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Phil Coulson swung gently from his rope and waited patiently to be rescued. He had no doubt that he'd be rescued at some stage, he just had to wait for it. With any luck, whoever found him would be anyone except-
"Well, this looks fun, boss."
Of course, Phil had absolutely no luck. If he had any then he wouldn't currently be suspended upside down over a vat of acid.
"You must have really pissed them off," Clint continued. "I mean, vat of acid. That's a classic. You don't see it very often anymore. And stealing your jacket and shirt, that's just low."
Make that suspended upside down, in only his suit pants and socks, with his very expensive new tie binding his wrists. He'd never get the wrinkles out even if it was salvageable, which Phil doubted because the knots were very tight.
"I have to ask, how did you let this happen?" Clint asked.
Phil couldn't see him yet, the voice was coming from somewhere behind him, but he could easily picture Clint leaning against something with his arms crossed and a delighted expression on his face.
"There was no 'letting' this happen," Phil said, trying to keep the exasperation out of his voice.
"They drugged you and tied you up, huh?"
As the last thing that Phil remembered before waking up in this ridiculous situation was walking into a warehouse where he was supposed to be meeting a contact and smelling something odd, that had been his conclusion. It was an amateur tactic and he was mildly embarrassed to have been taken in by it.
Clint's footsteps were quiet on the concrete floor. Phil tracked him and tried to look appropriately bland when Clint came into view, which was tricky given that he was upside down and underdressed. There was definitely a smirk on Clint's face and he stopped a couple of feet away, crossing his arms again. He'd been doing that a lot lately. Crossing his arms to show them off, leaning over or against things to show off his ass. Phil hoped that whoever Clint was doing it for appreciated the extra effort he was going to.
After a short wait it became apparent that Clint was just going to stand there and laugh at Phil's predicament so he glared. "Barton, just get me down from here."
"You know, you're always needlessly sarcastic when this kind of thing happens to me," Clint said, still making absolutely no move to help. "I'm just appreciating the irony."
"Barton."
"And the view."
Phil was too surprised to think of a retort to that.
"It's not every day that I get to see you so completely..." Clint paused and Phil absolutely wasn't holding his breath. "...unbuttoned."
"Clint, are you going to mock me or get me out of here?"
"Can't I do both?"
A loud crack of thunder suddenly rocked the building followed by the distinctive sound of things being smashed somewhere outside.
"Right, yes, both," Clint said quickly. "We've got maybe five minutes. Sir, how the fuck did they get you up there?"
"I have no idea. I was unconscious at the time. And why do we have five minutes?"
Clint shrugged and moved closer to the vat of acid. "Stark's blowing shit up. He's got some kind of device set to blow the place in five minutes."
"You brought the whole team?"
"You're lucky it's just the team," Clint said. "Fury wanted to send half of SHIELD after you. He was a little pissed when he found out what happened."
There was going to be such a terrible dressing-down in Phil's future for daring to let himself get kidnapped. Fury probably wouldn't even care about the whole vat of acid thing.
"Barton, do you actually have a plan?" Phil asked.
"Wow, sulphuric acid. They really hated you," Clint said. "I think that I can slide this out from under you. Can you get yourself free when I've done that?"
"Hand me your knife."
The knife was handed up and Phil regretfully cut his tie away to free his hands. It fell into the tank beneath him and immediately began dissolving. There was no way that a replacement would be authorised unless it came from Walmart. This was proving to be an expensive abduction.
Clint braced himself against the vat and carefully, so very carefully, pushed it away. The sound of it scraping against concrete echoed around the room and Phil took it as a good sign that no armed guards came to investigate.
"OK, you should be good now, sir," Clint said.
Phil tipped his head back to see Clint positioned right under him, still wearing that ridiculous smirk.
"Why are you standing there?" he asked.
"To catch you, sir," Clint said innocently.
As there was no comment that Phil could make that would end well, he sighed and started working on getting free. This kind of thing wasn't the reason that he always included a lot of core work in his daily work-out, but being able to bend at the waist and pull himself up until he could reach the rope at his ankles was definitely a benefit. A muffled explosion sounded somewhere to his left and Phil told himself that the quiet gasp he heard just underneath it was obviously his imagination, or possibly the effect of hanging upside down for too long.
Cutting the rope around his ankles didn't take long and then he was falling. Strong arms caught him behind his knees and shoulders and Phil took a moment to consider that his day was just going from bad to worse so obviously the only way that this could be more awkward would be if-
"Barton, you two make a lovely couple," Stark said, flying into view. "Can you get him out of here in the next two minutes?"
Phil was looking at Clint at that moment, which was why he saw the slight flush appear suddenly on Clint's cheeks and the guilty look in his eyes. He filed that away for later consideration, preferably when they weren't in imminent danger of getting blown up.
"I can get him out," Clint said. "Is everything set?"
There was an aggrieved huff from the Iron Man suit. "Why do you even have to ask that?"
The room shuddered as something exploded.
"You may want to hurry up," Stark said, his repulsors flaring as he flew out. "Sounds like Cap found the armoury."
There was a long moment where Phil looked up at Clint and Clint looked down at him and then Clint seemed to shake himself out of whatever fugue he'd gone into.
"Think you can stand?" Clint asked.
Phil nodded and hooked an arm around Clint's neck as his legs were carefully lowered to the ground. He stumbled and Clint immediately shifted his grip to hold Phil tightly around the waist, which was another thing that would be getting filed away for later.
"Sir?" Clint said.
"I'm fine," Phil said quickly. "Where's the exit?"
"Can you walk?"
"Probably."
It turned out that Phil could only walk if Clint took a lot of his weight, which wasn't ideal but he was definitely not going to be carried out in a fireman's lift or, worse yet, back in the princess carrying position. The day had been filled with enough indignities already. Clint kept one arm wrapped around his waist and Phil hung onto his neck as they shuffled as fast as possible.
They managed to stumble out of the building just as it shattered in a massive explosion. The concussion from the blast pushed them off their feet. Phil had no idea how Clint managed it, but somehow he twisted so that his body was underneath Phil's when they landed. All the wind was knocked out of Phil's lungs and the only thing he could do for a moment was suck in great gulps of air.
It took him a moment to realise that he'd buried his head in the crook of Clint's neck so he was panting into Clint's ear. Realising that Clint was holding him tightly and sounded equally breathless took a little longer. Out of all the weird things that had happened today, Phil thought this may actually be the least terrible.
In fact, it felt nice. Good, even.
Particularly when Clint's hands began rubbing soothingly up and down his spine, the calluses and finger guard rough and yet not unpleasant against his skin.
His skin. Phil suddenly felt self-conscious about his shirtless state.
"Barton, what are you doing?" he asked.
There was a pause and Clint's hands stilled. "Checking for acid burns?"
The warm breath against Phil's ear sent a tiny, completely inappropriate shiver through him. He ruthlessly ignored it and lifted his head a little, which allowed him to look into Clint's face. There was still a flush of warm colour in Clint's cheeks and his pupils looked dilated.
"No acid burns," Phil said and swallowed because his voice was raspy and harsh.
"That's good, sir," Clint said and his voice was also unsteady. "I could check a bit more, if you'd like. Just to be thorough."
"I'd-"
And whatever might or might not have been happening was, of course, rudely interrupted by the noisy arrival of the other Avengers because that was the kind of day this was.
Phil dropped his head to Clint's shoulder and tried to pretend that he couldn't hear any of them.