Archive of Our Own ^beta

"Agent Coulson!"

Phil stopped in the kitchen doorway, staring with a vague sense of horror at the sight of Darcy in the tower kitchen drinking coffee as though she did it every day. His brain wasn't entirely awake yet and he certainly wasn't alert enough to deal with Darcy at breakfast.

There was a big bag of bagels on the counter and Natasha was already slicing them and feeding them to the toaster, with Steve cheerfully laying out condiments on the table. Banner was putting water in the kettle and Tony was standing next to Clint, both of them watching the coffee pot do its thing with twin expressions of caffeine-deprived hunger.

How Darcy and Natasha both had cups of coffee when the machine that made coffee was only halfway through its cycle thoroughly confused Phil.

"Ms. Lewis?" he asked, wondering whether it was too late to go back to bed and try again. "Why are you here?"

Darcy smiled wildly. "Because it's only a week until Halloween?"

Phil frowned because he definitely hadn't consumed enough caffeine to translate that. "I'm sorry?"

"Halloween!" Darcy gestured to the corner of the kitchen where a board had been set up with multiple coloured bars drawn on a sheet of paper. "We've only got a week left and everyone asked me to move the tracker here so that they don't have to come into HQ to find out how they're doing."

"Why do we have a tracker on a piece of paper?" Phil asked and he strongly suspected that he was focusing on completely the wrong thing but it was barely seven and the coffee maker was still gurgling.

"I told her that I could set up something better but she didn't want me to interfere," Stark said, his eyes never leaving the coffee pot.

Darcy stuck out her tongue. "This way is more fun."

"My way has minute by minute sales figures."

"My way has little gold stars for the day's winner."

"My way is accurate."

"My way has glitter."

"Is that supposed to win me over? Because it really doesn't, glitter is evil."

Phil sighed. "What, exactly, are you tracking?"

The machine beeped loudly and Clint made a sleepy grunt noise as he grabbed the pot and started pouring coffee into mugs.

"Halloween costume sales," Darcy said. "It's the final push and we're trying to work out who is the most popular Avenger."

Clint handed Phil a mug of coffee and lightly brushed his fingers over the back of Phil's hand before shuffling off to sit at the table with his own drink. It was Clint's equivalent to a good morning kiss and it really wasn't as satisfying as an actual kiss would have been. Phil usually woke up just in time to see Clint disappearing into the vents. He was still trying to work out why Clint almost never entered or exited his quarters by the door.

Phil pushed that thought away for another day, as usual, and focused on the current problem. Which was Darcy, her Halloween tracker and the growing pile of toasted bagels that Natasha was building.

"Which costume is currently in the lead?" Phil asked before taking a large gulp of coffee.

Darcy nodded to the board. "Captain America has been leading for the last two weeks."

Stark rolled his eyes. "Of course he is. You disallowed half the costumes and Cap is incredibly popular with the under-fives."

"I disallowed all the unofficial sexy Avengers costumes," Darcy said primly. "We can't look like we're endorsing unsanctioned merchandise."

Phil frowned. "There are...sexy Avengers costumes?"

"D'uh," Darcy said. "Some companies got really creative. I can send you links."

"No," Phil said.

"Send 'em over," Clint said.

Darcy grinned. "Already done it, if you ever checked your emails."

"Is there a prize for the winner?" Phil asked. "And will I have to discipline anyone for the prize?"

"Bragging rights," Stark said quickly. "At least two weeks."

"And free access to your car collection," Darcy added.

"I didn't agree to that," Stark protested.

"Yes you did," Steve said with an unaccustomed smirk.

"I was drunk at the time," Stark said.

"You signed a contract," Steve said. "And Pepper witnessed it."

"Fuck you all, I hate my life." Stark poured himself a second cup of coffee and downed it in three gulps. "And those bagels are whole wheat, what the hell?"

***

Two days after the chart appeared, Phil took over tracker duties after a long, tense team meeting that everyone agreed never to mention again.

There had been accusations of cheating.

And blatant gold star theft.

Mostly against Stark, it had to be admitted, but it turned out that Banner was sneakier than his mild mannered scientist image hinted at.

Phil spent most of the meeting glaring at each of them and wondered after it when his life became one where accurate sales data for Halloween costumes was a thing.

***

"Agent Coulson!"

Phil looked up and supressed a sigh. He was attempting to write a report on the Avengers' latest encounter that didn't sound like something out of a bad Western and the last thing he needed was Darcy in one of her hats.

Actually, Darcy in one of her hats was never something he needed because it meant there was PR stuff to do. This was just a particularly bad day.

"Can I help you, Ms. Lewis?" he asked, trying to sound forbidding and suspecting he mostly just sounded stressed.

Darcy beamed and carried a small box into the office, which she put down on his desk carefully without disturbing any of the neat stacks of paper. It had taken a few months but she was finally learning the importance of not interfering with his paperwork systems.

"I've got something that will brighten your day," she said cheerfully.

"I doubt that very much," Phil muttered.

Darcy frowned. "I didn't catch that?"

"Nothing important." Phil capped his pen and tried to look attentive. "What have you brought?"

"Calendars." Darcy patted the box. "They're still a bit rough because they're so rushed, but they look great and the final versions will be awesome."

Phil was struck by an odd sense of deja vu. "Didn't marketing send samples up a couple of months ago to approve? I thought they were going on sale this week."

"Pfft." Darcy waved an impatient hand. "Those were the superhero pose, destroying buildings calendars. The kids love them. These are the ones for adults."

That sounded dangerous.

"Adults?" Phil asked cautiously.

He couldn't remember anyone discussing adult photo shoots but it was always possible that they'd done it without informing him. Maybe.

Except he couldn't quite imagine Clint keeping that kind of thing secret for long.

"Whatever you're thinking, stop it," Darcy said firmly. "They're not that kind of adult calendar."

"Oh good," Phil said faintly.

"It never crossed my mind, boss," Darcy said. "Although now that you mention it, some tasteful nude shots would probably sell well."

"I can hide your body in any one of half a dozen locations and nobody will ever ask," Phil told her.

"Fine," Darcy said quickly. "Ixnay on the nude shots this year."

Phil raised an eyebrow.

"OK, every year. Jeesh, I thought a nude shoot with Clint..." Darcy must have finally noticed the increasingly forbidding looks Phil was shooting her because trailed off and cleared her throat. "Anyway. Calendars for grownups."

"Am I going to regret asking?"

Darcy shrugged. "It's mostly just the stuff from the magazine shoot. They were so pleased with what they got, they asked if we'd endorse a calendar. It looks fucking amazing and my focus groups-"

"Are you still abusing my coffee budget to buy sugary drinks pretending to be coffee for random people in Starbucks?"

"-my focus groups," Darcy repeated with gritted teeth, "were really positive. I had to frisk them before they left so they didn't steal any."

"I'm still not sure about it," Phil said warily.

Darcy shrugged. "We aren't really getting much choice, marketing already gave the go ahead. This is more of a heads up than an approval thing. These babies need to get on the shelves pronto if we're going to get the Christmas market."

"Oh." Phil rubbed a hand over his face.

"I'm going to leak some info on our Twitter account, maybe post something on Tumblr," Darcy continued. "You know, create some buzz so people know to hold off choosing a calendar until they've seen this one."

"And that really works?"

Darcy rolled her eyes. "Trust me, they'll go crazy. Particularly after next Wednesday."

"What happens then?"

"Magazine. Issue. Day." Darcy paused dramatically. "It's going to be epic."

"I can't wait," Phil said dryly.

***

Phil surveyed the tracker board and neatly added a black square to Natasha's row before stepping back.

"That can't be right," Stark announced. "No fucking way am I losing to a pair of purple shorts and some really big green gloves."

Banner was looking slightly smug. "You can double check the figures, but I'm sure Agent Coulson is correct."

"There's still time for me to make a come-back, right?" Clint said, staring at the chart and looking depressed.

Natasha patted his shoulder consolingly. "Halloween is today. It looks unlikely unless there's a late surge this afternoon."

"But hey, your little plastic nerf bow is outselling Thor's hammer," Darcy said perkily. "When you break down the figures, I mean."

"Darce, pretty much everything is outselling Thor's hammer," Clint said, "because the factory making Thor's hammer burned down last month so production got stopped."

Darcy shrugged.

Stark slumped against the kitchen counter. "If the Other Guy comes out to play with any of my cars..."

Banner grinned, a wide smile that they rarely saw. "I'll try to make sure that doesn't happen."

"There is no try, there is only do," Stark said firmly.

"Thank you, Yoda," Banner said.

Steve was staring at the board with a puzzled expression. "I'm still not sure what happened."

Stark nudged his shoulder. "Apparently people just aren't as patriotic as they used to be. They like big, green and moody better."

"Your sales figures are almost the same as Iron Man's," Phil said, feeling oddly guilty even though all he was doing was copying verified sales figures. It was the Rogers Effect, as Clint dubbed it. "In fact, the differences between your sales figures are so small that they aren't even statistically significant."

Stark frowned and then pointed at Clint. "You're sleeping with a guy who uses words like 'statistically significant' in normal conversation."

Phil flushed and Clint rolled his eyes.

"He can also kill you with a paperclip," Clint said. "It's a pretty hot combination."

"I hate you both," Stark said. "Fuck, I need a drink if I've got to put up with all this shit."

Clint flipped him off with a wide grin.

***

It had been months since Phil had last tried to do paperwork in bed, but it was well after eleven, there were forms that needed to be filed by nine tomorrow and the period before and after Halloween had been particularly busy in a monster-of-the-day sense. Sitting in bed was the first time in two days that he'd even been able to think about tackling his urgent items pile.

Darcy had started to look a little frantic around the eyes each time Phil rushed out of the office without handing her any reports to file. He suspected admin were sending out death threats again.

Phil uncapped his pen, opened the first folder and started working. He'd managed to get through nearly half the forms before there was the usual quiet rattle in the corner of the room that announced Clint's arrival via the air vents. There was a soft thud as Clint landed followed by footsteps leading to the bed.

Then nothing. Not even the rustle of clothes being discarded.

Phil looked up to find Clint watching him with a frown, his arms crossed over his chest, still wearing the combats, t-shirt and hoodie he'd been in earlier.

"What are you doing?" Clint asked.

"I thought that was obvious." Phil held up a folder. "I'm sure you recognise the concept of paperwork."

"In bed?"

Phil shrugged. "I never know if or when you're going to appear and it needs to be done."

"Is this what happens to regular people after a while?" Clint asked, not relaxing from his irritated stance. "Paperwork in bed?"

"Regular people use the door, not the air vent, and let their partner know before midnight whether they'll be sleeping over." Phil ticked a couple of boxes on his form and frowned at the 'any other comments' field that seemed to have been completed in Latin. "If I say that I'm heading to bed and you don't in some way communicate that you'll join me later, I'm probably going to assume you're planning to stay in your own bed tonight. Which leaves me free to do the paperwork I haven't been able to do in the other eighteen hours I've been awake today."

Although he'd kept his voice completely level and not lifted his eyes from his work, Phil felt as though he should be short of breath when he finished. Apparently this had been getting to him more than he'd realised.

There was a long pause and then Clint asked, "Is this about the air vents or the lack of communication?"

Phil looked up and sighed. "A bit of both, probably."

"Anything else been bugging you?"

"Do you want the whole list? Or just a summary?"

"Edited highlights?"

Having this discussion late at night, after a long day and with the start of a paperwork-induced headache was probably a bad idea. Phil knew it, he thought Clint probably knew it, but somehow it was happening anyway.

"I'm getting tired of watching you leave before anyone else wakes up," he said. "Everyone knows, Clint. You can use the door sometimes, it won't kill you. You can touch me for more than two seconds in a public area without offending me."

"I was trying to be discrete."

"This is where you draw the line?" Phil didn't quite know whether to laugh or glare. He settled for tapping his pen on the stack of folders in his lap. "There are marching bands more subtle than you are and you're trying to be discrete about when you stay here and whether we touch each other?"

"Maybe we shouldn't be doing this right now," Clint said flatly.

"Maybe we shouldn't."

"Want me to use the door when I leave?"

"If you wouldn't mind."

The slam of the bedroom door seemed to echo around the room. Phil listened carefully and heard the outer door to his quarters close much more quietly and he sighed. Somehow, getting Clint to use the doors when he left as a result of an argument about him not using the doors didn't feel like a victory.

For a few minutes Phil shuffled through more forms, scribbling notes and initialling where Darcy had put little sticky tabs but the most urgent items were done now. It was late and his concentration had gone to pieces so Phil gave in, stacked the folders on the floor next to the bed and turned out his light.

It seemed to take a long time for sleep to come.

***

"Agent Coulson!"

Phil looked up from his spreadsheet to find Darcy standing in the doorway with a stack of orange folders topped by a stack of what looked like magazines. Her latest PR hat was balanced on top of it all.

"Ms. Lewis," Phil said, hoping that she'd read his tone and retreat for at least another hour.

Of course, he never had that kind of luck so she bounced into the office and dropped her pile of stuff onto the only empty space on the desk.

"Whatcha doing?" she asked as she flopped into his guest chair.

"Accounting asked me to take a look at some things," Phil said.

Darcy tilted her head, trying to read upside down. "Boss-man, that's not a few things. That's a fucking nightmare."

"Which is why I was hoping this would be a quiet afternoon." Phil looked pointedly at the items on his desk. "Please tell me you haven't brought me anything to sign or reconcile."

"I haven't brought you anything to sign or reconcile."

"Are you lying?"

"Lying is such a harsh word."

"But sometimes so accurate."

Darcy shrugged. "Just need you to sign off on some requisitions from Clint and Steve. Which isn't my job, by the way, but Clint's being weird and Steve did his puppy eyes thing to Clint and...you know, it's probably easier if I stop explaining now."

Phil rubbed his forehead tiredly. Clint had largely been avoiding him for the last few days except for yesterday's team meeting and a some awkward moments at breakfast. There was no doubt in Phil's mind that Clint would be a professional in the field and a tiny, possibly sadistic, part of him was hoping for an emergency just to hear Clint's voice in his ear.

Of course, just because this was the only time Phil had ever wanted there to be an escaped science project or some kind of alien invasion, everything had gone quiet.

The real problem was that he wasn't sure how to fix things out of the field, particularly if Clint kept avoiding him. There was always the option of calling in help with his Clint problems, but Phil wasn't sure he wanted to explain it all to Natasha. She'd probably laugh at both of them and mutter in Russian a lot.

Phil eyed the stack of folders and other items again, paying particular attention to what lay on top of it. "If all you need me for is my signature, why have you brought a hat? And magazines?"

Darcy winced. "OK, before I explain, please remember none of them took part or even knew about this. Also, legal is already dealing with it and I've got a brilliant plan that I know is going to fix this. And I thought you might need something to cheer you up later."

"I'm almost afraid to ask." Phil wondered whether it was really that undignified to hide under his desk. "What needs fixing?"

"Uh." Darcy sunk a little lower in her chair. "The Avengers porn movie?"

***

Five pairs of incredulous eyes fixed on Phil and Darcy.

Stark just shrugged philosophically. "It had to happen one day."

"No, it really didn't," Banner said.

"I can't decide whether I'm horrified, terrified, or slightly turned on," Clint said. "But I don't think I want to see it to figure that out."

"Horrified, definitely horrified," Steve said faintly. "I'm not sure that entirely covers it though."

"Jane has told me of your pornography," Thor said thoughtfully. "I still do not see the appeal. The actors do not resemble us well."

"Hey, it's not my porn," Banner said mildly.

Stark rolled his eyes. "I'll hook you up with something later, Thor, you'll figure it out." There was a long silence. "OK, that was inappropriate, wasn't it?"

"No, of course not," Natasha said with her sharpest smile. "I'll let Pepper know that you offered to share porn with the group. I'm sure she'll be delighted."

"You're an evil woman."

"It keeps me in gainful employment."

Phil cleared his throat. "So far, the story has only been picked up by two newspapers and legal is issuing all the appropriate notices. We're hopeful it will be a non-story by tomorrow morning."

Darcy held up a hand. "Tumblr is having a small meltdown so I'd stay off social media for a few days, though. Just to, you know, keep your blood pressure down. Stop any green rage-outs. That kind of thing. OK?"

"We're also planning to issue a press release tomorrow that should be an effective distraction," Phil continued. "You'll all be appearing in the Thanksgiving Day Parade this year."

"Wait, what?" Stark's look of outrage was almost funny. "I didn't agree to this! Why do you all keep deciding I'm doing things without asking me?"

"Oh come on," Natasha said brightly. "All that public adoration? It's right up your street."

"I'm supposed to be in Maui with Pepper for Thanksgiving," Stark said. "She'll kill me."

"It sounds like it might be fun," Steve said.

"Except for the part where our public appearances tend to be accompanied by death and disaster," Banner said. "We're not actually serious about this. Are we?"

"We are." Phil wasn't feeling any more confident about it than Banner after the bike rally incident, but Fury had already agreed to it so none of them could back out now. "I'll have SHIELD operatives stationed along the route, just in case."

Stark opened his mouth to speak but whatever he was about to say was lost when alarms began sounding.

JARVIS's voice floated through the internal PA system. "Sir, I have an incoming call from Director Fury. He sounds insistent."

Most of the team were already on their feet, heading to wherever they need to be to suit up. Darcy shrugged and mimed something that was either ordering takeout or ordering a hit on someone. Phil hoped for takeout and followed the others, checking his cell as he went and wincing at the flashing alerts.

***

"Agent Coulson!"

Phil turned quickly to find a doctor he didn't recognise standing just behind him. Given the noise levels in the medical wing, it wasn't surprising that someone had managed to approach without him noticing and there was too much worry gnawing at him to think about the poor concentration it showed.

The doctor was tall and he had a black eye already starting to show against his dark skin. He carried a clipboard but didn't refer to it as he spoke.

"I'm Doctor Roberts," he said. "I understand you're the SHIELD liaison?"

Phil nodded and shook Roberts's hand.

"We're still treating your people," Roberts said, "but the good news is that most of your agents only have superficial injuries. Cuts, bruises, a few cracked ribs. Nothing we need to worry about."

"And the bad news?" Phil asked, although he already knew most of it.

The image of Clint being thrown through the air to smash into the side of a building, with no one close enough to stop it happening, was going to haunt him for a while. The horror-stricken expression on Steve's face and the frenzied attacks by Thor and Stark on the creatures they'd been fighting would probably accompany those nightmares.

Every time he closed his eyes he could see Clint lying motionless, pale except for the blood trickling from dozens of cuts.

"The bad news is...well, bad." Roberts frowned and ran a hand over his short hair. "Agent Romanov will need to stay overnight for observation, but the concussion is mild and her wrist should heal without surgery. Agent Barton is a more serious matter."

Phil listened but didn't take it all in. Some words stood out - internal bleeding, concussion, broken bones - but it all seemed to bleed together into something completely overwhelming until Roberts put a hand on his shoulder, startling him out of the fugue he'd been sinking into.

"Agent Coulson," Roberts was saying, "I know it sounds really bad, but he's in surgery now and he's got our best people on his case. There's no reason to lose hope yet."

That wasn't very reassuring but Phil smiled politely and thanked him because there wasn't much else he could do.

"When can I see Agent Romanov?" he asked.

"She's just having some stitches," Roberts said. "I'll make sure a nurse takes you to her as soon as she's ready. She lives up to her reputation."

Phil winced and gestured to Roberts' eye. "Is that where the...ah..."

Roberts smiled ruefully. "She was a little groggy for a while. A stray elbow. Not the first time, probably not the last. At least she pulled her punches."

"She usually doesn't."

"So I've heard." Roberts nodded at Phil, probably trying to appear reassuring again. "We'll let you know as soon as we have any more information on Agent Barton. He really is in the best hands right now."

Doctor Roberts hurried away to his next patients and Phil stood in the corridor feeling lost and buffeted by all the people brushing past him with things to do. This quiet time, where he wasn't needed on site and had to just wait for news, was the worst part of his job. It was much easier not to worry when there were things to do.

He pulled out his cell, intending to check in with Sitwell to make sure the cleanup was still progressing without problems. Half a dozen messages were flashing in his inbox, all requests for updates on Clint and Natasha. Phil frowned and put it back in his pocket.

There was a line of chairs nearby, the uncomfortable ones designed to make waiting for injured relatives as unpleasant as possible. With nothing else to do, Phil sat down with elbows on his knees and stared at the floor while he tried not to think.

Two red boots appearing just at the edge of his line of sight made Phil look up. Steve was still coated with mud and blood, his uniform torn over the shoulder. Behind him stood Stark, his Iron Man suit gone but the evidence of their fight still there in the scratches and bruises on his face. Thor was as grime covered as Steve and although Banner's de-Hulked form was cleaner, the loose SHIELD-issue sweats and bare feet were evidence that he'd come straight from the field as soon as he was able.

"How are they?" Steve asked.

The team was all here and Phil felt a little less alone now.

He stood and tried to sound professional. "Natasha will be fine; they're just patching her up. Barton..." Phil had to clear his throat because the words seemed to be trapped. "Barton's in surgery. I'm waiting for news."

Everyone exchanged looks and Banner said quietly, "I'll call Darcy. She'll want to know."

"I'll call Pepper," Stark said. "Anyone want coffee? I can get coffee. There's got to be a coffee shop somewhere around here."

Stark offering to go out and find coffee instead of getting JARVIS to order it in was the thing that brought it all home to Phil that this was really happening. This wasn't the first time Clint had been injured during an operation, it wasn't even the first time he'd needed surgery, but it was the first time since they became a 'them'.

It was the first time Phil had stood around being the worried lover...partner...whatever they were, instead of just the handler.

He wondered, as he always did when something happened to remind him, what it had been like for Clint and Natasha when they were waiting anxiously for news of him. Then he reminded himself that by the time Fury told anyone he was alive, the worst was already over. Nobody had been waiting in an impersonal corridor for news of him because they'd spent three days mourning him instead.

For a moment he wondered whether that was easier. Except it would mean spending three days thinking Clint was dead and at least right now he could still hope and wait and not give up.

He let Steve push him down into the chair again.

***

A nurse led Phil to Natasha's room a while later and left him at the door. Natasha's red hair was a bright slash of colour against the white pillows. It emphasised how pale she looked but she smiled and held out her uninjured hand when she saw him. The other arm was in a sling but the doctors had already assured Phil that she looked worse than she was.

"How's Clint?" Natasha asked as soon as Phil approached. "They told me he's in surgery."

Phil shrugged and gingerly propped a hip on the edge of her bed. "That's all I know so far. They seem hopeful."

"He'll be bitching and moaning about medical leave in a week, you know it," Natasha said, although her slight frown betrayed her.

"I know." Phil offered her a weak smile. "It's one of his less endearing qualities."

"None of this happened because you two are having problems," Natasha said quietly. "It would have happened anyway."

"I know that." He really did and he'd already replayed the fight a dozen times in his head to just to make sure. "And I also know none of you could have prevented it."

"You're both being idiots, though," Natasha said bluntly. "Arguing, I mean."

"We are?"

"You are." Natasha rolled her eyes. "If you ever actually talked to each other-"

"We talk."

"About relationships and feelings? Like grownups do?"

Phil started to reply and then closed his mouth. He hated to admit it, but he couldn't remember any kind of actual talk about what they were doing after their initial decision to keep it quiet so Stark couldn't make tasteless jokes. Not even a casual 'I love you'. It had never felt like the right time.

"That's what I thought." Natasha's expression told Phil how she felt about that, which wasn't flattering. "Did you know Clint thinks you're going to wake up one day, realise this was all some kind of mistake and finish it? He's convinced himself this is a fling for you and he's trying not to get too invested so it doesn't hurt as much when you break things off."

Phil blinked at her. He felt a bit like he'd been hit with a brick.

"There's no logic to it, but this is Clint we're talking about." Natasha sighed. "It wouldn't be the first time he's been in too deep and got his heart broken so he's trying to protect himself. He makes bad jokes and pretends it's all just sex so it will hurt less later. If either of you ever talked or maybe even just mentioned your feelings sometimes, I wouldn't have had to fight the urge to smash your fucking heads together for the last week."

"It's not a fling," Phil felt he had to say.

"I know that, you know that." She raised an eyebrow. "Have you ever told him that? Coulson, I know it's none of my business but Clint is...he's a friend. And he's confused and your behaviour lately hasn't been helping."

She must have read the confusion Phil could feel because the look she gave him was the one people give toddlers and Thor when he was being confused by Midgardian customs.

"Mixed signals, Coulson," she said. "Very mixed. You kiss him on national TV-"

"That wasn't something I planned."

"-and then you refuse to follow it up with anything. How many interviews and public appearances did you turn down?"

Phil winced. "I'm a SHIELD agent. We're supposed to keep a low profile."

"You should have thought of that before you started dating a superhero," Natasha said bluntly. "Or at least before you kissed one when there were TV cameras around. You keep a least a couple of feet of clear air between you unless you think you're alone with him and you stopped flirting with him in public the moment you got together. Please tell me why you think Clint wouldn't be reading the wrong message into all that."

Phil opened his mouth to respond but Natasha rolled right over his attempts and continued. "He won't tell me what your fight was about, probably because he knows that it's deeply stupid and he's blown it all out of proportion, but he's convinced himself that it was only a matter of time before you called things off and maybe it's going to be easier for everyone if he lets you use this as your excuse."

"That's..." Phil trailed off and frowned. "That's wrong and doesn't even make sense."

"You're dating Clint." Natasha shook her head, winced and settled back on her pillow. "Nothing makes sense when you're dating Clint. Learn to roll with it."

"Should we even be talking about this?" Phil asked.

"I'm concussed. Hopefully I won't remember any of this tomorrow," Natasha said blandly. "Fix things, Coulson. When he gets out of surgery - and he will, you're not allowed to think he won't - you fix this or I'll beat you both until you do."

"I don't think assaulting the clients is an approach endorsed by most relationship counsellors," Phil said.

"Then never make me be a relationship counsellor again," Natasha said. "I hate doing this."

"I'll do my best."

"You know, if you two wouldn't keep trying to die it would be a lot easier on the rest of us." Natasha glared at him fiercely. "We don't have a god to go up against this time to work out our aggression."

"I'll mention it to him."

She rolled her eyes and Phil shrugged.

"When can I get out of here?" Natasha asked after a short, companionable silence.

"Tomorrow," Phil said. "When the doctors have scanned your brain again to make sure it's still there."

"Classy, Coulson. Very classy."

***

"I brought you a jelly doughnut."

Phil looked up to find Darcy standing over him, holding out a paper bag. She rattled it.

"Clint says they're your favourites," she continued. "Thought you could do with some food because you look like shit, boss-man, and Clint will kill me when he wakes up if you keel over and die from lack of food or caffeine or something."

Darcy shook the bag again. She had her determined expression on so Phil took it and the coffee cup she handed him. He'd been sitting on a chair opposite Clint's room for hours. Sometimes he stood and paced in Clint's room but mostly he just sat and watched. His suit was now irretrievably wrinkled and he should probably have gone home to shower and change hours ago but he couldn't.

Natasha was in the room at the moment, sitting on the edge of Clint's bed with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. The nurses had tried to stop her but they'd given up when Natasha glared and instead they found the blanket and a set of pale blue slippers.

Phil opened his coffee and took a sip, then a long gulp even though it burned. The doughnut was fresh and so good he finished it before he even realised how hungry he'd been. Darcy silently handed him a bag with another doughnut.

"I brought extra," she said.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, which was odd because Darcy could usually be counted on to fill any quiet moment with chatter.

"Does it ever get easier?" Darcy asked after a while. "Watching them get hurt, not being able to do anything. Does it get easier after a while?"

Phil sighed. "No."

"That's comforting." Darcy fiddled for a moment with her coffee cup. "I don't know whether I'm cut out for this."

He raised a questioning eyebrow and Darcy looked bashful, an expression so completely out of place that Phil almost laughed.

Darcy nodded to the room where Natasha was now talking quietly even though Clint was still unconscious. "Yeah, got myself a superhero of my very own. Kind of. She's a little skittish but I'm wearing her down."

"I'm not sure congratulations is the right word for this moment."

"Don't tell her I said anything?" Darcy rolled her eyes. "She's still in denial about the whole relationship thing. Like I said, skittish. But I figure you, me, Jane and Pepper should start a superhero partner support group or something so we don't have to do the hospital waiting room thing alone."

"Is that why you're bringing me food?"

"Partly."

"And the other reason?"

Darcy grinned, put her coffee on the floor by her feet and started rooting through her bag. "Brought you a present. I've been trying to give this to you for the last week but it's been crazy and you haven't had any down time. So, here."

She held something out and Phil took it automatically, only noting as he felt the glossy paper that it was a magazine.

"Why is this a present?"

Darcy rolled her eyes. "Boss, it's the magazine. The magazine. With the photos. Go on, take a look. I bet you haven't even looked at the calendar mocks, have you? Unless you duct taped the box after you looked and even you aren't...wait, no you would. But I'm assuming you haven't."

Phil looked blankly at the magazine in his hands, with its glossy photo on the front of the Avengers sitting in the kitchen laughing at something. Darcy puffed out a breath irritably and took the magazine out of his hands, flipping through to the main photo set.

"Here," she said, putting the magazine back in his hands. "You've got good taste, boss."

The photos inside the magazine were all black and white except for another two page spread of the kitchen shot. Phil slowly paged through and stopped at one of the photos of Clint. He was leaning against a wall in the rec room looking at something just out of camera shot with a wistful expression. It had been late in the day when that one was taken, everyone was exhausted and the photographer had been taking photos of Tony and Pepper curled up together on a couch.

They'd been discussing whether Phil should be in any of the pictures and Phil had firmly said no because he was their liaison, he worked for SHIELD and it would be inappropriate. The photographer must have turned and caught Clint unawares because the expression on his face, the vulnerability, wasn't one Clint would ever have shown otherwise. Phil had carefully kept his eyes down on the report he was writing while they talked because he knew Clint would have been sending him reproachful looks for being unwilling to have his face in a magazine.

"I can have that one printed off for you," Darcy said. "We're not using it for the calendar, they won't mind."

Phil looked at the other photos, most of them raising a small smile, and he decided that he probably should have looked at the calendar. He promised himself that he'd dig out the box when he got back to the office and turned back to Clint's photo.

Seeing Clint`s expression again brought an unconscious frown to Phil's face. He had taken it for granted that Clint knew how he felt, but perhaps his actions lately had been sending confused signals. The media circus around their big accidentally televised kiss in the summer had made him wary of further publicising or advertising their relationship. He was a SHIELD agent; he was supposed to stay in the background, not give interviews and appear in Pride Parades.

Not even when PR managers looked desperate for some kind of good news story to cancel out another disastrously-timed monster rampage through New York.

He hadn't behaved much better out of the public eye. There had been so many times lately when Phil had been envious of the casual intimacy that Tony and Pepper or Thor and Jane had around the tower but it hadn't occurred to him to take Clint's hand or even just sit next to him on the couch in the rec room. Instead he'd tried to keep a careful distance between them when they were in communal areas of the tower and Clint had let him.

It was becoming easier to see why Clint had seen his actions as a sign that he was pulling away and re-evaluating their relationship.

This mess was at least partially Phil's fault, he was becoming certain.

"Has Clint seen this?" Phil asked, gesturing to the photo.

Darcy snorted. "He hates seeing pictures of himself. I tried to give him a copy but he threatened to burn it. Fuck that noise."

"Coulson?" Natasha's voice made him look up. "He's awake."

***

"How are you feeling?" Phil asked cautiously.

Clint's face was dark and swollen with bruising and he had white butterfly stiches holding cuts together above his eye, on his cheek and across his chin. There were IV lines in both arms and although the blankets hid most of the bandages from his surgery, the edge of one stood out starkly against his tanned skin.

Despite all that, Clint smiled slightly and said, "Not bad. I might need to take day, though. I'm not sure how good my hand to hand will be with a cast on my foot."

Phil looked down to where the cast on Clint's broken ankle made a large lump under the bed clothes. "We can probably give you a couple of days."

"Great."

"Are you in pain?"

"No."

"Are you lying?"

Clint tried to shrug but the movement made him gasp. "Maybe a little."

"I can get-"

"No, sir, I don't want it," Clint said quickly. "I hate being fuzzy like that."

"Oh." Phil picked up Clint's hand, careful not to disturb any cannulas, and twined their fingers together. "I thought it was Phil. Not sir."

"Huh." Clint's gaze was on their joined hands and he stroked a thumb over Phil's knuckle. "Well, I think I might have been an idiot lately and I wasn't sure if we were still doing that."

"According to Natasha, we've both been idiots."

Clint looked up sharply. "You've been talking to Nat?"

"She's expressed her feelings to me. Vividly. At length." Phil winced. "Which is what I should have been doing with you a long time ago."

"I'm not nearly as pathetic as she makes me sound."

"Don't worry, she thinks I'm mostly to blame for everything and she's right." Phil paused and weighed his words carefully before he spoke. "I know we didn't start this in a particularly conventional manner and we should have talked properly months ago. We should have done the where is this going, what are we doing talk and we didn't. I've been thinking of this as a long term thing since we started and I assumed you knew that. It was wrong to assume and I'm starting to realise that my behaviour lately hasn't helped. Neither of us is good at talking about our feelings but I want you to know. That I want this, I want us, and it's not a fling for me. It never has been. I'm not going to wake up one morning and decide I've had enough of us." Phil took a deep breath. "Somehow, I don't think that's ever going to happen."

Clint stared at him and Phil swallowed, feeling unaccountably nervous. It wasn't as though he didn't have plenty of evidence that Clint felt the same way, but knowing something logically and feeling the certainty of it weren't the same thing. At all.

A slow smile started to spread across Clint's battered face. "Shit."

The tension that had been making Phil's stomach churn uncomfortably started to ebb and he snorted. "I'm sure you meant to say something much more profound."

"Nope, that's pretty much all I've got." Clint's smile widened. "Shit. Except maybe...do I have to say it first?"

"Say what?"

Clint rolled his eyes. "I love you. There. Happy?"

For a long moment words stuck in Phil's throat and he could do was smile at Clint. He suspected his smile looked ridiculous and foolish but he didn't care.

"Happy doesn't completely cover it," Phil said thickly when he could finally speak. "So, long term is a thing you'd be open to?"

"Very."

"Alright then. That's what we're doing."

Clint looked at him expectantly and Phil puzzled over it for a moment before working out what he was waiting for.

"I love you too," he said. "Now, can you please stop using the air vents to my quarters? I've got doors, JARVIS has had instructions to let you in for months and if you want to move some clothes down so you don't have to go back to your quarters in the mornings there's plenty of space."

"You say the most romantic things."

"Really?" Phil lifted Clint's hand and kissed his knuckles, which were probably the only undamaged part of his body right now. "Then how about this. I'm adding a new rule to our list."

"More rules?"

Clint didn't try to pull his hand away so Phil kissed his fingers again and held them against his cheek just to feel the warmth against his skin. "Rule ten. No dying. "

"Are you building up to another paperwork joke?" Clint smiled. "Because jokes about the paperwork my death would cause get less funny every time."

"No paperwork jokes," Phil said solemnly. "I just don't think I can cope with Darcy sympathising with me again."