Chapter Text
If there was anything Clint Barton was good at, it was accepting how much of a fuck-up he was. It was realising when he’d screwed up something, and knowing to move on with hardly so much as a nod of farewell to what he had to leave behind.
He’d had a lot of practise.
He’d hoped this time it would be different.
He’d warned them about him and authority. They’d assured him that it wouldn’t be a problem. ‘We’ll trust your expertise’, they’d said. ‘Let you make comments on the orders’. All those friendly, assuring words had vanished the instance they’d stepped on the field. No, then it had been ‘you do what we tell you to or you go back to the gutters we found you in’.
And they knew, he’d told them he didn’t respond well to that. If he saw an opening, he took it, regardless of what the guys in the suits on the other end of the line thought.
Which he’d done. Which had put the bad guys in the cells, saved at least that backwash State, if not all America, and had put seven SHIELD agents into the hospital, one into the morgue, and that threat of the gutters back in its rightful place over Clint’s head.
Yeah, he’d liked it here. He had a range, guns and ammo, a new and improved bow, stable pay and a roof over a bed. Worst of all, he’d had hope. Losing that left him feeling hollow, and, yeah, a little sad. If he didn’t have his pride, he might grovel, apologise, beg to stay.
But he had it. And damned if he’d let them see how much he wanted this.
So he was sat, waiting, patiently, in the office of the man who’d been assigned his handler when he’d joined. He was lying on the couch – yes, the man had a couch in his office, and that was either showing off or brilliant – with eyes closed, hand behind his head, and muddy boots pressed against the far armrest in what would probably be his last act of defiance. Determined that he was going to grin a huge fuck-you to these guys and walk out on his own feet, no matter what he felt, he was singing Ted Nugent loudly, and more than a little out of tune. Right now, the thought that he was pissing off everyone in the near vicinity was the only thing that made him feel like smiling.
He only stopped when he heard the door swing open. He paused, mid word, and opened his eyes to see his handler enter, a huge folder of paperwork in his arms. He didn’t even look at Clint as he entered his office, but headed straight for his chair behind the desk, sat down, and started on a pile of forms.
Clint swung upright, and his eyes flickered to the name sign on the desk before he spoke. He’d forgotten the guy’s name, again. He’d never bothered to learn it, on principle – and there was no point now. “So, Agent P Coulson-”
“Agent Coulson will do fine. Or sir. I think they put the ‘P’ on the sign for aesthetic purposes.”
The agent was still writing. Hadn’t even looked up. “What, don’t you even have a first name? Or is ‘agent’ your first name, Agent Coulson?”
“Of course I have a first name. You’re not going to know it.”
Now that sounded wonderfully like a challenge. Or it would have been, if Clint wasn’t going to be kicked out of the building in the next hour. “Give it time,” he settled for saying, smirking, and firmly ignoring how he had none. Either way, the smirk was wasted. The guy still wasn’t looking up. “So, sir – what’s the verdict?”
The pen scratched away for a few more minutes, before Agent Coulson punched in the last full stop. With an infuriating slow calmness, he set down the pen, lifted up the paper and wafted it dry before, finally, Coulson made eye contact, his eyes locking on to Clint’s blandly for a few seconds whilst he said was Clint was has desperate, half terrified to hear. “I managed to convince Hill and Fury that you acted in the best interest. You have today off on medical leave – which is, as you should know, mandatory after a mission – then they expect you back on training tomorrow. Clear?”
Without any conscious will on Clint’s half, his jaw fell open. He didn’t stutter – he’d deny ever stuttering until his dying day – but he couldn’t deny stumbling over the first few syllables until got control of his mouth back. “Sorry – hold up – I’m... not suspended?”
“No, Barton, you’re not.”
This didn’t feel right. So much so that, against all logic, Clint found himself suddenly arguing why he should be suspended. Perhaps it was one of those ‘pushing a bruise to see how much it can hurt’ thing. Perhaps it was just him being typically messed-up. “I disobeyed the supervisor!” he said, voice rising. “I went against orders! Damn stupid orders, but still, I thought you suits hated it when someone does that! An agent is dead thanks to me!”
There was a pause, and Coulson met his eyes again, face still entirely blank. “Us ‘suits’ do. But you were right, they were stupid orders, and I pointed out as much – along with how your actions, rash and risky though they were, stopped a much bigger death count. No doubt exactly what you were thinking at the time. Besides, you’ve only been here a few weeks. You’re new and stupid, and therefore permitted some mistakes.”
The words still weren’t sinking in. At all. In any way whatsoever. “So...” Clint said, drawing out the word as he leant forwards, trying to keep the hope from his face, “I’m off free?”
“Not entirely. It’ll go on your record. But no disciplinary action this time around, just a helpful reminder that if you’re going to break position and draw the enemy down a full street, for God’s sake warn the people there first.”
“So... you got me off almost free?”
“Yes, Barton.”
And, slowly, finally, a giddy sense of relief spread through him, finally letting him relax, breathe out, and sink back into the couch. He was staying. He still had a home. “I guess I owe you, then,” he said, sighing out and leaning back, hands slipping back behind his head – and his mouth, as it had a tendency too, running off without him. He blamed it on whatever happy, post-panic chemicals his brain was no doubt producing. Or a concussion. Concussion was more plausible. He should probably get that checked out. “How should repay you? Sexual favours? Bacon sandwiches? How ‘bout marriage, would marriage do? I’ll be your kept wife. Don’t have much of a dowry, I’m afraid, but I can cook well enough. Would that fill the debt?”
There was some noise from the agent that could either have been a puff of exasperation or a puff of laughter – there really was no way to tell the difference with this guy, and god knows Clint had been trying like mad the past few weeks to try and make his handler crack one way or the other. “Sorry to disappoint you, Barton, but the barter system at SHIELD doesn’t revolve around fornication, pork, or matrimony.”
“Damn.”
“Coffee, on the other hand...”
“You want me to fetch you coffee?” Barton said, grin still firmly in place, eyebrows rising. “So that’s why you G-Men let yourselves become handlers, is it? To get a lackey that has to feed you coffee, or face dire consequences?”
Clint watched Coulson’s face as he blinked, and didn’t smile, per se, but his face definitely widened. Clint counted that as half a win. “Of course not, that would be slave labour. Besides, you’re off on medical leave. Basic cappuccino from the privately owned coffee shop a block down.”
“Ah, keep dreaming, Agent P Coulson. I know your ruse. You won’t be able to make me your coffee-boy so easily.”
“I saved you from a month of licking envelopes closed as punishment. It’s because of me you also still have all-time access to the range. And as your handler, I’m the one who says if you can go on an operation until your probation time is up, and I think I’m right in saying I also decide when that is. A cinnamon bun would be nice, too.”
A smug smile flashed into existence, lasting for barely a second before the bastard was poker-faced and filling in forms again. Resigned to the inevitable, Clint sighed out with affected weariness, and pushed himself up from the couch. “Fine,” he said. “But know this – once we’re even, you’re going to regret calling me your lackey.”
“I’m willing to take my chances. And besides, that was your term, not mine.”
“I’ll haunt you like a ninja,” Clint warned, waving a threatening finger at Coulson, walking backwards to the door so not to break the threatening glare. “You’ll never know where I am.”
“Won’t I?”
“I’ll break you. You’ll be sent to the medical wing laughing hysterically.”
“Good luck with that one.”
“And I’ll, I’ll... I’ll find out your name, and I’ll call you by that and that alone, even in the middle of ops, no matter how much you beg me to call you sir.”
“Just a friendly reminder, you’re only one black mark away from suspension anyway, Barton. I wouldn’t recommend that course of action.”
“But you’re making it sound so tempting.”
“Goodbye, Barton.”
Grinning, Clint turned and flung open the door. He had several bruised ribs he hadn’t bothered to tell anyone about, he’d spent the past half an hour certain he was going to get fired and every inch of him wanted to either go and watch some shitty TV or go shoot something – not in the range, somewhere calm, like coke cans on the roof or something – and yet, for reasons he couldn’t quite explain, even to himself – he found himself heading down onto the street and towards that damn coffee shop.
*
As Clint approached Coulson’s office about an hour later, dusting the last crumbs of the pastry from his jacket and holding a half-empty takeout coffee cup in his hands, he made sure to whistle loudly as he passed the door, knowing the agent would look up if only to find out who to make pay later. He’d meant to play it cool and distant, not look – but he couldn’t stop his eyes flicking to the side as he walked past the glass door.
Sure enough, Coulson was looking up, poker-faced as ever.
But when he recognized the whistler and the logo on the coffee – and Clint knew the agent would deny it to the day he died, passing it off as a trick of the light – Coulson smiled.