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No one really understood the stress that Barton put his body through. Sitting for hours, a rifle or a bow and arrow aimed at where the target would be, body always poised for action. His eyes never once blinking from the position where his target would be. It was normal for Barton. He was a specialist. He was an assassin. He did better from a distance. But that didn’t mean that while he was good at what he did, that his body didn’t rebel against him in the aftermath.
There were few people who knew why Barton always disappeared in the hours immediately following a debrief. Director Fury, Assistant Director Hill, and Phil Coulson. They were the only people who knew the details of just how much torture he put his body through.
He loved the fact that Coulson always made sure that the lights were off when Barton was due home. He loved the fact that his partner cared enough to make life just a little bit easier. He loved the fact that Coulson didn’t judge him for the fact that he couldn’t function straight after a mission due to the tension and pressure that his body was under while he was sitting in a nest poised for action.
Migraines. If he was sitting in his nest even if he got hit by a migraine he could ignore it, but afterwards, it was the worst form of torture he could imagine. There was little that he knew to help so he had built up a survival tactic of hiding from everyone - even Coulson.
Today was different though. He didn’t go looking for Coulson, he still followed his normal plan. He went through the debriefing; he returned his weapons to the appropriate techs and then he pulled himself home. With every step his head pounded more.
Finally, he pushed open the door to his and Coulson’s apartment; grateful that the place was in complete darkness and promptly locked the door before collapsing onto the sofa. It was too much to make his body do anything else. His energy had depleted itself quicker than he had expected.
All he could hope for was that a nap would take the edge off the pain. He knew that it would be a long one this time.
He didn’t expect to wake to the feeling of someone’s fingers gently pressing into his head. It was as if someone was trying to reach the pain and the tension that always built up following a mission and force it out. He liked it, but the fact that he had slept through the start of it worried him.
He hadn’t made it to the bedroom which really meant that anyone could have entered the room.
“Hey, hey, Clint. It’s just me.” The voice was low and calm as if they had been expecting this reaction. It was a voice that Barton loved to have in his ear and he had missed dreadfully since joining the Avengers and Coulson had taken command of The Bus. “Just sleep,” the voice added as Coulson moved his massaging from Barton’s head to his shoulders.
“Aw, head, no.”
Barton had started to move his head towards where Coulson’s magical hands had disappeared and just ended up with a spike of extreme pain. As soon as he mumbled the words and groaned, Coulson had one hand gently pushing back his hair while the other rubbed patterns on his back.
“It’s okay, just keep still.”
That was something he could do so long as Coulson continued to chase away the pain.