guy doesn't mind throwing money around, especially for a good cause, so I'm more surprised that he's willing to live with us than I am surprised that he took Fury's Avengers idea, ran with it, funded it, and is trying to do everything he can to make sure it's his and not Fury's." Clint finally looked over his shoulder to where she was standing with her arms crossed. "Or am I off?"

"You're not, actually," Natasha said, finally releasing her hold on her arms to slip over to him and bump shoulders with him.

"So, I saw where Stark put your room," Clint said after a few long moments in silence.

"Clint." Natasha sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose.

"I'm just saying. You said you could keep a secret, but he's had these places set aside for a while now, and that means—"

Natasha gave him a more substantial shove at the shoulder that actually made him lose his balance, and he laughed as he grabbed her arm to bring her down with him.

"Doc said we can't—"

"Clinton Francis," Natasha said in a tone that immediately shut him up—but that had him grinning all the same. She rolled her eyes and tucked her hair behind her ear, not bothering to try to get out of the tangle of arms and legs that they had become before she leaned in to kiss him. "Yes," she said, and he quirked his eyebrow. "Yes, the answer to your question is 'yes,' the secret is out. I was worried about you when Loki took you, and if you listen to Steve, the whole team already knows."

"Oh, Steve, huh? Does Phil know you're on first-name terms with Captain America?" Clint asked, knowing that if he pressed his luck to tease her about the secret being out any more than he already had, she would cut him off.

Natasha raised an eyebrow his way and then let out a scoffing laugh. "Of course he doesn't know. I don't want him to die again, and you know how delicate his heart can be."

"So, really, not knowing is for his own good," Clint said, nodding along sagely.

"Exactly."

Clint grinned and turned out to face the large window, watching the busy streets far below them. He wasn't sure how long they sat there in silence, but he liked that they could stand there without saying anything and still feel comfortable with each other. And then, finally, he said, "I'm glad you're okay. I was getting secondhand news from Hydra about you and Rogers."

"If I could have safely reached out to you—"

"I know. I get it. And I knew you were safe. I knew you two had it handled. Still gonna complain about it, because I love you," he said.

She was quiet for a long minute and then reached out to take his hand and squeeze it.

It wasn't quite the same as saying it back—except that it was.

…..

The fallout from the fall of SHIELD and the rise of Hydra was obviously going to take a while to parse, and Steve in particular had thrown himself into searching out any remnants of Hydra—and any mention of Bucky, while he was at it. But it was all still so fresh, so recent, that Clint knew they were going to be undoing knots and figuring out who among their community of agents and spies they could actually trust for a good, long while.

But when Coulson reached out, Clint didn't hesitate. If he couldn't trust Coulson, then what was he even doing with his life?

He let Natasha know he'd gotten a message on the burner phone that connected them to Coulson, and she had hesitated for only a second before she agreed that they needed to meet up with him—if only to make sure he wasn't corrupted, too.

And Clint understood that mindset. He really did. Natasha didn't trust easily, and even though she trusted him and she trusted Steve, the Hydra infiltration of SHIELD had broken something in her, something that she wouldn't let anyone else see. She had been so sure of herself, so excited to be on the "good" side with SHIELD, that finding out she had been serving something as evil as Hydra had her reverting back to something like the woman he had first met when he decided not to kill her.

But Coulson? Come on. Coulson was the best SHIELD had ever seen. He was the whole reason Clint trusted anyone in the business. Coulson wasn't Hydra.

He couldn't be.

Right?

Okay, so Clint had to admit that he was second-guessing. A little bit. But only because Natasha was going into this meeting with her game face on, and only because he honestly hadn't seen Beth's betrayal coming, and only because he knew that he was still physically recovering and would be vulnerable if Hydra wanted to try again to grab him, and only because the more he overthought everything, the more he spiraled into worry that somehow he'd gone from the Circus of Crime to another Hydra wing—because the Circus of Crime had Hydra backing, apparently. According to Steve. And Clint hadn't even known that, so what if he was just unacceptably blind in a way he'd never thought he was?

When they met up with Coulson, he was smiling, glad to see them as always, but he could probably afford to relax a bit, considering he had Melinda May standing beside him with her arms crossed, looking ready to tear them apart if they turned out to be Hydra agents.

Clint absolutely noticed that May's focus was more on him than on Natasha, and that was totally fair. He'd come from the Hydra-affiliated Circus of Crime, for one thing, and for another, Natasha had been visibly on the run with Steve Rogers to anyone tapped into what SHIELD had been doing.

Somehow, Clint was the less trustworthy of the two of them. At least in this situation.

Kinda weird.

"Been a crazy few days," Clint called out easily, his hands in his jeans pockets and most of his wrappings hidden by his clothes. "I'm glad you're alive."

He hadn't actually meant to say that—or to sound that sincere about it. He'd meant to make a joke, and he'd started out strong on that front. But he was so relieved to see that Coulson wasn't hurt badly, that he really was okay, that he couldn't help it.

He hadn't realized until just that moment how worried he had been that losing SHIELD might have meant losing Coulson. Losing one of the few people in the world who had cared about him before he was a high-level agent or an Avenger.

And Coulson broke into a smile as he stepped forward, his shoulders relaxing now that they had actually met up and Clint had broken the silence first. "It's good to see you, Clint."

First name. The breakup of SHIELD must have really done a number on Coulson.

Clint wasn't sure what made him do it. It might have been the fact that May was watching so closely and almost daring him to pull something. It might have been all the stress of everything happening so quickly. Or it might have been that he really did care about Coulson. Whatever the case, Clint found himself taking two quick steps over to Coulson to simply pull him into a tight hug that he had absolutely not plans on ending fast.

And Coulson, surprisingly, latched on just as hard.

"Glad you're alive," Clint whispered into the hug.

"I knew you'd make it out," Coulson said back—which was basically the same thing Clint had just said, except in Coulson's terms.

Clint finally stepped back to arm's length from Coulson, still grinning at his old handler. "So, Hydra, huh?" he said.

Coulson's expression darkened for a moment before he nodded. "I would have reached out sooner, but we had one in our ranks."

"On your team full of sweet kids?" Clint raised both eyebrows. "Seriously?"

"Seriously."

"Wow." Clint ran a hand through his hair and pulled a face. "Sorry, Phil. I know you put your heart into that team."

"We'll pull through," Coulson said simply, his hands out to his sides. He let that statement hang in the air for a moment before, smiling, he said, "And speaking of teams…"

"Wow, take note, Nat; it took him maybe five minutes before he had to talk about the intense jealousy he's feeling because we've got our own team now."

Natasha chuckled under her breath. "I'm sure it's more that he's surprised you're on the Avengers," she said dryly. "It took him ages to learn how to rein you in, and here you are, not taking a run at Tony Stark."

Coulson gestured toward Natasha with one hand. "She has a point," he said. "I seem to remember writing several reports about an agent who didn't play well with others."

"You got me, sir," Clint said with a careless grin. "I sure hate people."

"Not what I meant."

"Still what I heard."

Coulson let out a hum that didn't disguise his laugh before he looked toward Natasha. "I got the chance to talk to Fury. How much did he tell you?"

Clint turned to look at her, because obviously, he was once again missing out on something crucial. Whatever it was, it had Natasha smiling one of her softer smiles, not the kind she used to tease him and not the kind she used on people she was pumping for information. "Nat?" Clint asked.

"You should congratulate Coulson on his promotion, Clint. Take him out for drinks or something," Natasha said, her smile widening without losing a bit of its warmth.

Clint spun to face Coulson now, and when he saw the troublemaking smile his old handler was wearing, he knew he couldn't pass up the opportunity. So, he threw his arm out and performed a complicated showman's bow that would have looked amazing had he been center ring at the circus. Up close, it still looked showy, but really, having that space to flourish with his whole body so even the people sitting far away could see It only added to the drama. "Oh, you're the big boss now? Should I be worried about the whole organization crashing down around our ears, or…?"

"Barton, why are you bowing; you look ridiculous," Coulson said in a tone that couldn't hide his laughter.

"Kowtow? Grovel? Wow, sir, power has changed you."

"Glad to see being a team player hasn't changed you," Coulson shot back with a crooked smirk. "Even if I'm surprised you managed it. And given the other members of the team…"

"Hey, Nat vouches for Stark, Banner seems alright, Thor is an actual god, and you've had a crush on Captain America as long as I've known you, so I feel like, if anything, I'm the one who needed to bring character references to the meeting, considering I introduced myself to half the squad via murder."

Coulson shook his head. "No one blames you."

"Sure, but I do," Clint said and carelessly waved his hand around in a circle. "Anyway, did you just call to check on us and make sure we're not dead or…?"

Coulson watched Clint for a second longer than he needed to, likely still thinking about the previous topic of conversation. But then, with a sigh, he nodded. "I just wanted to ask if the two of you want to continue as agents of SHIELD," he said. "I'm going to reach out to Stark soon-"

"Oh, that sounds amazing; can I please be there for that?" Clint asked, instantly lighting up. "I'll totally be there anyway, but having permission saves me a lot of trouble."

"I want to talk to the full team, to be honest," Coulson said.

"Then why single us out ahead of time?" Natasha asked with her arms crossed. "You know you have our loyalty, Phil."

At the sound of his first name, Coulson broke into a smile just about as soft as he was capable of wearing. "And you have mine," he said in a tone that matched his smile. "That's what I wanted to be sure you knew."

"That and we had to check to make sure you hadn't been co-opted," May said dryly. "Even unwillingly."

Clint grinned crookedly at Coulson. "What, you think someone else could successfully tell me what to do?"

"You don't even do that now, Barton."

"See? Nothing to worry about."

"Shouldn't have worried; you're right," Coulson said, chuckling quietly. "At any rate, SHIELD can't operate the same way it used to. Hydra set us back significantly. So while we're happy to do what we can, it would be helpful if we could send some intel the Avengers' way."

"Split the load of tracking down Hydra," Natasha said, nodding along. "You know Rogers won't turn down a chance to find his best friend. Whatever you've got on the big guns, send it our way while you rebuild." She gave him a smile that was somehow both dangerous and friendly at the same time. "We've got this."

…

"So, do you think he'll just show up in Stark's workshop and try for a heart attack, or will he be completely unable to resist saying hello to Cap again?" Clint asked. He and Natasha were in his room, sitting on opposite ends of his bed as he sorted his arrowheads and she fiddled with something that had broken on her Widow's Bites.

"I can't believe you're dragging me into this like it's a sports bet," Natasha said without looking up from what she was doing, though he caught the smirk at the edge of her mouth that, lately, was more likely than not to become a smile. He couldn't believe it, but moving into the tower around all these superheroes seemed to have had the effect of relaxing her.

But then again, he couldn't have been that surprised. There were a grand total of six Avengers besides Natasha, and she had already personally vetted Tony and Clint, had seen Steve and Sam through the revival of Hydra, and had personally recounted to Nick Fury after the events in New York that the Hulk had paused when he saw her face and could be trusted not to turn on those he knew. Thor … honestly, Clint wasn't sure how Natasha felt about Thor, but Clint had told her everything he'd seen when he'd had an arrow trained on the guy (and everything that happened after), so she was probably, at best, willing to trust him on Clint's word.

Six people total that she had to trust. Seven if you included Pepper, who had already more than proven herself to Natasha while she'd been undercover. That was a much easier ask than throwing her into a huge organization like SHIELD.

"Okay," he said, "but you definitely still have an opinion, don't you? You and I know him better than anyone else, right?"

"I wouldn't say that's the case anymore," Natasha said, the edge of her mouth giving way to a smile, though she still didn't look up at him.

"What, you think someone else knows him better?"

"I think you know him like a child knows their favorite teacher. I think I know him like any spy can know a spy. I think Melinda May knows him in much better ways," Natasha said, finally looking up at him—if only so she could catch the expression on his face.

He knew he was giving her exactly the reaction she wanted, too, because his lips were slightly parted, his eyebrows were high on his head, the part of his brain that always had a quick-witted reply wasn't communicating with the rest of him—and she was still sitting there, watching him, her grin getting wider and wider and wider.

"What's this?" she asked, her eyes wide with false surprise. "Hawkeye, did you miss something?"

"You're really enjoying yourself right now, aren't you?"

"I'm just wondering if I should send you back to medical—"

"Really enjoying yourself," Clint said, rolling his eyes before he set aside what he was working on and swung his body around so that he was much closer to Natasha in one easy movement and could lean over to kiss her cheek. "You're loving being an Avenger, aren't you?"

Natasha let out her breath but turned to give him a light kiss. "I relax a bit and you're already accusing me of settling."

"Just enjoying the aftereffects," he said and pulled her into a much longer, more lingering kiss that had both of them, at the end of it, shifting so they could be more comfortable trading more kisses just like that one.

They had just gotten to the point that Clint had his hand on her waist and was playing with the edge of her shirt when, almost predictably, someone knocked on the door.

Clint let his shoulders drop and rested his head on her shoulder, still playing with her shirt and reluctant to break out of his current state of mind even as Natasha called out, "What's happening?"

"Geez, Romanoff, you have bad taste," Tony called back. "Room sharing? Really?"

"What do you want, Tony?" Natasha asked; her tone hadn't changed at all, but her position had. And to Clint's delight, she moved so that she was nearly in his lap, clearly telling him what she'd rather be doing at the moment.

"Got a call from SHIELD—or someone claiming to be the new head of it. It's got your code on it, so it looks legit, but if you want to double-check it…"

Natasha sighed, but Clint knew that was enough to break up the moment. The team had called her, and surprisingly, she was a team player much faster than he was. "I'll take a look at it," she said, moving gracefully, so seamlessly straightening herself out that Tony would never know anything had been about to happen by the time she opened the door.

Clint was a little bit slower, but, hey, he wasn't as good as she was at the undercover stuff. And she hadn't opened the door all the way when she answered Tony, so he had more time anyway.

But Tony pushed against the door, obviously wanting to bust them out, and let out a disappointed noise when Natasha caught the door with her foot. "What, scared I'll see how inadequate my competition is?" he teased.

Natasha's tone hadn't changed. "What makes you think you're in the competition?" she asked.

Clint didn't need to be able to see Tony to hear the smile in his voice as he said, "Yeah, missed your shot, didn't you?"

"Do you want me to look at this message for you or not?"

"Do you need your emotional support Merida to look at this message?"

"I can send you one just fine without getting up," Clint shot back, and Natasha rolled her eyes but allowed the door to open up enough that Tony could see the double middle fingers that Clint was holding up for him.

"Yeah, yeah, Zelda. You tagging along or what? You were SHIELD until, what, five seconds ago, right?"

"Yeah, give or take," Clint said easily, though he slid out of the bed to join them—if only because he knew who was on the other line and wanted to see the other Avengers' reactions to Phil's resurrection.

Steve was there waiting for them, and so was Sam. The two of them had put their heads together trying to track down Bucky, so Clint wasn't surprised to see them united like that. Bruce was … somewhere. Probably in the lab. And Thor was talking to Pepper about something Asgardian—something about a festival his people celebrated.

Just about everyone was gathered, then. Which was good, because depending on how things went, there were either going to be some pissed-off superheroes who needed to be calmed down after being lied to for so long or else they'd go the opposite way and need, like, smelling salts or something.

"Recognize that code, Widow?" Steve said, nodding toward the screen.

Natasha's expression betrayed nothing as she nodded.

"Okay." Steve didn't ask for any clarification, and his body language softened enough that Clint almost felt jealous of how quickly and easily Steve had gotten to know Natasha well enough to trust her that completely.

Tony took his cue from Steve and keyed in whatever he needed to do to let the call through, and then, clear as day, an image of Phil Coulson flickered to life in the middle of the screen, with the SHIELD emblem behind him.

"I think it's time we all had a talk," Coulson said, his tone and rhythm as mild as ever, though Clint knew him well enough to know that he was barely holding back a smile—probably because he could see that Captain America was standing there gobsmacked, his mouth open enough to be noticeable. Thor had completely abandoned his conversation with Pepper to rush over to the screen, smiling widely—though considering how he said he'd believed Loki to be dead, he was probably the least surprised by someone coming back from the dead—and Pepper herself had both hands over her mouth, shaking her head in pure disbelief.

But it was Tony who broke the silence first, quick on his feet as ever with a biting, "What, we're supposed to believe you're who you say you are because you managed to get your hands on a good code?"

"It's good to see you too, Mr. Stark," Coulson said, which had Clint chuckling to himself. The guy was director of SHIELD, and he was still being polite and deferent.

"How has this happened?" Thor asked, starting to grin. "We should celebrate your return!"

"Celebrate what, that Fury lied to us again?" Tony shot back, gesturing sharply at the screen. "He's very much not dead; I don't know if you've noticed!"

"I have, and I must say, I'm relieved," Thor said. "You still have much left to do, Son of Coul."

Coulson couldn't hide his smile at Thor's enthusiasm, though he was looking toward Steve, who hadn't said anything and was simply staring at the screen, obviously studying Coulson and deciding what to say. "It wasn't my idea to let you think I was dead," he said.

"I doubt you had much of a say at the time," Steve said, finally breaking his silence, though he looked somehow more upset about it.

"If it helps," Clint said, speaking without thinking—but what was new there?—"we knew."

Yeah, that was probably the wrong thing to say. He already hadn't felt much like he fit in with the other Avengers, and now, they had all turned toward him looking like he had personally betrayed them. Stupid, Barton. You're usually better at reading the room.

Quickly, he tried to explain himself. "See, the thing is," he said, looking around the room and finding Thor's the friendliest face, "Coulson and I have known each other since I was a kid. And I thought I got him killed. So, you know." He gestured toward Coulson with one hand. "He wasn't going to let me drown in that. You guys know him. He's not like that."

Steve didn't say anything, but Tony did at last let out a snort of breath through his nose and turned back toward Coulson. "Okay, that part I get. But you didn't want to drop a line? I said all these nice things about you I need to take back now."

Coulson chuckled. "Sorry to hear that, Mr. Stark."

There was a pregnant silence as the other Avengers processed Coulson's return, but then, suddenly, Pepper spoke up: "So, you'll come by and see the new headquarters, right?"

Clint grinned her way. Yeah, he definitely liked having Pepper around.

Coulson grinned too. "As soon as we've got a handle on things on our end, I'm looking forward to seeing what you're doing on yours."

"Good. We'll be expecting you," Pepper said in a tone that brooked no argument.