Chapter Text
Clint’s day was not going well.
It wasn’t exactly going badly, but his eight AM briefing had become an eleven AM briefing because something something videoconferencing service outage. Then, to add insult to injury, the briefing had proceeded to go way over its scheduled time, so that in addition to having come in early for nothing, Clint and Natasha and Phil hadn’t made it to lunch until after three.
Three PM in the SHIELD cafeteria was one of the Sad Mealtimes; they were clearing out the last of lunch service before closing down for an hour to do the dinner turnover, so your choices were limited to whatever picked over and unappealing items were still left. It wasn’t the kind of food anyone would choose, but sometimes you just had to make do with what was on offer.
Clint chewed his dried-out lasagna morosely and looked around. About the only people there besides the three of them and the cafeteria staff were a group of quinjet pilots sitting in the corner (it was time for quarterly flight recerts) and the other agents who’d been in Clint’s briefing, a group of juniors who were supposed to be shadowing Strike Team Delta on a low-level mission for on-the-job training. They went around in a little flock—they’d gotten tight at the Academy, apparently—and were a bit over-excitable, but good chicks.
One of the pilots—a tall alpha with a cocky grin—stood up, to raucous encouragement from his friends, and went over to the juniors’ table. He stopped in front of Agent Mendez, a tiny omega with a cherubic face. She had a mouth that could blister paint, a sharpshooter’s eye, and a sneaky talent for dirty fighting; she was secretly Clint’s favorite of all the trainees and he was considering suggesting her for some additional sniper development training.
The pilot set something down at Mendez’ elbow; a plate holding a forlorn piece of pie. It had broken while being served and the crust was burned a little at the edge, obviously one of the cafeteria’s end-of-the-lunch-rush leftovers.
“Hey, Amy,” the pilot said. He put his hands on his hips and puffed his chest up a little.
“Hi…. Brad?” Mendez said. She put one finger on the edge of the pie plate and pulled it toward herself about half an inch.
“Brent,” the pilot said. “So hey, I was thinking, Crackle’s having an Eighties Night tomorrow, wanna go?”
Mendez glanced at him, her sharp eyes flicking down, then up, then shrugged. “Why not,” she said. “Meet you there at nine?”
“Cool, yeah,” he said. “See you then.” He turned and went back to his table, high-fiving the other pilots.
“Ugh,” Clint muttered, poking at a limp green bean. “She shouldn’t give him the time of day.”
Phil looked up from where he was disassembling his sandwich to pick off the worst bits. “Oh?”
“Why not?” Natasha picked a wilted lettuce leaf out of her salad. “He’s not bad looking.”
“Didn’t you smell him? He must have practically bathed in Triple-A Body Spray or something. Plus, did you see that sad excuse for tribute? Amy’s gluten-free, she doesn’t even eat pie.”
Phil looked like he agreed, but Natasha shrugged. “She didn’t seem to mind,” she pointed out, loading her fork with a precisely calculated combination of salad ingredients. “She did accept the invitation, after all. A lot of people feel like a big display is too much for a first date. It can seem a little try-hard.”
“Sure,” Phil said, nudging some limp vegetables to the side of his plate and reassembling his sandwich. “But tribute they can’t even use seems pretty bottom-of-the-barrel.”
“Right,” Clint said stubbornly. “It’s the principle of the thing. You want someone’s attention, you ought to court them properly. None of this half-assed thing people try to pull nowadays.” He took an annoyed bite of crunchy noodles that nature never intended to crunch. “You know Agent James tried to proposition me last week with half a granola bar?”
“Clint, I think everyone in SHIELD knows that by now.” Nat patted his shoulder, then reached around to scritch the base of his neck.
“I mean, he was still chewing the other half!” Clint said. “What kind of message does that even send?”
“It doesn’t speak well for his powers of observation,” Phil allowed.
“That’s putting it mildly,” Natasha said. “I think Sitwell put him in remedial social engineering training for ‘trying to seal the deal with the pickiest omega in SHIELD with half an oatmeal raisin bar.’”
“Oatmeal fucking raisin,” Clint said in disgust. “I ask you. Wait, what d’you mean, the pickiest omega in SHIELD?”
“Sitwell said it, not me,” Natasha said.
“I just have high standards.” Clint gave up on the rest of his lunch and turned to his brownie. “I am fucking self-actualized, okay, and I want what I want. Fuck knows it took me long enough to get there.”
“And that’s absolutely legitimate,” Phil said.
“Yes, you’ve worked very hard,” Natasha agreed, in that way she had sometimes where she sounded like she was giving you shit but her eyes told you she was being serious. “And if you want to hold out for a big romantic gesture, that’s your prerogative. But if you do, you’re not allowed to keep complaining to us about being single.”
“Aw, but what else is flock for?” Clint batted his eyes at her, then winced when she dug her nails into his skin, just a fraction. “Ow! Put the talons away, woman, fine. Point taken. I’ll stop complaining if you’ll stop installing Nestr on my phone, that shit’s just depressing.”
“Fine, no more mating apps,” Natasha agreed, starting to gather up her dishes. “Now finish your lunch, I’ve got to run. I have that thing with Hill in ten minutes.”
Clint got thoughtful as he nibbled around the edges of his brownie. The thing was, okay, the thing was, he hadn’t always been so picky.
He’d never thought about mating much, as a chick. He and Barney were an only brood, and after their parents had died they’d been focused on survival, moving between foster colonies sometimes every few months until Barney’d taken them to Carson’s.
Clint had loved the circus. It’d been full of light and color and flash and sparkle, with plenty of chances for a couple of half-fledged chicks to get up high and jump off things, to swoop around and feel the wind. The work was hard, but Clint didn’t mind it. And then one day Trickshot had seen him playing around with the darts from the midway and put a bow in his hand, and everything after had unfolded from that moment.
There’d been a time when Clint was a headliner, sixteen and stewing in hormones and feeling invincible. He’d come out of the ring sweaty and high on adrenaline and there would be heaps of tribute, townies of all stripes and sometimes circus folk too bringing trinkets and treats and lekking outside the dressing rooms, scenting him with their mouths hanging just a little too open for polite society, jostling each other for his attention. He hadn’t actually slept with any of them—he’d shared a trailer with Barney and Barney was not interested in vacating—but he’d had his share of sloppy makeouts and dry-humps behind the big top. The best part wasn’t even the orgasms, it was the feel of it: being something people wanted, something to strive for.
Then his life with the circus had all fallen apart, and Clint was too busy patching himself back together and trying to survive to worry about romance. Sometimes when the loneliness got too much, or when he had a little breakthrough hormone surge despite his suppression implant, he’d go out to a lek club and display some, find someone to hook up with, but as far as he was concerned, long-term mating—let alone actually bonding—was off the table for him.
By the time Fury’d hauled Clint into SHIELD, giving him a recruitment pitch instead of the life sentence or bullet he’d expected, Clint’d gone brittle, paranoid and wary: more likely to slink around in the shadows than to be the center of attention. Unfortunately (or so he’d thought at the time), SHIELD had a therapy requirement for its active field agents.
He’d stuck out weekly sessions with Dr. Garner in silence for nearly two months before he finally gave in and started talking. And eventually… it had helped. He’d examined his assumptions, he’d processed his emotions, he’d thought about how his past traumas informed his present attitudes… by the time Clint had hit Level 3, he’d actually become decently well-adjusted, pretty stable and pretty happy. And he’d started thinking, maybe instead of taking what he could get, it was time to start holding out for what he wanted.
And then Agent Bobbi Morse had bribed Geoff in the kitchens to deep-fry Clint a corndog and handed it to him, and her scent had gone all alpha-spicy and creamy like she was a chai latte, and she’d stood in display in front of him and asked him out, and he’d felt something in him waking up.
It had been really good, until it wasn’t. Not anyone’s fault, really; they just weren’t compatible, in the long term. Sexually, sure, and in field work, absolutely, and as friends, without a doubt—but Bobbi’d grown up with a normal family, had a normal life, and she expected Clint to be normal too, in ways he didn’t realize he wasn’t until they tripped over it.
When they finally broke it off for good, Clint spent about three weeks being depressed about it and then got called into a meeting with Fury. The Director had completely ignored Clint’s sorry state in favor of telling him that he was getting promoted again, moving out of the general agent pool and into the specialist track. He’d be paired with one of Fury’s other protégées, a guy who Clint had heard of but never met: Phil Coulson.
Clint was still miserable, of course—he and Bobbi hadn’t developed a bond, but they’d still been mates and he’d still loved her—but the challenge of doing something new was a great distraction from his misery, as well as a great excuse for any busybodies who felt like urging him to jump back into the dating pool before he was ready. Moving up to Level 4 was genuinely tough, with lots of new training to take and skills to acquire. It also meant Clint had to learn how to work with a single partner, instead of getting pulled in to support whatever op needed an acrobatic sniper that week, and that ended up being the most significant change of all.
Phil had started out cordial but a little formal, always calling Clint “Agent Barton” and keeping a respectful distance. Clint had appreciated it at first; he had kind of an uneven history with alphas, especially double-As like Phil, and wasn’t exactly keen on having one he didn’t know all up in his business. But after a couple sparring sessions, Phil had loosened up sufficiently to take Clint to the mat with a move that was absolutely filthy cheating. Clint had crowed in delight—as much as he could from where he was being bent into a pretzel—and told Phil to call him by his first name, and they’d pretty much been friends ever since.
His new job and new partner—partners, once Natasha came along—hadn’t exactly healed his heartbreak, but they’d given him something else to think about while his heart healed on its own, and Clint would always be grateful to Fury for his excellent (and probably not accidental) timing.
In the last year or so, Clint had started thinking about maybe getting back out there again, the hurts of the past finally healed enough to be outweighed by his hopes for the future. His scent must have gone more inviting or something, because he started getting tributes pretty quickly; he found himself slower to accept than he used to be, though, more reluctant this time.
He knew that lots of people didn’t want to start out very serious in a new relationship, and he actually understood why. But even though, once he really let himself think about it, he did want to mate again, he was still a little gun-shy. If he was gonna risk his heart, this time he wanted to know that the person he was risking it with was just as invested in the whole thing as Clint was. He tried not to think of it as “mutually-assured destruction”—this was dating, not nuclear proliferation—but the metaphor felt pretty apt.
He’d dated a little, here and there, and even gone lekking a time or two; sometimes you really just needed to get an itch scratched. He wanted something more than just orgasms, though, and he wanted it with someone who cared enough about Clint—Clint himself, specifically, not just as a default hangout or an on-call fuck—to put some genuine effort in. It wasn’t just the romantic gestures, no matter what Natasha thought; it was what the gestures signified. It was the giving a shit.
Clint sighed, picking over his lunch dishes in case he’d missed anything worth eating.
“Clint? Everything okay?”
He looked over at Phil, smiling at the worried little crease between his brows. That was the thing, right there: nobody who had offered Clint tribute so far this whole time had ever shown a quarter of the sincere care and concern that Phil—and Nat, in her own way—showed him every day. Why would Clint settle for less in his romantic life than he had in his friendships?
“I’m fine,” he told Phil with a smile. “Just off in the clouds.”
It would be nice to have a mate again, though. He missed the little things, sharing a bower and a nest with someone, getting tribute gifts that were specially chosen with him in mind, curling up and preening each other on the couch while you watched TV… regular sex with someone who knew you intimately, knew what you liked and didn’t, where to touch you and how to kiss you, someone you could touch and kiss in return. Of course, Clint’s current bower wasn’t much set up for sharing. After he and Bobbi broke up, he’d just moved into one of SHIELD’s subsidized colonies of tiny studio bowers for junior agents, and he hadn’t really done much to furnish it besides make an IKEA run and call it a day.
“Do you think I should move?” he asked abruptly.
Phil blinked at him. “Maybe?” he said. “What brought this on?”
“I was just thinking about what Nat said, about me complaining about dating and all,” he explained. “And my place… it’s, like, a sad breakup bower, you know?”
“I wouldn’t exactly say that,” Phil said, in a tone that meant he pretty much would exactly say that if he wasn’t reluctant to be rude. “Though it’s true it’s not the most, er, welcoming bower I’ve ever seen. Those colonies are really meant for people who’re out on missions the majority of the time.”
“I mean, I got the money to get something nicer,” Clint said. “I just never really bothered. But I was thinking, maybe if I made my personal life more of a focus, it would help me attract other people who value the same thing? I mean, that’s what Cosmo would say, probably.”
Phil made a face. “I hardly think that’s a good source of intel,” he said. “I think you should choose your home based on what you want. If you want something nicer, you absolutely deserve it. But if you’re happy where you are, you shouldn’t uproot yourself on the off chance someone will like you better in a different bower. Anybody worth your time would take you as you are.”
Clint couldn’t help smiling at Phil, feeling warm and accepted and good at Phil’s steadfast refusal to consider that Clint wasn’t a perfectly good romantic prospect as-is. “I think maybe I ought to move,” he said. “Not for some imaginary date, but for me. Hell, I could get a place with a real living room, have the flock over for movie night and offer you somewhere to sit besides the edge of my bed.”
“Then do it,” Phil said. “And let me know if you need a hand with anything, you know I’m happy to help.” He looked like he was about to say something else, but then his phone rang and he let out an annoyed little huff before answering it with his normal crisp “Coulson.”
The conversation was apparently urgent enough that Phil made an apologetic face and gestured at his dishes, asking through strategic eyebrows if Clint could take Phil’s along with his own. Clint nodded and shooed him away, then looked at his watch and sighed. He had a meeting coming up, and then he had to do his own quinjet recertifications. He bussed his and Phil’s trays and headed out, wondering if either of his flock knew a good realtor.
>>-----> <-----<<
Clint got surprisingly into the whole moving thing over the next few weeks, dragging colony listings into Phil’s office and making Phil and Nat advise him on whether it was better to get a bower that was “cozy” or “bustling with city life.” (Apparently, in real estate listing speak, that meant “stupid tiny” and “poorly insulated and on top of the train station,” respectively.) Eventually he just dragged them along with him to look at apartments, not bothering to correct listing agents who assumed they were all mates; they tended to get that a lot, and it’s not like the assumption was anything but flattering. Anyone would be proud to be seen with Clint’s flock; they were smart and hot and deadly.
Well, probably the leasing agents didn’t realize the deadly part, but it was definitely part of their charm as far as Clint was concerned.
He finally settled on a nice place, shabby but with good bones, in a colony building mostly full of students and small families. After some paint and a good cleaning, Phil and Nat helped him pack up his old place and the SHIELD movers brought all the boxes over. Nat got sent on a solo mission the day before the move, but Phil still came to help Clint unpack; he even stuck around to help him assemble his furniture, which was true friendship.
It was almost nine when they finally finished, and even though Clint felt gritty and sweaty and exhausted, he was happy; looking around, he could already see how much more this place suited him, with his longbow on the wall and the overstuffed purple velvet armchair he’d splurged on and his books and DVDs on real shelves. He and Phil collapsed wearily at Clint’s new little table for post-move celebratory pizza and beer, and for a while there wasn’t any noise other than eating.
It was great to be at home with your flock, Clint thought. People who only knew Agent Coulson would be shocked to see him now, sitting at Clint’s table in ratty jeans and an old Captain America t-shirt, with a streak of mystery grease across his cheek, looking tired but satisfied and comfortable. It filled Clint’s chest with a big, warm feeling; maybe, he thought, it was the opposite of being homesick.
“I, ah, I got you a bower-warming gift,” Phil said, once they’d demolished the pizza and were mainly sitting around nibbling on crusts.
“Aw, Phil, you didn’t have to do that,” Clint said, though he couldn’t hold back his pleased grin. “You’ve done so much already!”
“I wanted to,” Phil said. “It’s nothing big, I just saw them and thought—well, here.” He got up and went to where he’d dropped off his stuff in the corner, coming back with a big gift bag that Clint had somehow not noticed him bringing inside. Probably Phil had used spy tricks; it was the sort of thing he’d do.
Clint took the bag from Phil’s hands, his heartbeat speeding up. He didn’t know why he was so nervous; it wasn’t like Phil would ever get him, like, a mean present. Probably it was just because this was his first bower-warming present, for the first bower he’d gone out and chosen for himself because he liked it and not because it was cheap, or free, or because none of the neighbors would notice suspicious activities. The first time he’d ever put effort into making himself a home.
“I’ve never had a bower-warming present before,” Clint said. The bag was really pretty, with a sort of flocked design, and Clint couldn’t help petting over the velvety texture.
Phil, inexplicably, smelled nervous; it was weird. Phil normally didn’t smell like much unless he needed to for a mission or something had gone all the way to shit; he had pretty tight control on his pheromones—as befitted a super-spy—plus Clint was pretty sure he wore scent-damping cologne usually. “I… hope it isn’t a disappointment.”
“Of course not, it’s from you,” Clint said, surprised. He reached down inside the bag and pulled out a biggish, squashy shape wrapped in tissue paper. Unwrapped, it revealed itself to be a pair of gorgeous cushions. They were just the right size to tuck behind the small of your back, and embroidered all over in vivid shades of blue and purple, sequins and little mirrors and beads scattered through the pattern like stars. They were different textures, too, silky and wooly, and the backs of the cushions were velvet. “Phil,” Clint said, feeling breathless. “They’re awesome.” He kept turning them over and petting them, tracing lines of the design. “I gotta—here, let me—” he got up and went over to the living room, almost knocking over a beer as he turned, and set the cushions at either side of his new gray sofa. It instantly made the room look about a hundred percent better. More homey, more him. Unique and distinct and…
Wait.
“You ‘just saw them’?” Clint raised an eyebrow, and Phil’s ears turned pink.
“I did! I mean, granted, I was in Madripoor at the time,” Phil said. “But I just, I thought they looked like… you.”
Clint remembered Phil being in Madripoor; it had been a mission, and he’d come back with six stitches above his eye. Six stitches, and apparently a present for Clint’s new place. He beamed at Phil.
“That’s, like, the nicest thing anyone’s ever bought me,” he said, and the pink on Phil’s ears deepened.
“I’m glad,” Phil said, and he looked so sheepish and yet so pleased that Clint just wanted to hug him.
They didn’t actually hug much, him and Phil. It wasn’t that Clint didn’t want to—he more or less only had two modes with other people, “don’t touch me” or “touch me all the time”—but he knew that he didn’t always have the same understanding of personal boundaries that other people did, so he tended to default to letting other people set the pace when it came to contact.
Nat had been relatively easy; she’d been standoffish for several months, until one day she’d come in for a briefing smelling faintly sweet and citrusy, like welcome and curiosity, and flopped down on her stomach on the couch in Phil’s office, pillowing her head on Clint’s leg and poking him until he started preening her long, silky crest. Ever since then, she’d treated him almost like an extension of herself, and every time she’d lean on him or preen him or otherwise allow him in her bubble, he’d feel a flush of warmth and affection and pride.
Phil, though. Phil was different; he’d always been different. He wasn’t cold, not by any means, but he was… contained, more likely to offer a smile and a shoulder clasp than an embrace. Clint had wondered, sometimes, if they were both waiting for the other.
Well, the bower was working out okay so far. Maybe it was time for Clint to start taking more chances.
“Aw, c’mere,” he said, and opened his arms. Phil startled a bit, then ducked his head and stepped into the hug.
It was… good. It felt good, felt right; Phil was rumpled and warm and solid against him, and it felt like a rare privilege to be allowed so near. Phil either wasn’t wearing his scent-damper or it had worn off; this close, Clint allowed himself a little sip of scent, a sort of toasty-warm woody smell that reached right into his hindbrain and whispered happy-safe-flock. He liked it. Honestly, he kind of wanted to stay there forever, which was a good sign that it was time to let go.
Clint gave Phil a good squeeze that made him grunt a little, then stepped back, not wanting to embarrass him any more than he already had. “Thank you,” he said warmly. “Seriously. Thank you for everything.”
“It was my pleasure,” Phil said softly.
Seriously, Clint’s flock was the greatest.
>>-----> <-----<<
Clint had taken a long weekend to get moved, and when he made it back to work he was stiff and sore, but satisfied; he was unpacked and his furniture was together and he’d gone and bought new bedding in colors that matched Phil’s cushions, so that if he wanted to he could put them on the sofa or in his nest. He was in a good mood, especially after teaching a guest session on free-climbing to one of the junior agent training cohorts; he hadn’t been on a mission in a while, so it was nice to have the chance to spread his wings.
“Nice work, Barton,” someone said, and Clint turned away from the junior he was giving a few last pointers to and toward the speaker. He knew the guy a little, an alpha who taught a lot of the intermediate survival courses; Daniel or Denny or something. Wait, no, Dennis. Dennis Keith. Or possibly Keith Dennis; one or the other. Clint took a step to the side like he was getting around the crowd, so he could catch a glimpse of his badge. Agent K. Dennis, okay then.
“Thanks, Dennis,” Clint said. “It’s good to keep my hand in.”
“For sure.” Dennis cleared his throat a little, looking around at the agents still in the climbing gym, then squared his shoulders, putting his hands on his hips. He was wearing a red tie that looked nice with the mottled brown feathers of his crest, which were lifting a little; not exactly a display, as such, but definitely an indication of interest. “I’d like to offer this tribute,” he said, and held out an envelope, “BARTON” written in bold letters on the creamy paper.
Clint blinked, as the room rustled as people nudged each other and turned to watch. Spies were such gossips.
Well, what the hell. Clint was supposed to be taking more risks, after all; nothing ventured, nothing gained. And at least Dennis had put some thought into it. And Clint was pretty sure he didn’t usually wear a tie, so that was a nice gesture.
“Thank you,” Clint said, taking the envelope. He tried to ignore the whispers in the background as he opened it and pulled out the greeting card inside.
The front had a cartoony picture of a nest—not the kind of nests people slept in, but a bird’s nest, made of sticks and stuff—with a red heart in it, and said “In TRIBUTE to someone SPECIAL” in curly letters. A pretty standard tribute card, but at least it was nice quality, embossed heavy stock; probably brand-name and not a dollar-store knockoff or anything. Clint opened it. The inside had two figures of indistinct gender standing in front of the nest with a heart between them. The text said “Would you be SPECIAL to me?”
There were two gift cards tucked inside, ten bucks each; one to Starbucks and one to Bower, Bath, and Beyond. It was a nice effort, really; a formal approach, a little care in appearance, tribute gifts for nest and nourishment. Clint didn’t really like Starbucks—Phil had spoiled him on locally roasted coffees—but he could use the card to get a Frappuccino or something. Nat and Phil both liked those. Plus, he had been thinking of getting a throw blanket for the living room to match his new cushions.
Clint tucked the card and its contents back into the envelope and met Dennis’ eyes, cocking his head inquiringly. “Well?” he said, accepting the gift and allowing Dennis to make his request.
Dennis’ crest lifted further and his wings flared a little. “Could I take you out to lunch tomorrow?”
Clint considered. It was kind of forward—you usually didn’t go right to eating meals together on a first date—but lunch was more casual than dinner, so it wasn’t really inappropriate. Plus, Phil had gotten called out to back up Nat on her mission, so his normal lunch buddies were both out of pocket. And, well, Clint had been thinking he should try to date more; maybe it had been a mistake to keep his social life so separate from SHIELD. It would certainly be easier to handle social logistics if the person you were dating had clearance to know where your office was and that you might suddenly have to stand them up to go break up a bioweapons cartel in Alberta, or whatever.
“Sure,” Clint said at last. “Meet you in the lobby at quarter to noon?”
“It’s a date,” Dennis said, and looked around happily at the buzz of conversation that started up almost immediately.
“Cool, see you then,” Clint said, nodding, and went to go change for his next meeting. As he was stowing his gear, he found a small paper shopping bag on the shelf in his locker, with “Clint” scrawled across the front in Phil’s writing. Inside was a pound of coffee beans from the tiny little roaster near Phil’s place that had the best-balanced medium-light roast Clint had ever tasted. It was too out of his way for Clint to go often, but Phil kept a stockpile in his office and let Clint help himself. He never let Clint pay him back, insisting that he bought it in bulk anyway. There was a post-it on the bag of beans that said “This should be enough to keep you going while we’re gone—stay safe and see you soon! —Phil.” Clint smiled, taking a deep, satisfying sniff of the bag—good coffee and a hint of toasty Phil-scent, like morning in a safehouse on a mission that had gone exactly right— before tucking it neatly back into the locker and going on his way, whistling happily to himself.
This whole self-actualization thing was going really well so far. He’d have to remember to tell Dr. Garner.