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The hallways are empty when Clint strides down them with a SHIELD issue folder in hand, footsteps echoing amidst the muted sounds of teenage chaos and exasperated teachers coming from the classrooms. It’s been a long time since he’s been inside four walls and a ceiling labelled as school, but he's here to pick up someone before going on an asset recovery mission in the vicinity of Midtown High, so here he is clad in a well-worn tee and faded jeans, trying not to be overly conspicuous.
It’s been weeks since the wrecking of New York, weeks since Fury had practically ordered them - well, specifically him and Nat, since the rest had naturally dispersed - on mandatory leave after everything had settled and the clean-up had started.
Then that one single message had come in and Clint’s world comes apart at the seams.
He makes a right, spying the door he’d been looking for. Clint doesn’t bother to knock; he’s pretty sure some preternatural knowledge will tell the sole occupant of the office that he’s got a visitor. Instead Clint turns the knob and pushes the door open, leaning against the doorway.
The man sitting behind the desk is one that Clint has waited weeks to see.
“Barton.” Phil looks up, setting a file aside. He looks perfectly fine, clad in his usual neatly pressed suit and tie and very much unlike the camera-quality image of Phil slumped there with red blossoming across his chest that had burned itself onto the back of Clint’s eyelids when Natasha had murmured the news to him in the infirmary.
Something in Clint’s chest twists as the archer forces a grin on his face, nearly crumpling the folder he’s holding. “Hey Phil.”
It hadn’t been easy, fighting the battles he did with the knowledge lingering at the back of his mind.
Phil’s chair scrapes against the floor as he pushes it back.
Clint crosses the gap between them, ignoring the startled secretary right beside the desk who has only just noticed his presence. He wants to do so many things, but Clint can practically feel disapproving eyes on his back - and it makes him grin, the shadow of his usual cockiness returning - so instead he settles for a tight bear-hug.
Phil Coulson is warm and breathing and wears the exact same cologne that Clint remembers, before the situation on the Helicarrier had taken him out of the archer’s reach.
Then there are hands against his shoulders, gently pushing him away and Clint steps back, possessively keeping a hand around Phil’s arm as if releasing his grip would mean letting Phil disappear.
“We’ve got new orders.” Clint gestures with the file, nearly knocking something off the desk as he does.
The secretary behind them tuts, pushing her glasses up as Phil shifts to face her. “Let the staff know that I’ll be taking the rest of the day off. Urgent business.”
The folder Clint had been carrying is shoved into her hands, and the archer can’t keep his grin from growing wider as he allows Phil to half-lead half-drag him out of the office, leaving a rather scandalized looking secretary behind.
“So, tell me,” Clint drapes an arm across Phil’s shoulders as they walk down the still-empty hallways. “Why are you playing principal to Spidey while the rest of us were saving the world?”
Phil’s lips curl into a smile. “Someone had to give you the right motivation.”