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1.
“I miss eggs,” Clint sighs over the comm.
Phil pauses in the process of cleaning his gun (again; Clint isn’t the only one who’s bored).
“Okay,” he says cautiously, drawing it out, wondering whether this is some kind of code Clint thinks he knows and will respond to accordingly.
The small huff that comes over the comm makes the set of his shoulders relax, because an amused Clint means there’s nothing too bad he needs to worry about.
“I do, though. Scrambled eggs. Smothered in ketchup over toast, yum.”
Phil makes a disgusted face. He knows he doesn’t make a sound, but Clint chuckles all the same, low and intimate, and Phil’s stomach clenches with the sweet ache he’s becoming accustomed to around this guy. He doesn’t know when it happened; doesn’t know how they got here, where they can talk like this, share completely random tidbits and pieces of their lives with each other without even blinking, where knowing Clint is on the other side of the comm makes something inside his chest unclench, makes his breath come easier.
Ridiculous, and yet.
“Yeah, yeah, I know, you think it’s disgusting, you don’t have to say anything,” Clint grouses. His voice turns warm, almost confiding. “How do you like your eggs anyway?”
Phil smiles down at his gun, but schools his face before he answers even though Clint is nowhere close enough to see him. “Over easy, runny yolk, on buttered toast. I like that moment I cut into them, and then mopping them up with the toast.” It’s so weird how saying this somehow isn’t weird at all; like he’s saying it into the aether with no expectation of anything in return, no reason for it other than just shooting the breeze, passing the time. It doesn’t feel like he’s baring his soul to another person, just the thought of which normally makes all the hairs on his body stand up at once. It just…is what it is.
“Oh, man,” Clint says, swallowing audibly. “That sounds amazing. Fuck, I want some. And pancakes, Coulson. Pancakes. “ He groans. Phil grits his teeth and does not allow himself to make a sound.
“Omelette with red onion and goat’s cheese,” he sighs instead. Clint makes a gagging sound on the other end of the line, and Phil grins.
“That sounds utterly vile,” Clint opines. “Sorry, sir, but you got some screwed up taste buds.”
“Shut up, Barton, I’m not the one ruining perfectly good eggs with ketchup.”
“Ketchup is practically a food group in and of itself,” Clint argues, and Phil scoffs, unable to keep it in, and seeing no reason to, either.
“Do you know how much crap goes into it?”
“Do you know how much crap goes into those gas station donuts you’re addicted to?” Clint counters, and Phil’s got nothing to say to that.
The silence lasts approximately two minutes of steady breathing on the other side, before Clint starts singing Haddaway’s What Is Love under his breath and Phil bites his lip not to snort. He does pointedly click the safety off on the pistol in his hands, and enjoys Clint’s smothered laughter probably more than he ought to.
(When Clint finally declares the stakeout a bust, Phil uses the time he knows it will take Clint to get back to walk down the block, to the small family store tucked between a chemist and an optician, and procure a plastic bag full of groceries, some of them against his better judgement. The look on Clint’s face when he sees the supersized bottle of Heinz ketchup is worth the compromise, however, and the combination isn’t half as bad as Phil imagined.)
2.
“Did you know,” Phil says conversationally as he subdues the second attacker and hogties him to hell and back with zip ties, “that hummingbirds beat their wings sixty to eighty times a second?”
There’s a pause on the other end; Phil doesn’t think it’s just the exertion he knows Clint is going through.
“I didn’t know that,” Clint agrees, followed by a grunt and a more distant yell. “Do I want to know why you decided this is just the right time to expand my random shit knowledge base?”
Phil drags their would-be assassins into the nearest supply cupboard of the pre-Communist-era concrete chunk of a building, and throws the lock on them from the outside.
“It was supposed to be a not-so-subtle hint for you to get a move on, but maybe I was being too vague?”
He turns the corner, and experiences the always-slightly-weird sensation of the sound from his comm synchronising with the sound in stereo when Clint’s quickened breathing registers in both ears at the same time. He looks a little flushed, and his eyes dart over Phil’s body and away too fast for Phil to feel the need to comment. They reach the next junction quickly enough, heading in the direction of where a SHIELD van is waiting for them with a skeleton staff to aid their extraction. Clint steps in front of him, pressing Phil back into the wall while he peeks around the corner. Phil rolls his eyes but doesn’t call him out – they’re in the field, and he knows as well as anyone that instincts are not so easily surmountable, especially the ones that have saved your life time and again.
Instead, he reaches up and absent-mindedly readjusts the strap of Clint’s quiver over his chest, tugs his suit plates more securely down his abs from where they’d ridden up. Clint’s hand is warm on his shoulder, keeping him in place, tightening in warning when he sees something Phil can’t. His eyes shift back to Phil’s, and he gestures with his other hand, quick, efficient movements letting Phil know that there are three guards on the left, two on the right, and that Clint recommends going straight through since it’d take too long to adjust their route through the complex.
Phil nods, chancing a look around the wall himself while Clint reaches under his jacket and liberates the knife Phil tends to carry as back-up to his gun.
“On three,” Clint mouths, and Phil nods, taking his gun out and clicking off the safety.
“Three,” he says.
They turn the corner.
3.
“Did you ever used to just lie on your back in your backyard and look up at the sky? The shapes the clouds made? I used to do that right as the sun was setting, watch the colours change and dim, and you know that moment, when it’s not light anymore but it’s not dark either, the sky’s a deep blue and the clouds are still a few shades lighter, and the moon’s just starting to rise, washing them in silver? I could stare up into that sky for hours.”
It’s late. Or, rather, it’s not exactly late, but they have been up since before the sun, and they have more or less remained in one spot through that whole time, fourteen hours and counting. Clint’s voice is low and hypnotic, painting a pretty picture that Phil can see in his mind’s eye – a little boy, unruly blond mop of hair on his head, a little undernourished, maybe, but healthy enough, lying in the grass, blue eyes filled with wonder staring up into the sky, letting his imagination run riot. He wonders what Clint saw in those clouds; was it escape? A different world? Another reality, where his father wasn’t a drunkard and his mother wasn’t sick and his brother wasn’t a mere four years older than him and just as helpless? A world in which he could fly away, up into the clouds, and disappear?
He looks out of the window, sees the silvery tint to the sky from the full moon rising, and it’s one answer as to why Clint is asking this now, while the streets quiet below them.
“I did, yes,” Phil replies. “I used to go stay with my great-aunt in Seattle sometimes, when my parents went on business trips at the same time. She lived in an apartment on the fifteenth floor of a high-rise. She was an architect, and I guess she did it more out of love for the craft than because it was her job, because her home was like something out of a magazine shoot. The space was wide open, what furniture there was was sparse, fitted so well into the interior that it didn’t distract from the sky you could see through the glass wall of the living room. Her balcony was pretty wide, and she had a nice set-up out there, two recliners, a drinks table. I used to sit out there waiting for her to come home from the office, the city spread out below me, the sky above, peeking through the buildings in the distance. It was…magical, I guess.”
He sucks in a breath after that, lets it out on a sigh, looks up into the changeling sky through the open window of their safe house. He hadn’t realised how much he missed that, not until just this second. Maybe that’s why Clint loves rooftops so much.
Clint doesn’t say anything. His breathing is calm and rhythmic in Phil’s ear, almost like Clint’s head is leaning on his shoulder, like if Phil turned just a little, he would be able to feel his breath tease along his collarbone, the side of his neck. He closes his eyes, and wants.
“Your great-aunt sounds awesome. Tell me about her.”
And Phil doesn’t mind, not at all, but first—
“All right. Come on in, Barton. We’re done for the night. We’ll let the cameras do the heavy lifting until morning.”
Clint grunts in agreement, and Phil hears the crack of his neck as he gets up and stretches. Phil’s memory supplies the visual he doesn’t have; it’s not really something he’s going to forget, not any time soon.
“What was her name?” Clint asks, deceptively nonchalant, like he’s trying not to push Phil too far – but Phil knows what he sounds like when he’s focused on something, and isn’t fooled.
“Her name was Molly,” he replies easily, except his tone isn’t faked. He smiles a little, thinking of the wiry old lady with the ash-blonde hair perpetually fashioned in a neat bob; in her always-stylish clothes, she could have stepped out of any magazine, except she was no meek miss.
He hasn’t talked about her in years. No one had ever wanted to know, before. No one had wanted to listen just because Phil wanted to talk. He flicks on the light in the kitchen and sets the table to the sound of Clint putting his equipment in order, then his quiet grunts and huffs as he makes his way back over the rooftops, and tells him about Molly and her laser-green eyes, her penchant for perfection, how she had valued neatness but let Phil make as much of a mess in his room as he wanted to; how she loved classical movies but took Phil to see Star Wars anyway, because he hadn’t been able to stop talking about it for months. How she hated broccoli but cooked it for Phil anyway, because she knew he liked it.
(“Of course you did,” Clint laughs, loud and genuine and full of something Phil hesitates to call affection. “You’re the only guy I know who can eat disgusting gas station food and like broccoli.”
“Beggars can’t be choosers,” Phil replies primly, thinking of the crap he’d eaten on missions over the years, and then wants to kick himself so hard when Clint goes quiet and merely says, “No, they can’t.”)
Phil makes them tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches, just because. Nothing to do with Clint mentioning yesterday how much he misses tomato soup from a can, even though he knows he’s not supposed to like it so much.
He doesn’t let himself indulge in the (bright) (slightly disbelieving) (shyly pleased) smile Clint gives him when he sees what’s on the table for dinner. That way madness lies.
4.
“This reminds me of a Luc Besson movie, Angel-A. I don’t know if you’ve seen it?”
“Mmm no, can’t say that I have.”
Phil looks out at the rooftops he can see from their tiny safe house, itself tucked under the eaves of the building.
“It’s black and white, stars this gorgeous Danish actress, Rie Rasmussen. Really tall. Blonde. Legs up to here. It’s set in Paris, and it’s so beautiful, like a love song to the city.”
Clint hums. “You know we’re not actually in Paris?”
Phil rolls his eyes. “Thanks, I hadn’t noticed.”
“So okay, fine, I’ll bite. What made you think of it?”
Phil shrugs. “Just the feel of the city, I guess. Almost like we’re in a dream? I mean, I know there are plenty of films set in Prague, but there’s just something about this view, this place. Put me in mind of it.”
“You know what it makes me think of?”
Phil sighs, and doesn’t smile. Much. “Do tell.”
“Dublin. I guess it’s the beer, all these little cobbled streets, the pubs. Damn, I could use a beer right now.”
Phil checks his watch. It’s four in the afternoon, nowhere near turning in time.
“Yeah, I know,” Clint agrees, even though Phil hasn’t said anything. “I’m just bored. Almost hope this asshole would make a move just so I can shoot him and go home.”
Well. It’s not like Phil doesn’t wish he had a day or two to waste in Prague himself.
“Here’s a bit of incentive to the reverse: if this is a bust, we could stick around for a couple of days, play tourists. It’d make a nice change, no one gunning for us.”
Clint is quiet for a moment. “I’d really like that,” he says softly. “You sure you wouldn’t mind?”
Phil blinks. Mind? “No, why would I?”
“I wasn’t sure it was your kind of thing, is all.”
“I do actually enjoy having free time when I can swing it, Barton.”
Clint huffs. It sounds frustrated. “That’s not what I meant. I just…figured you might want a break from having to stick with me.”
Phil frowns. “What? Barton, we’re in Prague. You think I’d want to go wandering alone without anyone to share it with, when I’ve got you right here?”
Clint chokes. Phil replays what he just said, and his heart stops in his chest, gut clenching. Here it comes. Fuck. Well, it was nice while it lasted. (While it lasted, it was one of the things that made waking up in the morning worth it.)
Stupid, so stupid, that it should end like this.
“Sure, sir, you’ve got the right guy,” Clint replies, while Phil is dithering over saying something (he’ll be fucked if he knows what, though). He sounds…well, like he’s trying really hard to pretend that the past thirty seconds never happened. Phil takes in a deep breath and lets it slowly out again. Okay. He can do this, if that’s what Clint wants.
They don’t, in fact, get to play tourists, because five minutes later, the asshole does make a move and Clint shoots him through his right eye. And then they’re running, back to the outskirts of the city to where the extraction chopper waits for them.
Phil ought to be glad about managing to avoid even more awkwardness, but he can’t quite get over the feeling of disappointment that he didn’t get to stroll down Charles Bridge with Clint at his side.
5.
“So,” Clint says. There’s something in his voice that gives Phil pause – with good reason, it seems, because then Clint goes on to say, “A pig’s orgasm can last for up to thirty minutes.”
Phil blinks. Stares. Doesn’t seem to be able to breathe for a minute there. After too long a pause, damn it, he forces himself to regroup.
“Barton, I cannot imagine why you felt the need to share this fact.”
“Aw, come on, sir, sure you can.”
He’s laughing, the bastard. Phil swallows some more, and does not choke on his own saliva because he is not, in fact, a rookie.
Even if he really, really feels like one right now.
He closes his eyes and tries to pull himself together.
“The things I’m extrapolating from this conversation do not bear thinking about,” he informs Clint dryly.
A bark in his ear, and Clint’s laughing in earnest now, the kind of guffaw that a) cannot be faked to this extent (no one has that good breath and muscle control) and is thus b) impossible to suppress. Clint actually starts wheezing and Phil does not smile because that would be encouraging him and then they’re all going to die.
“That’s—that’s—ahahaha no, that’s just—“ Clint tries, but apparently he’s still at the stage of hilarity where finishing a sentence is just not happening. “Can’t believe—no sense of humour,” he manages, somewhat hoarse, and Phil grits his teeth really hard because stop it, stop it, this is not what he should be thinking about.
“That’s what they think, yes,” he says.
Clint chortles some more, but he’s mostly got his breath back now, and Phil’s throat tightens with the thought of what’s likely to come out of his mouth next.
“I just thought,” Clint says, cheerful but also unusually careful, “that it was something to aspire to. And I’d like to aspire to it with you.”
Phil bites the inside of his cheek, along with at least three replies clamouring on the tip of his tongue.
“There areso many things wrong with this sentence,” he sighs; and then, because Clint has gone quiet and his breathing has that hushed quality it gets when he’s holding it, “But not the intent behind it.”
A click in his ear, like someone swallowing with a too-dry throat.
“Yeah?” Clint says. He sounds tentative and young and so, so hopeful.
Phil lets himself smile this time. “Yeah. But – you really think this could work?”
Clint scoffs. “It’s been working for years. Just without the sex,” he points out, and Phil—
“Oh my god,” he blurts, genuinely shocked, because he absolutely had not—
Clint starts laughing again. “What, you didn’t see it? How didn’t you see it? Have you heard us? Sitwell looks apoplectic every time he finds out we’re going on a mission together, knowing he’ll have to go over the transcripts later.”
“Fuck,” Phil says.
Clint’s breath hitches. It’s possible that Phil has never said this to him over the comms – or, at all, really. Phil is not in the habit of pointless swearing. (Swearing when there’s a reason for it – that’s a different matter entirely, but Clint is usually too gone to blood loss or injury or the good drugs by that point to hear him.)
“Sir?” he says, deadly calm. It might be Phil’s breath that’s hitching now.
“Yes, Barton?”
“I’m coming in.”
“Yes,” Phil agrees. “You are.”
+1.
“Seriously,” Clint says. He turns from where he’s stirring something utterly mouth-watering in a pot on the stove and brandishes the spoon in Phil’s direction. “Just look it up on the internet.”
Phil lowers the folded paper into his lap and looks at Clint over the top of his glasses. “That would be cheating,” he informs him sternly.
Clint swallows; his eyes darken, and his tongue darts out to lick his lower lip, leaving it shiny and oh-so-tempting. Phil arches an eyebrow. Clint shifts on his heel, and honest-to-God, his cheeks pink. Well. This is certainly interesting. Phil had been willing to ignore Clint staring at him when he put his glasses on but ignoring this would just be a waste of good intel.
“Then stop huffing in frustration and look it up in your books, though I still don’t get why your forty volumes of an encyclopaedia is allowed but checking the internet, which will take you at least twenty minutes less, is cheating.”
Phil eyes him for another minute and then sighs, shaking his head.
“I got nothing,” he admits, and Clint grins at him, victorious and beautiful.
“What is it that’s got you stumped anyway?” Clint asks as he turns back to the stove.
“Oldest known animal, four letters, second one is L,” Phil says distractedly, glaring down at his crossword. It’s lunchtime on Sunday, and since his morning was…otherwise occupied, in a different room of the house, he’s had to move his sacred coffee-and-Sunday-papers ritual a couple of hours back. He’s damned if he’s giving it up, though, especially when Clint seems to strangely enjoy it.
“Oh – it’s a clam,” Clint tells him, peering inside the pot and checking the consistency of the sauce.
He turns when Phil says nothing, merely stares at him.
“How the hell do you know all that stuff?” Phil asks, genuinely impressed.
Clint shrugs, tasting the stew and making a pleased sound. “Used to watch nature documentaries when I couldn’t sleep,” he says, throwing Phil a smile over his shoulder. It makes his eyes crinkle, and makes Phil forget what he was doing.
“Will you come over here a second?” Phil asks, as innocently as he knows how.
Clint hums in agreement, lowers the heat under the pot and pads over to Phil’s armchair.
Thankfully, the stew needs at least another hour to simmer, because otherwise it’d be takeaway pizza again, Phil thinks as Clint comes within reach.
He dumps his paper and pen on the floor without further ceremony, and reels Clint in to take their place.