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Phil knows his soulmate is out there somewhere, and not just because everyone's soulmate is out there somewhere. He was twenty-five when he started waking up from dreams that weren't his, finding himself snacking on cookies when he'd just had dinner, staying in bed for an extra half hour because he was so damned tired for no reason at all. Someone else's feelings bleeding through to him, same way his were bleeding through to someone else.
It's comforting, sort of, and he knows the chances of ever meeting whoever those feelings belong to are practically nil.
*
"For the record," Maria says, hands over her head as she arches her back so far that Phil's half-expecting her spine to snap, "If I'd known it would be like this, I never would have gotten married."
It's Maria's first mission back after her honeymoon, the two of them stuck in a bland hotel room, watching the equally bland hotel across the street where a suspected arms' dealer gets coffee once a day at three fifteen pm. They don't really need to keep a constant watch, but there's always the possibility that their arms' dealer will do something interestingly off-routine, and neither of them intend to miss it if he does.
Regardless, Phil's half-turned to talk to Maria, who's just woken up and is twisting and wincing and generally looking unhappy with her lot in life. "Sleep funny?"
Maria gives him an exasperated glance. "My husband appears to have forgotten – again – that he's not the only one to suffer when he hunches over a desk for eight hours straight, and now I can't feel my spine."
"Right." Phil looks back at the street below – close to empty at four thirty in the morning. Marriage intensifies the bleed-over of feelings from your soulmate for the first few weeks, ramping it up from hungry-tired-horny to full on emotions and feelings.
Some days, Phil sees the way Maria curls into herself and smiles, warm and soft, and can't understand how she isn't utterly terrified.
*
Phil wonders, for his first few years at SHIELD, whether he might be working alongside his soulmate and not know. It's not uncommon for soulmates to find each other at places like SHIELD, though no-one's really sure why that is, when soul-matches are notoriously rare, less than 2.5% of the population.
Bio-science's best guess is that it has to do with the long hours, close proximity, and intense situations that make up a typical SHIELD day.
"That makes it sound like matches aren't really a thing," Barton says, the first time he hears that, frowning unhappily. "If there's more here because of how things are, these might not even be soul-matches."
"Don't let Maria and Jasper hear you say that." Phil smiles at Barton across their mess table, just slightly, and feels stupidly pleased when Barton's frown eases out.
"No, but – you've got someone, right?"
It's a personal question, too personal, really, for the situation and the handful of months they've been working together, but Phil nods anyway.
"Since before you were SHIELD, though, so unless proximity and all that stuff is making people's soulmates switch out somehow..." Clint takes a sip of coffee, apparently forgetting that he drank it all already, and makes a face. "That's a dumb theory."
"I'll be sure to pass that along," Phil tells him, and goes to get them both more coffee.
*
Even without a good explanation, though, he still wonders. Sure, some of it is proximity, and being on the same mission at the same time, but he has days when he feels like there's a thread holding him and the members of his team together, pulling them all in the same direction till their daily routines drop perfectly into sync.
"How did you know, with Maria?" he asks Jasper one late night when Phil's refusing to go to bed on principle, even though his team are all tucked away and dreaming. "That she was your soulmate."
"She kissed me," Jasper says with a one-shouldered shrug and a brief touch to the back of his right ear, where Maria's name appeared with their first kiss. "Didn't have a clue till then, but she was smart and funny and badass with a gun, so I pretty much figured if I could avoid screwing it up, we'd have a good shot."
It's not an uncommon story, though it doesn't usually end up with the couple turning out to be each other's match. The majority of people never find theirs, and in this case, Phil's okay with being part of the majority.
"Why'd you ask?" Jasper prompts.
Phil gives him a shrug back. Jasper hasn't helped Phil's theory one way or the other, but Phil's not going to start kissing his team for further evidence.
*
"I think my soulmate hates me," Barton says from Phil's office doorway, where he was not a minute ago. Phil checks him over; he and Barton rarely work together, but they're something close to friends these days, and someone needs to keep an eye on him.
It's just coincidence that Barton often turns up in Phil's line of sight wearing sleeveless shirts, smudges of dirt highlighting his ridiculously well-defined arms and, well, Phil's not a saint, here.
This time, Clint's also got a bandage taped above his left eye, but it's small. Phil's not worrying.
"I'm sure they don't," he says mildly, tipping his head in invitation for Clint to take the visitor chair, which he does.
"Easy for you to say," Clint grumbles. "Your soulmate hasn't been eating three meals a day for a week while you were living on army rations, except that you weren't actually hungry at all because your soulmate was eating regular meals and broadcasting non-hunger at you."
Phil rubs at the headache that's been lingering since the senior staff meeting that morning. God, he hates those things. He'd rather get shot at. Today's, he'd rather have been actually shot. "I doubt they were doing it on purpose."
Clint throws his head back and groans. "That makes it worse. You try eating army rations when you're not even hungry."
Phil hits save and closes his file folder decisively, catching Clint's eye as he gets to his feet. "Muffins," he says, and Clint's out of his chair and falling into step with Phil, no more words needed.
*
Natasha, Melinda and Maria play poker every Friday night that they're all in town, whereupon Jasper is unceremoniously booted out to spend the night at Phil's. They started off playing poker as well, but they know each other's tells too well, so now they take it in turns to bring the most ridiculous board game they can find for under ten dollars.
"Razorback," Jasper says. "And – I swear you weighted these things, how do you even manage to roll that?"
Phil marks his score down (he's winning by ten points, but he did spend twenty minutes practising throwing plastic toy pigs earlier in the evening). "Your turn."
"I'm bringing Genius Edition Scrabble next week," Jasper threatens. "I don't care that it's not a real thing."
"Whatever makes you happy."
Jasper throws two pigs with their spot upwards, and Phil eyes him suspiciously, trying to figure out if Jasper's hustling him at Pass The Pigs. "We should invite Barton," Jasper says. "He gave me the saddest puppy dog eyes I have ever seen when he asked what I was doing this evening."
That has the potential to be incredibly awkward, especially when the board game inevitably becomes a drinking game. On the other hand, between him and Jasper, and the women's poker night, most of Clint's friends are occupied without him most Friday nights, and that's just a little too sad for Phil to contemplate. "Sure," he says.
*
Genius Edition Scrabble turns out not to exist, but Jasper turns up with the French version instead, undoubtedly on purpose, since Phil's French is really not what it probably should be. It turns out that Clint's French spelling is atrocious, but his pronunciation is perfect, at least according to Jasper, who's native fluent.
The dissolution into drinking game should result in Phil somewhat past buzzed within a couple of games, especially since they're drinking tequila, which has no love for Phil. Weird thing is that he's just – not. He can feel it, same as Jasper and Clint, who are both loose and relaxed, grinning like fools instead of deadly SHIELD agents, but that's all it is. It's nice.
Doesn't make his French any better though.
As it turns out, not feeling drunk on tequila doesn't equate to not being drunk on tequila, at least judging by the raging hangover he wakes up with.
Phil checks his messages, including one each from Jasper and Clint cursing tequila, French Scrabble, and life in general, which make him feel a little better, and goes back to bed. World can save itself for once.
*
For all the stories that get passed around SHIELD, really wacky stuff doesn't happen all that often. When it does, it's usually R&D to blame, so Phil's not hugely surprised when the weird feeling of the air around him popping is immediately followed by a phone call.
He's a little more surprised when the phone call informs him that the only person affected was Clint, and no, they don't think the contaminant escaped the labs, why does he ask?
"No particular reason," Phil tells them, and makes his way down to R&D's level, gas mask in one hand, just in case.
He doesn't even make it through the door, stopped in his tracks by a young female scientist he can't immediately place, who exclaims, "Oh my gosh. Oh dear, that's not good at all."
"Not what I was hoping to hear," Phil tells her. The lockdown light is flashing, and there are two guards on the door, but when Phil sneaks a glance through the observation window, there's no sign of Clint or anyone else in the lab. It doesn't help the anxiety crawling in his stomach.
"No, I –" She half-raises a hand like she's going to touch him, then apparently thinks better of it. "It's just - I'm sure we can reverse it, sir." The uncertain smile she offers somewhat undermines this, which Phil chooses not to mention to her.
"What exactly is it, Doctor?"
"The transformation. I mean, obviously, Agent Barton, he'll be the most difficult, because his was a complete transformation, but no need to fret, sir, we'll have you back to -. We'll be able to get rid of the ears without a problem, I'm sure."
Phil's not the kind of person who blankly repeats things back that he doesn't understand, but for a moment, he's honestly tempted, since he's always had ears, and doesn't particularly want to get rid of them. Then common sense reasserts itself and he raises a hesitant hand to pat at the top of his head.
"Those ears," he says, buying himself a second. "And presumably Agent Barton was completely transformed into a –" he takes a guess – "A cat."
The scientist nods, mouth opening. Phil cuts her off by the simple mechanism of touching his ID to the lab sensor, entering his override code, and slipping inside. "Clint?"
For a moment, there's nothing but silence and stillness. Then, a very small voice says, "Meep," and a small, solid tan cat emerges from behind a lab bench.
Phil swallows very firmly against the urge to laugh. He's spontaneously grown cat ears, and Clint's been turned into an actual cat – it's either laugh or cry, and SHIELD agents don't cry over things like unexpected animal transformation. He sits cross-legged on the floor, one hand held out to Clint, who may or may not still have Clint-style reactions under the fur and whiskers and tiny paws.
Clint presses his stomach to the floor, tail flicking; then, in a flash, he's across the lab and scrambling up onto Phil's knee, rubbing his cheek against Phil's pants and purring. It's cat-like enough that Phil doesn't feel too badly about rubbing his ears.
*
"Phil."
Phil looks up from the cat incident report to find Jasper and Maria standing in front of his desk, arms crossed. "Hi?"
"Phil, this is an intervention," Maria says.
It's late on a Saturday night – the two of them might have been drinking. Or just bored. Phil leans back and lets them get on with it.
"We've known you a long time," Jasper says. "And as your friends, with this long history together, we feel it's only fair to point out something that you seem to have missed."
"Clint's your soulmate," Maria interrupts with her trademark lack of patience.
"He's – no, he's not." It's been months since he felt the kind of bleedover he got in his twenties and thirties, or even the draw between his team. Long enough that he doesn't really think about it any more – he assumes something's happened to his soulmate, but they were a stranger, less than a stranger, and Phil's quite happy not having a soul-bond.
"You grew cat ears when he got transformed into a cat," Jasper says, like he's making a totally reasonable point. "Which, honestly, is just the latest and most obvious in a long list of incidents I could point to."
"Please don't." Phil scuffs his toe against the floor and sighs. "The ears were – something must have leaked through the air vents."
Maria and Jasper give him identical dubious looks, and Phil holds up a hand. "We're not – Clint's not my soulmate. Just because you found each other and you're happy..."
The doubtful looks don't ease off at all. Phil must be completely mad (though he did have cat ears for three days, so it's not like he isn't justified), because he stands up and says, "Barton's on base, right?"
Maria nods, a slow, gleeful smile spreading over her face. "Down on the range last I saw him."
Phil's definitely lost his mind. "You coming, then?"
Clint looks surprised to see Phil walk into the empty range, Maria and Jasper trailing like ducklings. He lowers the small pistol – one of Natasha's, Phil's fairly sure – anyway, and asks, "You need me?"
Jasper snickers, because he's a twelve year old boy in a man's body some days, and Phil ignores him, focusing on Clint. "These two think you and I are soulmates," he explains. "And I'm sure they're wrong, but neither of us will get a minute's peace unless we prove that."
Clint laughs. "I – wasn't expecting that to be what you needed me for, but okay. A kiss?"
Phil touches his wrist, lightly, then wraps his hand around it, just feeling Clint's warmth and muscle through his wrist guard, Jasper and Maria forgotten. Clint's standing very close suddenly, all traces of humor gone from his face, and, well, Phil's been sort of thinking about kissing Clint, or maybe even suggesting a date, if only they had that kind of free-time. He tugs Clint just a little closer, angles his head so they won't bash noses, and kisses Clint.
It's a good kiss, slow and careful, but Clint's obviously enjoying it just as much as Phil is, judging from the soft noise he makes, and the hand on the small of Phil's back.
Phil's not sure how kissing your soulmate for the first time is supposed to feel, but when he and Clint break apart, he's fairly sure he didn't feel it. "See?" he asks, turning enough to see Maria and Jasper watching them with a little more interest than is entirely reasonable. He's still holding onto Clint's wrist, and not feeling especially inclined to let go.
"Um," Clint says, very quietly. "Phil?"
He turns his free arm palm up, showing the underside of his wrist where – "Oh," Phil says, just as quietly. Because, in the flowing script he recognizes from Maria's left shoulder and Jasper's right ear, is written: Phillip Coulson.
"Wow," Maria says, her voice sounding very distant. Jasper echoes her, but Phil's too busy staring at Clint's wrist and trying to feel something different to pay them any attention.
"You too?" Clint asks.
"I don't –" Phil turns his hand over and back, but there's nothing there, and it's the only bare skin he's showing other than his neck and face. "Where would it be?"
Phil knows what Clint's going to say before he says it, and he's honestly not sure if it's the dirty smile curving his lips, the burst of arousal that bleeds through to Phil, or just knowing Clint that well. Except that, of course, it must be a little bit of bleed through, because Clint catches his eye, and Phil's sure that Clint just felt his own arousal.
"Want to find out?" Clint asks.
"And we're leaving," Maria says.
*
"Wait," Phil says, Clint's hand in his, the door to Clint's quarters swinging closed behind them. "I think – maybe we should talk, first."
Clint takes a deep breath, but says, "Sure, okay," with an almost complete lack of dismay and a general wave at the single bed and wooden desk chair.
After a moment, Phil sits on the bed and leans back against the wall, a little too pleased when Clint joins him, close enough for their arms to brush. "I wasn't looking for my soulmate," Phil says, even knowing it's not that tactful. "I didn't want to find him. The idea of being held by that kind of connection makes me really uncomfortable."
"First time I felt you was my sixteenth birthday," Clint says. "I thought it was the best present ever. I used to... I had this dumb dream that I'd find you one day, and everything would be good." Clint turns his arm, just enough that there's no way Phil will be able to read his name written on Clint's skin. "Except then SHIELD found me instead, and it seemed like everyone felt the same things at the same time, and... I think I forgot to notice that I didn't feel you so much any more."
"You were looking, though." All Phil's old fears and insecurities about his soulmate are coming churning back, except now he knows they're going to ruin things between him and Clint as well.
"No," Clint says firmly. "My soulmate was the person who was going to rescue me, and I haven't needed rescuing for a long time. It doesn't make me uncomfortable the way it does you, but I wasn't trying to find you."
He brushes a finger, feather-light, over the back of Phil's hand. "Though if I'd known it was you, I might have done a few things differently."
Phil can't resist kissing him for that, even if it does amp up the shyness coming from Clint.
Clint's face, when Phil draws back, is very serious. "Do you feel different?"
Phil catalogues himself, head to toe, physical to mental to emotional. The conclusion is surprising. "No, actually."
"Tasha said, after she and May figured it out, that the knowing is just knowing, it doesn't change anything, because the other person's always been there. Like, we've always been for each other, except now we know who each other are."
That makes a sort of sense. "I'm not sure it's going to be quite that easy for me," Phil warns Clint. The fears are still there, and the mental roster of all the things he's felt, that Clint might have felt from him, is still running in the back of his head. It's quieter, though, than it used to be, back when Clint was a nameless stranger and, if he's being really honest, knowing that he and Clint synced up so well he thought he wasn't feeling anything from his soulmate, is sort of reassuring.
"I know." Clint leans in for another kiss. "If you want – maybe we could still find out where my name is?"
Phil resolves firmly to put off worrying about this until morning. It's not like abstaining from sex is going to make Clint somehow not be his soulmate, after all.
*
As it turns out, Clint's name is on the back of Phil's right knee.
As it further turns out, that spot seems to be hardwired to Phil's dick.
He's not particularly upset about either of those discoveries.