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Phil Coulson did not raise his voice when he was angry. If anything, his demeanour grew calmer and more icily polite than usual. Clint could handle that. Just as he could handle the death glare Coulson had perfected. It was the disappointment in Phil Coulson’s voice that got to him. Every. Single. Time.
Right now, Clint Barton was fervently wishing for two things: a cave to hide in and the right words to stop his handler’s angry tirade. Neither seemed immediately to hand.
“I expect my orders to be followed, Agent Barton. Do you understand that?”
“Yes, sir.”
Clint stood at attention, something he rarely bothered with these days. Rarely had to bother with anymore, he reminded himself. SHIELD wasn’t the army and even though he could have – and some handlers did – Coulson didn’t pull rank, didn’t insist on outward shows of obedience. Hell, he was one of the few handlers who encouraged discussion, the only one who recognised Clint’s tactical skills and who valued Clint’s input on ops.
Only yesterday, there hadn’t been time. No time to consider options. No time to discuss a change in approach. Clint had to make his choice in a heartbeat while swinging on a rope ten floors above the pavement and facing a man with a gun. Judging by Coulson’s wrath, his choice had been the wrong one.
“When I give a kill order, I expect the target to go down. Permanently.”
“Yes, sir.”
Being known as the world’s best marksman sucked. Had it been any other agent providing backup, Coulson wouldn’t be throwing a fit. He would just assume the shot had gone astray. Not when it was Clint, though. Never when it was Clint.
“I have no idea what’s the matter with you, Barton.” Phil straightened from where he’d been leaning against the edge of his desk. A desk that was unusually messy, as if Coulson had tossed an armful of papers, pens and folders down when he came into his office without looking where they’d landed. The skin around his eyes was tight with both tension and exhaustion and - worst of all - there was pity in his gaze. “Since you’re not talking to me, I’m taking you off active duty pending a psych eval.”
Wait – what?
Hurt burned through Clint’s chest at the words. Of course he’d said nothing on the flight back. Explaining just why he’d shot wide would sound even crazier out loud than it did in his head! Usually, Coulson understood these things without having to be told. Like the time when Clint had refused to kill Nat. Well, OK, circumstances had been different, and that was the only time Clint had ever amended a kill order, but Coulson had backed him then without a flinch. So why couldn’t he do it again and let it go?
Clint left Coulson’s office, only marginally aware of his surroundings and too spun into his thoughts to notice where his feet were taking him. The fact that he wasn’t bumping into people was more due to everyone else in his path giving him a wide berth than any special skills of his. He didn’t care. He just needed to get away from people and the shooting range, at least, was quiet.
He signed out his bow and selected a set of moving targets. The shots to hit them were tricky and needed all his concentration. Normally this was a sure-fire way for Clint to calm down and find his centre when life landed him hard on his ass.
Shame then, that his favourite remedy did bugger all to calm him down today. The hot feeling in his throat and the tightness in his chest failed to shift even after an hour of landing arrow after arrow just where he wanted each one. Every time he sighted on a target he recalled the look of pity in Coulson’s eyes. Every time he released an arrow, he heard the disappointment in Coulson’s voice.
It was maddening.
Matters got worse when he called it a day and stopped by his quarters to shower and change. His inbox held two orders. The first removed him from active duty and consigned him to quarters for the duration. The second required him to report for a psych eval the following morning. Both were signed by P. Coulson, Senior Agent, SHIELD. No personal note, no comment, just two standard bits of SHIELD paperwork.
And just like that Clint was a prisoner.
Clint wanted to smash something, but there was little in his Spartan quarters that lent itself to blowing off steam in this way. And even hurt and angry Clint knew better than to smash his fists into the wall. He’d done that once - years ago - and the broken bones had taken ages to heal. He’d been banned from shooting his bow, too - and that was one comfort Clint just couldn’t do without. Especially not now.
For the next few hours, Clint meandered between his bunk, the desk and the small, uncomfortable sofa, unable to settle anywhere. He stopped counting how many times he picked up the phone to call his handler, only to set it down again without making the call. He tried to write emails, then notes, explaining what had happened during the op, but he couldn’t find words that didn’t make him sound like he felt: incompetent, useless, a liability.
Coulson’s unexpected coldness, the way he had brushed Clint aside when before he’d always made an attempt to understand first and judge later, bothered Clint more than he felt ready to admit. Coulson was clearly done putting up with Clint Barton. Babysitting a dumb fuck of an archer with an attitude had to be wearing. Coulson had shown more patience than any other handler at SHIELD, but even Coulson’s patience had finally snapped. Once Clint had failed his psych eval - and he was sure that he would fail that in spectacular fashion - there’d no longer be a place for him at SHIELD. He’d be out on his ear before he could turn around.
He might not ever see Phil Coulson again. Maybe the man’s words in his office had been a goodbye that Clint had been too stupid to recognise. The pain of that thought made him double over. He gasped for breath as if he’d taken a punch to the gut. And then he remembered that Natasha was out on assignment. When she came back… weeks from now… Clint Barton would be merely a footnote in the annals of SHIELD, an assassin who just hadn’t measured up.
Clint curled up on the lumpy, too small sofa. He wrapped his arms around himself and squeezed his eyes shut, desperate to deny his thoughts. The last two years had been the best kind of life he’d ever experienced before. Yes, he’d been hurt and captured and had almost died, but he’d had a home, people who cared about him, things to come back for. He couldn’t lose everything he had worked for just like that. He couldn’t…
And then it came to him. SHIELD loved its regulations. They did stuff by the book, even when throwing out useless assets. If he never failed his psych eval… hell! If he never even took his psych eval… they couldn’t throw him out. At least, not so easily.
***
Natasha found him four days later, hiding in the farthest corner of SHIELD’s ventilation system. She hadn’t been expected back so soon from her latest mission to Buenos Aires. That meant that either she’d wrapped up early, or someone had made her come home before she was done. He winced at the thought. Nat hated leaving tasks unfinished.
Clint hadn’t dared to come out of hiding to find food and his stomach was gnawing on his backbone by the time Nat showed up. He felt lightheaded and faintly sick, but the sound of Natasha’s voice was music to his ears.
“Talk to me, Barton.”
Clint looked up. He saw compassion in the green eyes – not pity. Never pity. It steadied him a little. Enough so he could draw a breath and run the tip of his tongue over his dry, cracked lips.
“Coulson thinks I’ve lost my edge.” It was the only explanation he could think to give since she’d undoubtedly heard what had happened days earlier.
“Have you?”
Now that he was no longer alone, the images of Coulson angry, disappointed, judgemental and just… done stopped their endless spiral. Clint drew one deep breath. Then another. The turmoil in his mind calmed enough to let him think, created a tiny untainted space where he could consider Natasha’s question.
Had he lost his edge?
Clint thought about it. Killing people was part of his job and he did it when it needed to be done. Dealing with the emotional fallout of his choices had become a little easier since he’d joined SHIELD and was, nominally at least, on the side of the good guys. On the recent op, his target had been a drug dealer, one who got children hooked before using them as mules. Clint hadn’t planned on shedding a single tear, but what if..
“No,” he replied, voice firming along with his resolve. “But if that’s what he believes, then maybe…”
Natasha’s snort prevented him from finishing that sentence.
“You’re both idiots,” she declared. “Each unable to see beyond the end of his nose.” She yanked the pillow from under Clint’s head, not caring when his cheekbone hit the metal base of the duct with a painful thunk. “Now get your ass back to civilisation or I’ll drag you by the short and curlies.”
And because Natasha had his back, and he trusted that she wouldn’t let him be thrown out on his ass whatever idiocy he committed, he followed her out of the vents and back to his quarters. He didn’t argue when she made him take a shower. He ate and drank what she placed in front of him. And when he passed out after he’d eaten, he blamed that on the four days and night he’d just spent without sleep and not the drugs she’d slipped into his food.
***
“Romanoff tells me I’m missing something,” Coulson said softly as he sat down next to Clint in the cafeteria and placed a plate of pastries on the table between them.
Clint kept his eyes on his coffee and his mouth firmly shut. He hadn’t seen Phil Coulson in a week, hadn’t spoken to him since Coulson had taken him off active duty. And he still had no idea what to make of that whole episode.
Seven days ago, he had trusted Coulson with his life. Seven days ago, they had been… friends. Seven days ago, Clint might have admitted to something more than just friendship. Now… now he felt out of place, off balance, and out of his depth. All he had done was shoot wide when he should have shot to kill. He’d done it for the best of reasons, a split second decision taken in the heat of battle, and it had brought his world crashing down around him.
And yes, Coulson was missing something. Everything, in fact. And it had taken him seven days - and intervention from Nat - to even ask the question. Clint wasn’t sure whether he wanted a chance to answer or whether he just wanted to cut his losses and disappear somewhere quiet to lick his wounds and bury another dream. Only Nat had made him promise to give them this chance and he owed her. Clint wrapped his hands tighter around his mug, desperate to halt the shivers that rattled his teeth and soak up a little bit of warmth.
“Clint?” Phil Coulson’s voice was careful, almost as if Clint was a young horse and easily spooked. “I didn’t realise you’d take my words so much to heart. All I wanted was to understand what had happened.”
“By taking me off the roster and forcing me to see a shrink?” The bitterness was hard to keep out of his voice, but Clint tried anyway. He’d promised Nat and he was determined to keep his word.
“I screwed up,” Coulson answered. “I was tired. The op was blown. You hadn’t said a single word since you took that shot…. I’m sorry, OK? I’m sorry I didn’t take the time to understand. I’m sorry I didn’t come after you. I’m sorry I-”
“Don’t.” Clint straightened. He couldn’t look at Coulson. Not yet. But out of the corner of his eye he saw the tension in the man’s back, saw shoulders almost touching ears, saw hands clenched so tightly the knuckles were white. Perverse as that seemed, those small signs of Coulson’s distress loosened the tight knot in Clint’s chest. “We both made a mess of this. It’s up to us to fix it.”
***
“Nat said you would explain it to me if I asked you.”
They sat on the sofa in Coulson’s office, coffee mugs in hand and three feet of careful space between them. When Coulson had suggested that they relocate from the busy cafeteria, Clint had followed without argument.
It was easy to see how much of a toll the previous week had taken on the younger man. The usually so irrepressible archer was quiet and withdrawn. He avoided all eye contact and shuffled along like a much older man, the confident swagger gone as if it had never been. Even now, safe from prying eyes in Coulson’s office he gwas hunched over, the fingers of his free hand restlessly plucking at the seam of his jeans. When he set the coffee mug down he wrapped his arms tightly around his middle and for Phil Coulson, that was worse.
“Clint? I can’t ever tell you how sorry I am about letting you down.”
A short, unconvincing shrug was his only answer. He drew a deep breath and tried to think of words that Clint Barton would believe when Clint finally raised his head.
“It’s not your fault,” he said, almost too quiet to be heard. “When it really matters… well, I screw up.”
“Make me understand. Please.”
“You made me use a handgun.” Clint’s voice was hoarse from underuse. “Someone else’s handgun.”
“Are you trying to tell me you missed?”
“Would you believe me?”
“No.”
“Then, no.”
“So you shot wide on purpose. Why?”
Clint’s head came up and Coulson was pleased to see a little passion return to the younger man’s eyes. Even if that passion was fuelled by anger. Anger he just didn’t understand.
“Besides the fact that I had to make a choice? And only had a heartbeat’s time to make it?”
They were going in circles and Coulson wanted to throw his hands up in despair or lean across those scant three feet and kiss the stubborn right out of the archer, but he was sane enough to keep either thought from showing. “Clint, the mission objective was clear. My orders were clear. Why did you need to choose?”
“That should be obvious,” Clint growled with as much frustration in his voice as Coulson was feeling right then. “Just picture the damn scene!”
Coulson looked at Clint’s tightly clenched fists resting on thigh muscles that vibrated with tension, and once more he pictured the room in the rundown hotel: the bed, the small coffee table and chairs, the console holding the telephone and bedside lamp.... the straight line of sight between the window and the connecting door that Coulson had used to enter just as Clint came crashing through the window, gun blazing.
And why he hadn’t seen this immediately, he would never understand.
Clint saw when he got it. His hand shot out, finger pointing directly at Coulson’s chest. “And if I’d missed? What would I have hit? Whom... would I have hit?”
There it was: the reason for the shot sent wide, the reason for Clint’s silence. Not sullen, as Coulson had assumed on the long flight back, but embarrassed and scared by possibilities. He looked up into Clint’s anguished eyes and if he’d been able to go back and do the last days over, he would have done so gladly.
“You don’t miss, Barton,” he said firmly. “Not ever. And certainly not when it matters.” And seeing the tiny glimmer of a smile in the archer’s eyes gave him hope that - in time - this too would pass.