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FOOD ONLY
Clint hated labels.
He didn’t understand the stupid need to put a sticker on everything declaring what it was. One time a net arrow chilling in the fridge exploded on someone (one fucking time!) and suddenly there was a neatly printed label declaring, “THIS FRIDGE IS FOR FOOD ONLY.”
Beside him, Nat’s brow creased ever-so slightly—the closest she got to a scowl in public. She leaned forward and peeled the sticker off the fridge.
Clint lifted an eyebrow in surprise.
“This is our fridge,” she said, tossing the label into a nearby trash can. “We will store whatever we want in it.”
Nat placed a bottle of what looked like nail polish in the butter tray. Then she sauntered off.
Clint shrugged and shoved his quiver inside. Technically it wasn’t their fridge. But it was the fridge in the Level 5 break room, and they were both Level 5.
Plus Clint had learned a long time ago that if Nat was going to start something, he wanted to be on her side.
#
The next day it was a large sheet of paper, the label written in big red block letters: THIS IS NOT THE ARMORY. NO WEAPONS. FOOD ONLY.
No one could really blame Clint and Natasha for what happened next. Mainly because they couldn’t actually pin down that they were the ones who did it.
A plate of peanut butter cookies was left in the fridge.
Within four hours half of SHIELD with a Level 5 clearance was in medical, experiencing all the symptoms of food poisoning.
That afternoon a new note appeared on the fridge: “Anything can be a weapon.”
#
It was probably coincidence that Nat and Clint were sent on a mission before any of the other Level 5’s was discharged from medical.
AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY
The mission went south fast. Clint released a steady string of curses as he fought off goons, smashing one in the face with his bow and shoving a foot hard in the gut of another. “Nat,” he screamed, even though she’d hear him well enough over the comms. “Where the fuck are you?”
“Down.” Her voice sounded far away.
Clint swore some more, managed to pull out his gun, and shot a goon point blank in the face. He ignored the blood that spattered his tac suit. “Lee, so help me, if you don’t have Nat’s position, I will…”
“Sending it into your receiver now.” There was an edge of hysteria in their handler’s voice. Clint ignored him as he made sure all the goons were down, and then checked the screen built into his arm guard. Nat’s location beeped into existence on a map.
Every idiot between him and Nat didn’t realize they were in danger until they were dead.
Finally the only thing that stood between Clint and his partner was a door, a freaking six inch metal door with one of those stupid end-of-the-world locks on it. The door was labelled (of course! Because you always label doors in your top secret hideout, that just makes sense): AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.
Clint swore at the door and shot the wall next to it with an explosive arrow. It crumbled like old cheese.
When would people learn that fancy doors were useless if you didn’t make the entire room out of the same material?
Clint stepped through the rubble and into the room. There were at least a dozen dead bodies, all male. And just one surprisingly small female, propped in a corner, her red hair half out of its ponytail and falling in her face, one long leg stretched out before her.
Her tac suit was torn, and as Clint got closer he realized it wasn’t a slash of pale skin he was seeing, but instead a jagged piece of white bone.
Nat looked up at him, her face gray. “Took you long enough.”
He shrugged. “I had to get authorization.”
She laughed and then blacked out.
#
Agents would speak of this day in hushed tones for the rest of Clint’s life. How he took out an entire base by himself to get to his partner. How he carried her out, while the building burned behind him.
And how as soon as she was safely in the hands of the medics in the evac helicopter, he turned to his handler and punched him in the face, knocking him out cold.
DOLCE & GABBANA
Clint didn’t think anyone could hate Medical more than he did before he met Nat. He’d also never seen someone escape from medical with their right leg in a full cast from hip to foot. And yet here Nat was, in his quarters, sitting in a wheel chair she’d undoubtedly stolen from Medical.
How in the hell did someone wheel themselves out of Medical without being noticed?
Clint didn’t question it. Instead he tossed her the remote control for his pathetic eight inch TV screen. “Nothing’s on.”
“That’s because you have three channels,” Nat said. “And one of them is for the camera outside of your door.” Clint didn’t respond to that. He’d seen Nat’s channels. He didn’t know or want to know how she’d gotten access to some of those camera feeds.
As usual she left the TV on Clint’s one surveillance channel (paranoid is Nat’s middle name) and then surprised no one by pulling a deck of cards from God knows where. Clint grabbed a plate of cookies from his small fridge and sat at the table, shoving a cookie in his mouth as he watched her.
Nat shuffled the deck and then stopped, her eyes on the TV. “Who is that?”
Clint glanced at the TV to see a man in a suit, adjusting his tie and then reaching up to knock on the door. The knock resounded through the room a moment later.
“I have no idea,” Clint said. He vaulted from his chair, grabbed a sidearm off of the nearby counter, and went to the door. He ran a rough hand through his hair, ruffling it to give himself a “can’t believe you just woke me up from a nap” look, and then opened the door a few inches, jamming his body against it and the door frame, as if they were the only things holding him up.
“Whadya want?” he slurred.
“Agent Barton,” the man said. His voice was crisp, cool, professional. Not at all like the usual guys Medical sent to track down a lost patient. The usual guys also didn’t wear Dolce and Gabbana. Hell, Clint didn’t know anyone at SHIELD who could afford such expensive suits. “I am here to speak with you and Agent Romanoff.”
“Nat’s broken,” Clint said. “In Medical.”
“Agent Romanoff entered your quarters in a wheelchair approximately ten minutes ago,” the man responded. “Seven agents saw her.”
Clint reeled back from the door, giving Natasha an incredulous look.
She shrugged. “Not even I can manage to be unseen when wheeling about in one of these monstrosities.”
“They’re also bugged,” the strange man said helpfully from the other side of the door.
Clint sighed and stepped back, opening the door fully.
“Thank you, Agent Barton.” The man stepped in, wiped his shoes politely on the doormat just inside of the door and then sat down on the very edge of the couch, placing his briefcase on the coffee table.
Clint closed the door and then leaned back up against it. The door was the only escape (well, unless you’re familiar with SHIELD’s ventilation system). If this guy was not legit or hell, just annoying, he would find it was much harder to get out of Clint’s quarters than it was to get in. (That’s what she said.)
Natasha gave him a disdainful look as if she could read his mind.
“So what’s this about?” Clint said. “Natasha and I were about to play…”
“Rummy,” Natasha suggested.
“Rummy?” Clint repeated in disbelief. “Do I even know how to play rummy?”
“What do you want to play?”
“Egyptian Rat Screw.”
“I’m not doing anything with you that involves the word screw.”
“Not anymore,” Clint responded with a grin.
Nat simply smiled. She had perfectly handed him that—they both knew it. They were just trying to make the man in the suit uncomfortable.
But Mr. Dolce-and-Gabbana didn’t react to any of their words. Instead he pulled folders out of his briefcase and shuffled them into piles, like a good paper-pusher.
Paper-pusher my ass. This guy moved like a fighter: all economical movements and analytical looks. If he thought he could hide that behind his designer labels, then he obviously thought Clint and Nat were idiots. They could recognize their own.
And this guy was a killer. Just like them.
“Cookie?” Nat asked, motioning to the plate on the table.
The suit stopped shuffling for a moment, the corner of his mouth twitching into the hint of a smile. “No thank you, Agent Romanoff. I’m still dealing with the incident reports from the last time you made cookies.”
Nat gave him an artfully puzzled expression and leaned back in her wheelchair.
Silence filled the room, and Natasha and Clint let it stretch. It wasn’t awkward—not to them. They had long surpassed the comfortable silence territory of friendship. It unnerved a lot of people, especially when Clint fell silent. Too many people thought silence was against his nature. Sure Clint liked to talk, but that didn’t mean he didn’t know how to be quiet or how to use quiet to his advantage.
Suddenly the strange man snapped his briefcase closed and got to his feet. The two files of folders were still evenly stacked on the table, each with one sticky note on them. Clint could read them from the door, one sticky with his name, the other with Natasha’s, both written in an even script.
“These are your files,” the guy said. “Everything SHIELD has on the both of you.”
“And you’re giving them to us?” Nat didn’t hide the disbelief in her voice.
“Yes,” he said. “You have twenty-four hours to read them and then we will talk again tomorrow.”
“Why? What is this about?” Clint asked, still not moving away from the door.
The strange man studied Clint for a moment, his blue gaze unnerving the archer. He felt as if this man knew all his secrets. And well, from the size of the stack of folders on the table, maybe he did.
“Because we seem to have reached an impasse,” the man said. “And I would hate to lose two agents as good as you.”
Nat stiffened, ever so slightly, at those words, and Clint stepped forward, his hand still tight on his sidearm. “Is that a threat?”
“No,” the man said, lifting his eyebrows as if in surprise. “Read your files, agents. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
And then he stepped forward, looking expectantly at Clint.
Nat nodded, and Clint stepped out of the way.
The man opened the door and then cast a look back at them. “By the way, I’m Agent Coulson.”
Clint’s jaw dropped, and the man smirked.
Then he was out of the room, leaving the two Level 5 agents alone.
“Fuck,” Nat—who never cursed without very good reason—said.
“I thought he was a myth,” Clint said, leaping across the couch to grab his file. “I thought Agent Coulson was just one of those SHIELD urban legend things that Fury let circulate to keep junior agents in line.” He tore through his file, discarding the pages about the circus and his early days at SHIELD. He knew all of that. He knew all of this. He stole his file at least once a year to keep track of what SHIELD thought of him. What he didn’t know was why Fury had just sicced his mythical right hand man on them.
He got to the last page: Lee’s report on their last mission together. The final conclusion pinned all of the blame on Clint.
Asset doesn’t listen. Asset puts concerns about his partner above SHIELD concerns. Asset has a problem with authority. Blah blah blah. It was all stuff Clint had read before, until the very last line:
Recommendation: Termination.
Rage filled Clint, his entire body quivering with it, and he didn’t realize he was cursing out loud until he felt Nat’s light hand on his arm. She had wheeled herself over to the side of the couch, peering up into his face with concern.
“SHIELD is my fucking life,” Clint shouted, shoving the paper in her face. She delicately took it from him, smoothing out the wrinkles he had made there. “I never fail a mission! Never! Even when it goes to hell like the last one. What did Lee want me to do? Leave you there? What the fuck? You’re worth ten of me, no way in hell that was happening.”
“Clint,” Nat said, her voice like a soothing balm over his nerves. He calmed down some, turning to look at her. “Did you read this all the way to the bottom?”
“The part where Lee wants to terminate me? Yeah, I did.”
“No,” she said. “The other part.” She held the paper out to him, and Clint reluctantly took it.
She was right (of course she’s right; she’s Nat). There were some handwritten notes scrawled across the bottom of the paper.
The first was in a cramped, hurried handwriting that every agent at SHIELD could recognize as Nick Fury’s: Cheese, thoughts?
The response was in the same neat handwriting from the post-it notes with their names on them: Lee is an idiot.
Fury’s response: Other than the obvious.
The answer: Knock Lee back to Level 4. He shouldn’t be able allowed to handle assets. He’s only cut out as an analyst. Promote Widow and Hawkeye to Level 6. Give them to me.
Fury: Done.
Clint looked up to Natasha. “We’re getting promoted?” His voice held disbelief. “We’re getting promoted and being handed over to the guy that legend claims is a robot?”
“So it seems,” Nat responded.
Clint buried his face in the paper, thinking maybe termination would have been more merciful.
KNOCK PLEASE
Twenty-four hours was a long time.
At some point Nat got carted back off to Medical, but not after she took down three different orderlies and one nurse—even in a wheelchair, Nat was lethal (that’s my girl)—which left Clint alone to ferret out the truth about this mysterious Coulson.
By the end of the night Clint had gathered a hundred stories, most of which had to be false. They had to be. There was no way Coulson had never failed a mission. Even Clint and Nat had failed a mission (Budapest—nope, never happened, not gonna admit it happened). They said Coulson had died on five different occasions and was actually immortal, a robot, or the Grim Reaper himself. And as if that wasn’t unbelievable enough, one Level 5 agent swore Coulson had managed to convert Wade Wilson from a mouthy merc into a mouthy SHIELD agent. That was a step too far for Clint.
“I’d believe he was a robot before I believe that Deadpool is working for SHIELD,” Clint said, when he reported his findings to Nat in Medical.
She was frowning at the Jell-O included in her Medical provided dinner. She poked at it with her fork. It moved but didn’t quite jiggle like Jell-O should. She set her fork down and looked up at Clint.
“I don’t know,” she said. “When was the last time we encountered him in the field? Opposing us?”
“You’re telling me you think Wade is a SHIELD agent now?”
“I’m a SHIELD agent now.”
Clint snapped his mouth closed. Good point. “But still. This isn’t you. This is that mouthy son of a bitch who destroyed my last bow.” He pouted. “I loved that weapon.”
Nat pushed her dinner tray towards him. Clint didn’t need a second invitation. He grabbed the fork and shoved Jell-O into his mouth.
“Every rumor seems to confirm he’s Fury’s right hand man,” Clint continued between bites. “They say he’s not just a handler. He’s the handler.”
“What does that mean?” Nat asked.
“It means he doesn’t get assigned assets, he picks assets, and once you become Coulson’s asset—someone he’s willing to vouch for, you’re made for life,” Clint said. “But if you get on Coulson’s bad side, that’s it. You’re done. Out of SHIELD.”
“So a last and best chance,” Nat said thoughtfully.
“I don’t like him,” Clint said.
“You don’t like anyone.”
“I like you.”
“And you tried to kill me when we first met.”
Clint scowled at her and shoved more Jell-O in his mouth.
#
The next day, Medical released Nat just for an hour, the hour they were to meet with Agent Coulson. They discharged her to Clint but were sure to let him know they had sent Coulson an email instructing him that Nat was to come straight back to Medical. Apparently, they thought Coulson would have the power to make her come back.
Honestly, that scared Clint more than all the other rumors he had heard about the man.
Clint pushed Nat through the halls while she perused her file. She’d already read it front to back two dozen times. Clint didn’t know what else she was looking for, what last minute clues she might glean. His file was also in her lap. She’d read it a half dozen times too. Clint had given up on having secrets from her a long time ago. Plus Nat was smarter than him so it was good to have her look over all of his stuff.
Coulson’s office was on the same floor as HR, which Clint found strange. He had a corner office, hidden away in the back, with a completely unremarkable door. His name plate just listed him by name, PHILIP J. (Jay? John? James? Justin? Jason? Too many J possibilities) COULSON, no title. It would be easy to think he was some sort of HR manager instead of the BAMF every rumor concurred he was.
Taped on the door was a piece of paper that said in big block letters: KNOCK PLEASE.
Clint looked down at Nat. She shrugged, and he grinned.
Clint kicked open the door, rolled Nat through, and exclaimed cheerily, “Good afternoon, Agent Coulson.”
The man didn’t even look up from his computer. He lifted a hand briefly to wave at them—motioning to the couch against the back wall.
Clint hid his disappointment that they didn’t shock the senior agent. He wheeled Nat to a spot against the wall between the desk and the couch, and then he collapsed on the couch. He had been here five minutes, and he was bored already. He pulled out a knife and began twirling it in his fingers, studying the ceiling. He wondered how annoyed Coulson would get if he threw it.
“Not in my office, Barton,” Coulson said.
Clint sat up sharply, looking to Coulson in surprise. The man still hadn’t looked up from his computer. Clint glanced to Nat. The woman simply smirked.
Coulson finally finished whatever paper-pushing he was doing and closed his laptop. He stood and rounded his desk, leaning against it and crossing his arms as he studied them.
Clint leaned forward, resting his elbows on his thighs and clasping his hands loosely in front of him. Nat studied her nails as if she was considering getting a manicure. They were a portrait of casual lack of concern.
“Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow,” Coulson finally broke the silence. “Product of Soviet science and KGB spycraft. Lethal, deadly and a defector to SHIELD because of one man.” Coulson turned his gaze to Clint. “Clint Barton, Hawkeye, best marksman in the world, a product of the circus. Never misses his intended target.
“You two are the best field agents SHIELD has ever seen…”
“Including Captain America?” Nat interrupted.
Coulson stopped and turned his full attention on her, his look appraising. “Captain America was never a member of SHIELD, Agent Romanoff, as I’m sure you’re aware,” he said. “But I see you have done your homework.”
“It’s amazing what a person can find out in twenty-four hours.” Natasha responded with a shrug.
Coulson inclined his head, and Clint got the distinct feeling Natasha had revealed she knew some secret about Coulson, but hell if Clint knew what it was. Dammit, she always did that to him. Kept some secrets to herself and didn’t share them with Clint. (Gotta let the Black Widow keep some secrets.)
Clint just smiled at Coulson as if he knew exactly what they were talking about.
“It is amazing what the best agents in SHIELD can find out in twenty-four hours,” Coulson corrected Natasha. “And that is why you two are here. Because you are the best. But you seem to have run off every handler we have. There is not a single one of them who will go on a mission with you again.”
“Aww, really?” Clint pouted. “I thought Sitwell liked us.”
“Sitwell liked me,” Nat said. “He hated you.”
“Me, you, what difference does it make?” Clint said with a shrug. He leaned back, throwing an arm over the back of the couch. “We’re one and the same.”
“The day I become one with you is the day I’ve lost my mind.”
“Nat, I’m sorry to tell you this, but you lost your mind long before you met me.”
Coulson stayed silent during their exchange, simply watching them with the same blank expression that always seemed to be on his face. Normally their banter caused handlers to go crazy—yelling at them to get back to the task on hand—but not Coulson. He simply waited for them to stop and then picked up as if nothing had ever happened.
“As I mentioned yesterday, SHIELD would hate to lose its two best agents, especially over something as silly as the immaturity of Level 5 agents.”
Nat stiffened, and Clint stood angrily. “You think we’re immature?”
Coulson blinked, the skin crinkling just a little bit between his eyebrows as if confused. “No, Agent Barton, I don’t.”
Clint hesitated, looking to Nat. Her stillness beaconed her perplexed state. “Well then…I’m confused. Because I’m pretty sure my file says I’m immature.”
“Your file says a lot of things about you that aren’t true,” Coulson said, “since these notes were made by agents who are in fact immature, and the closest they’ve come to hardship is watching you and other agents face down the bad guys.
“So here is what I’m offering you two. You can walk away right now. You can say you’ve had enough with SHIELD and go about your lives. We’ll set you up. Of course we’ll keep our eye on you to make sure you don’t do anything…untoward. But otherwise we’ll leave you alone.”
Clint exchanged a glance with Nat. That seemed…unbelievable. And boring.
“Or,” Coulson continued, “you can join me. I will be your new handler. You will be Level 6, and I can promise you that you will only go on the most critical missions, where your skillset specifically is needed, and that I will never, ever leave you behind without your consent.”
Clint looked at Nat again. She titled her head slightly, and Clint nodded. He looked back to Coulson, “Ok, but we have one condition.”
Coulson raised an eyebrow. “What?”
Clint crossed his arms and made his face a mask of seriousness. “We want our own fridge.”
Coulson smiled. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Clint nodded and then moved to open the door, only to be stopped by a question. “Why do you put your quivers in the refrigerator anyway, Barton?”
The archer half turned back to Coulson, surprised. He thought the all-knowing super-handler would know why. “Some of those arrows require temperature controlled environments,” Clint said. “Plus batteries last longer when refrigerated.”
Coulson frowned. “That’s a myth. Unless your arrows have NiCd batteries I don’t know about.”
“Well if it’s a myth then why I don’t just leave my acid arrows in a drawer in your desk?” Clint said with a bright smile.
Coulson chuckled, a dry pleasant sound. “Touché, Barton. Now see you do take Agent Romanoff back to Medical—or do I need to personally escort the two of you?”
Clint and Nat’s faces both became masks of innocence.
The handler raised an eyebrow and got up from his desk. “I take that to mean I’m coming.”
#
The next day Coulson called them both back to his office. Clint wheeled Nat back up there and as usual didn’t knock. They both barged in and then stopped.
Coulson wasn’t in the office, but a full fridge complete with freezer hummed in the corner. Someone had painted a message across it in a firm, even hand: BARTON & ROMANOFF’S. OPEN AT YOUR OWN RISK.
“I take it back,” Clint said. “I like him.”
“Only because he put your name first.”
“Alphabetical order is a bitch,” Clint said cheerily.
When Coulson arrived, they signed the Level 6 paperwork without further comment.
NOT A WEAPON
Legos. Of all the idiotic things to be taken down by it had to be Legos.
Clint was never going to hear the end of this. He could already see Nat’s smug smile and hear Coulson’s dry chuckle.
Hah. Hah. Hah. It wasn’t funny, not with his hands bloody from falling face first into a Lego castle the size of a small car after tripping over a stupid teddy bear.
What kind of freak villain set up shop in a toy store anyway?
“Barton. Talk to me.”
“I’m fine, sir, but I think the covert part of this op may be over.”
Gun fire sounded, and bullets slammed into the remains of the Lego castle. Clint cursed and dove for cover, only to find himself hiding behind a giant stuffed bear. A completely terrible cover, since the bullets just tore through the bear like tissue paper.
A bullet hit Clint in the shoulder, knocking him to the ground. Why was it always the shoulder? His arms were his money maker. So help him, these guys were going to die long painful deaths if they cost him his ability shoot.
“HAWKEYE!” Coulson said his name over the comm, his tone making it seem like he might have said his name multiple times already.
“Sorry, sir,” Clint spoke, shaking his head and putting the pain behind him. He had to move. The bad guys knew he was here, and they were going to find and kill him if he didn’t move.
His legs didn’t move.
“Move, Barton!” Coulson barked, and Clint moved.
He scrambled toward a cashier’s counter. He kept low to the ground, hoping whatever goons were shooting at him would assume they’d taken him out.
Once safe behind the counter, Clint allowed himself to glance at his shoulder. He was bleeding—obviously—but the black and dark purple of his uniform just absorbed it, hiding how much blood he was losing. He winced and reached up to feel his back. He couldn’t find a corresponding hole. Great. The bullet was still in him, probably stopped by some now shattered bone.
He was going to kill these guys. Assuming adrenaline, denial, and shock kept him from passing out first.
The shooting stopped, and a goon said, “I think we got him, sir.”
“Do you have a body?” someone retorted. No one responded. “No one is dead until I see a body. Go and make sure he is dead!”
Boots began to thud, and Clint knew he was royally screwed. He’d left a trail of blood that a toddler could follow.
“Hawkeye?” Nat’s voice came over the com. “Where are you?”
But the goons were too close. Clint reached up with his good arm and began to tap against his com unit. S.O.S.
“Stay on the mission, Widow.” Coulson’s voice was steady, always steady. “I’ll get Hawkeye.”
Silence answered Coulson. How many handlers had told them to go on with the mission and leave the other? (All of them.) How many times had Nat and Clint disobeyed those orders? (Every time.) They didn’t trust each other to strangers. They didn’t trust a handler to come to their rescue. They knew better. They knew SHIELD.
“Widow,” Coulson’s voice was steady but firm. “I’ve got him. I promise. I won’t let him die on you.”
“Yes, sir,” Nat said to Clint’s shock. (She’s entrusting my life to a handler? Shit. I’m gonna die.) This was only their fifth mission with the man. Sure he was a steady voice in their ear and had proved on more than one time to be a competent field agent, but this was his fucking life. Nat barely trusted Clint with his own life. “Stay alive, Hawkeye.”
You know I only plan on dying when it’s most inconvenient for you. This isn’t it, Clint wanted to say in response. But the goons were too close. He could hear Legos clatter, as they kicked them down looking for him.
I’m not going to die in a toy store, Clint told himself firmly. Even if he couldn’t use his bow with a bad shoulder. And he had apparently lost his gun.
Fucking rookie mistake. Nat was going to flay him.
There had to be something Clint could use. He wasn’t just going to sit here and wait to die while a handler tried to save his ass. He was a Level 6 Agent of SHIELD, Hawkeye: the World’s Greatest Fucking Marksman. He wasn’t going to get killed by some inept goons all because he tripped on a stupid teddy bear and fell into a Lego castle.
And then he saw it. Shoved under some bags, probably by a cashier. A Nerf gun. In big letters on the side it said: NOT A WEAPON.
Clint grinned evilly. Everything was a weapon.
#
When Coulson finally arrived, the half a dozen goons were down, tied up with Christmas ribbon, mouths shoved with small stuffed animals. Clint sat perched on the counter, a big red bow stuck to his blonde head, chewing on a Nerf dart as he studied a picture book.
“Coulson,” Clint looked up at the man, holding the book up at him. “What’s the moral of this story?”
His handler raised an eyebrow. “It appears to be about a small bird looking for his mother.”
“Exactly,” Clint said. “He goes around asking all these animals if they’re his mom. Is this encouraging lost kids to talk to strangers? To, in fact, leave the spot where they were left? Everyone knows if you’re lost you shouldn’t move. Makes it easier for your parents to find you.”
“Target is down,” Nat suddenly said over the com.
“Excellent!” Clint jumped down off the counter and nearly blacked out.
Coulson caught him before he could fall. Clint looked up at his handler through a haze of pain. Coulson’s face was so close. Clint could see every freckle, every line, every hair. Clint found the little lines that crinkled around his eyes particularly fascinating, as they crinkled now in concern.
“I’ve got you, Barton,” Coulson said, pulling Clint’s good arm around his shoulders and putting an arm tight around Clint’s waist.
“Huh, how about that,” Clint said, and then he passed out.
#
Clint woke up to find Nat sitting on the foot of his bed. She sat cross legged, playing solitaire on the tray table. She didn’t even glance at him as he stirred. Instead she said, “You are an idiot.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” Clint muttered. He tried to sit up and nearly blacked out. Yeah, moving his right arm was not a good idea.
“Don’t move, Barton.” Coulson’s voice in his ear was welcome. Clint looked over and saw his handler sitting in the cheap plastic chair at the bedside, his suit jacket discarded on the table nearby.
“Coulson,” Clint said in surprise. “Is your shirt wrinkled?”
“He hasn’t changed or showered since we got back.” Nat’s voice dripped with disapproval.
“I wanted to make sure you were okay, Barton,” Coulson said. He stood stiffly, grabbing his jacket. “It appears you are, in fact, going to live, despite your best efforts otherwise.” He gave Clint a cool expression. “I’ll let you rest and then I’ll be back for your debriefing. We’re going to have a long talk about how you seemed to have lost your sidearm.”
Clint glared at Coulson. “Tattle-tale.”
Nat raised her eyebrow. “You lost your gun?” She shook her head. “Idiot.”
Clint huffed.
Nat reached out and gently rapped him on his knee, never looking up from her cards.
Coulson smiled (fondly? Do robot super handlers have feelings?), said, “I’ll leave you in Agent Romanoff’s capable hands,” and left the room.
Clint frowned at their handler’s back and then at Nat. “You trusted him with me.”
“And he got you out.”
“But you trusted a handler. Why him?”
She paused, looking up from her cards. “Because Captain America never left a man behind.”
“That makes absolutely no fucking sense, Nat.”
She shrugged and picked up the cards, shuffling them back into a deck.
Clint stared at her, not believing that was the only answer she was going to give. (What does Captain fucking America have to do with anything?)
But Coulson had gotten him out. It wasn’t the first mission where Coulson’s voice in his ear had been the only thing keeping Clint from getting killed. And this wasn’t the first mission he had entered the field, making it possible for Clint and Nat to escape.
“You really do trust him?” Clint asked.
Nat stopped shuffling and met Clint’s gaze firmly. “I really do.”
“Okay,” Clint said. And that was all he needed.
Nat began to deal the cards into two stacks.
“What’s the game?” Clint asked.
“Rummy.”
“I hate you.”
“I know.”
#
When on the next mission it was Nat who needed backup, Clint stayed in his sniper’s nest and let Coulson go to her aid. It’s a weird feeling, letting someone else help Nat, but Coulson got her out and the mission was a resounding success.
A few missions later, Coulson came in guns blazing, looking better than anyone in a tac suit had any right to, and saved both of their asses.
After a debrief when Nat and Clint were in his room, playing Rummy (God, I hate this game), Clint conceded, “You were right.”
“I’m always right,” she answered automatically. She put down a card from her hand and then asked, “About what?”
“Coulson.”
Nat shrugged and said again, “I’m always right.”
Clint didn’t argue with that. Even though she was definitely wrong about how great a game Rummy was.
FRIEND
Clint hunched over the clipboard, staring at the paper attached to it as if it held all of life’s answers. He chewed on his pen’s cap and then glanced over at Nat. The superspy sat on the couch, hunched over her own clipboard. She didn’t look up at him, only said, “Eyes on your own paper, Barton.”
Coulson looked up from his desk, where he was working on the same form while snacking on a peanut butter cookie (Nat’s cookies, delicious). He lifted his eyebrows just ever so slightly at Clint, who quickly put his attention back on his own clipboard.
When Sitwell walked in and found them all like that, quietly hunched over papers, the man was at a loss. “Phil, do you know you have a Hawkeye sitting on top of your fridge?”
“It’s his favorite perch,” Coulson said. “And technically it’s his and Romanoff’s fridge. What do you need, Jasper?”
Nat looked up at that, catching eyes with Clint, and mouthed, “Jasper.” (Oh God, it’s an awful name. Perfect.) They both grinned.
Sitwell reached for one of the peanut butter cookies on Coulson’s desk (who the hell does he think he is? Those are Nat’s cookies!) but stopped when a pen hit him in the hand. Neither Nat nor Clint looked up to claim throwing it. He glared at them both, didn’t grab a cookie, and exclaimed, “What the hell is happening in here?”
“Golly gee, Jasper,” Clint said, enjoying the terrible taste of that name. Sitwell scowled at him. “You’d think you’d never seen agents write mission reports before.”
Sitwell’s jaw dropped. “Barton, I’m going to need you to give me your ‘I’m not a doppleganger’ code.”
“Easy there, Jasper,” Coulson said with a smile. “This is actually quite normal. Now, did you need to talk to me in private or…”
“No, no, I was just coming by to see if you wanted to grab lunch,” Sitwell said. “But clearly you’re busy.”
“If you can wait an hour…”
Clint jumped down off of the top of the fridge, landing hard. Sitwell started in surprise, and Clint gave him a dark smile. He stalked to the desk and dropped his clipboard with a clatter.
“I’m done,” Clint said.
“Noted,” Coulson responded. He pulled out a red pen and wrote across the top: +5 for turning it in first.
“You grade their reports?” Sitwell asked in disbelief. “What is this? High school?
“Less of a grade, more of a competition,” Coulson answered. “Agent Romanoff is currently winning.” He then motioned to a poster on the right wall.
Written at the top of the poster in bright purple block letters was: COULSON’S CREW. Below it was listed every agent who answered directly to Agent Coulson, a dozen names in total, from Wade Wilson to poor little Mary Steward in R&D. Next to each name was a row of stickers, either gold stars or red dots. Gold stars were gained by good behavior, timely filing of paperwork, and the like, while red dots were earned by things like putting bags of dog crap in the vents so that all of the Level 5 offices smelled like shit for days (one time!—and Coulson is never going to forgive me for it).
Clint scowled at the poster. Nat had a dozen gold stars and three red dots (teacher’s pet), which she enjoyed rubbing his nose in on a regular basis. At least Wade had more red dots than Clint. Not that Clint believed Wade was actually a SHIELD agent. He was pretty sure Coulson had included the name so that Clint wouldn’t be the agent with the most red dots.
“I don’t even know what’s happening here anymore,” Sitwell said.
“It’s cuz you’re not in the Crew,” Clint retorted. “And Coulson’s not going to lunch with you.”
“I’m not?” Coulson looked up from his desk surprised.
“No,” Nat agreed, getting up from her seat and putting her clipboard down on top of Clint’s. She then placed her hand on Clint’s shoulder and lifted her eyebrows at their handler. “You’re coming with us for lunch.”
“I see,” Coulson said. He carefully pulled both of their reports from the clipboards, put the clipboards back in their designated drawer, and then put the reports in a folder. Always so organized, their Coulson. It was adorable. “And what if I want to have lunch with my friend?”
Clint and Nat both frowned simultaneously. Sitwell took a step back (wuss, we’re not even looking at him), but Coulson just lifted an eyebrow in a silent question.
“Coulson,” Clint said. “We are your friends.” He paused and glanced at Nat to double check. “Right?”
“I only make peanut butter cookies for friends,” Nat agreed. She paused. “Except for that one time.”
Sitwell looked from the cookies to Nat in surprise and then swallowed nervously. Clint grinned evilly at him. Sitwell was one of the many Level 5 agents who had been sent to Medical because of Nat’s peanut butter cookies.
Coulson stared at Clint and Nat for a long moment, his expression giving away nothing. Then he turned his gaze to Sitwell.
The younger agent raised his eyebrows. Coulson inclined his head to the right slightly, and Sitwell nodded sharply.
Clint watched with fascination. They had their own non-verbal language, like Nat and Clint did. It meant nothing to Clint, but clearly it meant something to Sitwell, because the man gave Coulson a tight lipped smile, inclined his head respectfully to Clint and Nat, then turned on heel, and left the room.
Once Sitwell was gone, Coulson turned his attention to his desk, opening a drawer and removing a sheet of red dots. He held it up. “Take two, Barton. Romanoff, you take one.”
“Two?” Clint balked as Nat took the sheet of stickers.
“Yes,” Coulson said firmly. “I am unhappy with your behavior toward Agent Sitwell. He is your fellow agent and does not deserve to be mocked or have a pen thrown at him.”
Clint scowled. Did Coulson see everything? (He’s gotta have fucking eyes in the back of his head or something.)
“As for Agent Romanoff, I am your handler; you are my asset.” Coulson’s voice was calm and collected but his gaze was like steel. “It is not your place to tell me what to do, especially not in regards to my personal life.”
Nat stiffened but nodded. She then slammed a sticker onto the poster with more force than necessary.
Clint took the sheet of stickers from Nat, sighed, and then added two stickers to his own name. He still didn’t have as many as Wade (if he is even really an agent), but he had at least five more red dots than everyone else.
He totally wasn’t going to win the quarterly prize.
Clint stalked to the couch, tossing the sticker sheet onto Coulson’s desk, and then sat down with a huff. Nat rolled her eyes.
Coulson shuffled the papers on his desk, organizing them, and then locked his computer. He turned his gaze to his agents. “I will go to lunch with you today. But in the future, if you want to have lunch with me, you merely have to ask. You are my team. I take that very seriously.”
Clint jumped up off the couch and said, “Not team. Friends.”
Coulson inclined his head in agreement.
Clint grabbed a cookie off the desk, and Nat knocked it out of his hand. “You’ll ruin your lunch.”
“So,” Coulson said, leaning back in his seat. “Where are we going, Romanoff?”
“Natasha,” she corrected. “We are friends.”
“Natasha,” he agreed. He hesitated, and then added, “You can call me Phil.” A gleeful smile spread across Clint’s face, and Coulson (no, Phil) raised an admonishing finger, “Off duty.”
“Of course, sir,” Clint said, adopting an expression of complete innocence. “I would never…”
“I don’t need any of your sass, Barton.”
“Clint,” he answered cheerily. “And sir, I would never sass you.”
Phil looked at them and then covered his face with his hands. “I’m going to regret being friends with the two of you, aren’t I?”
“Undoubtedly,” Clint said at the same time Nat said, “You’d regret not being friends with us more.”
Phil laughed and dropped his hands, smiling at them. He only ever smiled like that around them. It warmed Clint all the way down in the cockles of heart (come to think of it: where are the cockles of a heart?).
“I’ve regretted not being friends with you since I accidentally took a cookie from the Level 5 fridge,” Phil responded.
Nat raised an eyebrow, and Clint’s jaw dropped. Phil had eaten one of their poison cookies?
“Never should have let Jasper talk me into eating lunch with him in the Level 5 break room that day,” Phil said.
“You ate one of those cookies and you still wanted to work with us?” Clint asked in surprise. He knew what they had put in the cookies. He’d seen the Medical reports. Bathrooms on two floors were filled with agents, and Medical had run out of buckets. They said the floor ran with rivers of vomit. Not to mention the shit coming out of the other end.
“It was actually the cookie incident that brought you to my attention,” Phil said, picking a cookie off the plate and studying it. “Obviously I always knew who the two of you were, but that’s what made it clear that you couldn’t remain Level 5 agents.”
“Well, death threats are the best way to make friends,” Clint conceded. Nat and Phil both looked up at him in surprise. “What? That’s how we became friends, Nat! And isn’t that the lesson of Charlotte’s Web?”
“We really need to monitor your reading,” Phil said, and then he took a bite out of the cookie.
“Nat!” Clint whined, “How come you let him have another cookie?”
“I like him better,” Nat answered.
Phil’s expression took on a decidedly evil cast as he took a slow over-exaggerated bite from the cookie.
“I hate you both,” Clint muttered, sulking.
Phil smiled and held up his cookie. Clint snatched it before the man could change his mind, shoving it whole into his mouth.
Natasha sighed and gave Phil a disdainful look. “You fed him. Now you have to keep him.”
Clint grinned, displaying a mouthful of cookie crumbs.
Phil’s smile turned soft, and he said, “I think I can live with that.”
#
When Coulson came into the office the next day, someone had repainted the label on the fridge with purple paint.
It now read: BARTON, COULSON AND ROMANOFF’S. OPEN AT YOUR OWN RISK. BEWARE THE COOKIES.