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It starts when Coulson gets shot in the ass.
Well, no, that's not quite right.
It started long before that.
See, when Clint was seventeen, spunky little Maria Morales warned him that a hot piece of ass was going to be his downfall. At the time he was a bit of a tart and had just broken up with her best friend Viktoriya, Carson's Russian acrobat, so he hadn't paid her much attention. Looking back now, he probably should have had a little more respect for the words of the fortune teller's daughter, but even if she'd told him exactly where he would end up, he wouldn't have believed her.
In fact, he probably would have laughed in her face.
"Damn it," Coulson hissed under his breath, attempting to rotate his spine far enough to get a look at his own bloody backside. "Barton, grab the med kit and get over here!"
Clint, who had just finished the perimeter check and locked down the front door of the safehouse, startles and grabs the kit from the table with shaking hands.
His hands never shake.
Except, apparently, when his handler's had a call that's way too close for comfort.
Only, he's been more than Clint's handler for a long, long time hasn't he?
"I need you to dig this slug out," Coulson grits out, already stripping the leather belt from his tac pants in one smooth slide that sends a shiver down Clint's spine.
"Of your ass?" Clint hears himself say stupidly, because his heart is pounding and because Coulson's hurt and bleeding and because all the times he'd imagined getting his hands on the man's tight, perfect butt it had never been anything like this.
"It's not my ass, smartass," Coulson snorts, shoving his pants down to his ankles. "It's my hip."
Clint just stares.
He's got a half-naked Coulson in front of him, ok, don't expect rocket science.
"If you're going to play the blushing virgin I'll do it myself," Phil snaps, kicking out of his pants and limping to the bathroom door, angling for a look in the floor-length mirror hanging from the back of it.
That might have hurt if Clint hadn't caught the flash of vulnerability on his face.
He's not called Hawkeye for nothing.
"Virgin, pfft!" he scoffs, getting his own ass in gear and scooping up the med kit, carrying it over to Coulson's side. "You know me better than that boss."
It's a stupid thing to say, because while he might enjoy flirting and have a certain... reputation around headquarters, it's not an accurate picture of who he is. It's certainly not what he wants Coulson to think of him, given his full blown, head-over-heels crush on the man. He actually thinks Coulson knows that his lothario act is exactly that, an act, but the silence that follows his off-the-cuff remark hits him like a wrecking ball.
Swallowing hard around his sudden dry-mouth, Clint drops to his knees and keeps his eyes glued on the powerful thighs and blood-soaked boxer shorts in front of him. Doesn't seem smart does it, but god help him, if he looks up he's gonna lose it. He's thought of being on his knees for Coulson so many times...
Yeah, he won't handle that well.
Bullets, bullets he can do – good ole blood, guts, and gore.
Laying his hand over Phil's knee, the skin crazy hot, hair crisp under his palm, he nudges him around so he's standing angled away, giving Clint a good view of the um... afflicted area.
'Call it your hip all you want Coulson,' Clint thinks uncharitably. 'It's definitely your ass.'
To be fair it's probably technically both. Clint doesn't even have to drag the man's boxers all the way off to get a good look, just tug them down a bit on his right leg. He considers this a consolation but only a small one given the firm muscle under his hands as he gets him positioned just right, so that he can see the bullet wound in the light of the cheap overhead lamp. The slug has entered low on Coulson's right side where it's caught him just below the vest, and plowed its way in on an angle, so that it's dug a furrow across the top of his buttcheek and very nearly come out again just next to his spine.
He's slippery with blood.
"Easier to get it out from this side boss," he says quietly, his hand splayed across the small of Phil's back, thumb brushing back and forth near the base of his spine, the bullet a round, hard lump just beneath the skin. "Want me to go find a wooden spoon?"
"Just do it," Phil snarls between gritted teeth.
There's no exfil coming, not quick enough.
Blowing out a breath, Clint nods once and takes a butterfly knife from his boot, flicks it open and sterilizes it with rubbing alcohol from the med kit. He allows himself one look up at Coulson, one, single look, and he's not sure if it's a mistake or not because the sheer, unadulterated trust on the man's face is like taking a rabbit-punch to his feels and his libido all at once.
It's quick work after that. A neat X-cut and a poke around pries the bullet from Coulson's back, which Clint pockets for reasons that aren't important. Then it's flushing the wound and wiping up the blood, doing their best to pack it with gauze and staunch the bleeding. Neither of them says much throughout the process, but once Clint's got him all taped up the mild hysteria pressing against his breastbone is too much.
"Just a flesh wound boss," he quips, rising smoothly to his feet. "Want me to kiss it better?"
"You've never kissed ass before in your life Barton," Coulson says gruffly, dragging his ruined tac pants back over his hips and zipping up, leaving the button popped just to torture Clint. "Better not start now."
"You're lucky," Clint replies with a shrug, a little bit of heat creeping back into the pit of his belly as he thinks about the reasons Coulson came under fire in the first place. "An inch to the left... might've nicked your spine."
"SHIELD Agents don't do trade in what-ifs Barton," Coulson says quietly, accepting the bottle of Advil Clint hands him and popping two into his mouth. "You know that."
"Still should have brought Natasha," Clint grumbles petulantly, cleaning up the dirties materials and the scattered first aid kit.
There are a hundred different things flashing though his mind as Coulson hobbles stiffly to the cheap couch and lays out on his stomach.
Fear and anger and guilt that Coulson had been hurt in the field in the first place.
Annoyance with the junior agents and the strategic planning team who left them both caught up in this mess.
And hell, none of that has even touched on the real issue.
You know, that little bitty crush he's got, the one that's bone-deep and hasn't wavered in the last six years or so, the one that Nat hounds him relentlessly to fess up to, that he's sure can't possibly be reciprocated?
Yeah, that.
"I'm alright," Coulson says quietly, already laying down on his front and propping himself up on a pillow so he can get his laptop and SHIELD phone set up on the arm of the sofa in front of him. "Extraction will be here in less than twenty-four hours; I can wait for antibiotics till then."
"Lost a lot of blood boss," Clint argues, and the stupid, stupid crack in his voice betrays his worry.
"Not that much," Coulson replies, and Clint breathes a little easier because even if he knows that the man would go until he dropped, he wouldn't lie about it.
They sit quietly with that understanding for a while, Coulson coordinating what little clean-up is needed remotely and Clint puttering around the safehouse apartment, cleaning up the mess and getting some supper on the stove. They eat together, watch part of a hockey game on tv, then split up in the hallway to crash in their separate rooms for the night. Clint falls asleep with his hands over his head, and resolutely does not dream of holding on to a man with a fantastic ass, keeping him safe and close.
AVAVA
"You're not funny, you know that right?"
"What crawled up your quiver?" Natasha asks, cocking an eyebrow in his direction as they stalk down the hallway at HQ, junior agents running for cover from Clint's scowl. "He's fine."
"I know he's fine, that's the problem!" Clint groans, knowing that a slap to the back of the head is coming and accepting its inevitability. "All of him is fine!"
"Back to this then, are we?"
"You don't know what it was like," he whines. "I mean, he was practically naked! I've barely ever seen him out of a suit Nat, and his ass was right there!"
"And you did not take advantage of this why?"
"Because he was shot – I'm not a total lech!" Clint growls, mildly outraged. "He was hurt..."
"He's still hurt," Natasha points out, lifting the package under her arm and waggling it at him as they turn onto Coulson's hallway. "I thought you'd laugh."
Clint frowns – she sounds genuinely confused and he doesn't know if it's because of her personal experience with and understanding of human connection, or his own hot mess of a life.
"I..."
Natasha sighs, frowns, and instead of slapping him like he expects her to, she wraps her arm around his waist and pulls him close in a brief, rare hug.
"You should tell him," she suggests, not for the first time. "Really Clint. I think you'd be surprised by how he responds."
"You don't know that," Clint insists, an old, familiar ache building in his chest. "You don't..."
"You don't," Natasha argues, scolding. "Nothing you've done has made him leave you behind. Is the risk really too high?"
Cint doesn't respond.
He doesn't want to face the possibility that he's maybe being a little bit of a coward here, any more than he wants to face the possibility of what he might lose, and anyway, they're at Coulson's door by now.
Natasha knocks and Clint follows when they're permitted entry, and he catches Coulson's grim look of pain over Nat's shoulder before it's carefully stowed away. It hurts, knowing that the guy is in so much pain, and it hurts a little bit too that he hides it from them, but the stoicism passes when he realizes who it is that's come in.
Don't ask Clint how he feels about that.
"Sir," Natasha says quietly, and there's an unbearable fondness in her voice that puts a smile on both Clint and Coulson's faces.
"Agent Romanoff," Phil replies, and it's teasing and fond in its own right, if a little tired.
Clint's pretty sure it's what he calls her when he wants to be squeezing her shoulder, touching her hair reassuringly.
He wouldn't of course, never has unless she invites the touch, because Nat's not Clint and she doesn't want the same things. He's there for her just as much though, with that same, quiet smile, sitting at her bedside in medical waiting for her to wake up, bringing her small trinkets from his rare trips afield without them...
Clint thinks the way Coulson treats Nat, the way he understands her is half the reason he's in love with the man.
Um...
That is...
Aw, screw it, he meant what he said.
Thought.
Whatever.
"...You didn't have to," Coulson says, bringing Clint out of his half-panicked, half-resigned musings.
"You don't know what it is yet," Natasha argues with a grin that's just a little sharp.
Clint, who still doesn't think she's funny cause reasons, squeaks past her and flops down on the couch that had appeared in Coulson's office three days after he'd first fallen asleep cramped up in his visitor's chair. Coulson's already peeling off the tape on the package Nat's wrapped in purple paper – the bitch – and a part of him doesn't want to be in the room when he gets it open, but it seems stupid to run from a pillow...
"Oh, I could kiss you Tasha!"
It comes out like a sigh, elation and painful relief as Coulson pulls out a flat, square cushion, sort of M-shaped and made of memory foam. It's technically called a 'seating cushion' but it's a butt pillow and Clint kind of resents the thing for pretending to be something it's not. He narrows his eyes, only just manages not to stick his tongue out at an inanimate object, and it's not because Coulson seems to love the stupid thing or because Tasha got offered a kiss or because she gets to stand behind Coulson and wrap her arms around his shoulders ok?
It's not because Clint's a scaredy cat and his life is sucks because of it.
"Kiss Clint," Tasha says flippantly, because he's worn down her patience and because she still takes pleasure in torturing him when she can. "I have a sparring session with Mockingbird."
Clint scowls at her – the last thing he needs is the women in his life teaming up against him – and he's distracted enough doing it that he doesn't notice Coulson noticing him blush.
AVAVA
Nat's kind of... shifty after that.
Like, more so than she normally is.
Clint would suspect she's after one of the junior agents again, maybe Nelson, who'd been either stupid enough or brave enough – Clint hasn't decided which – to ask if he could take her to dinner last week, except that he keeps catching her floating in and out of Coulson's office whenever he heads in that direction.
Which isn't all that often ok, shut up.
Clint just wants to make sure he's alright, after getting shot an all.
Sure, he was only in medical for like, a day, while they pumped him full of antibiotics and stitched up his ass, but he's supposed to be taking it easy and he's definitely not. Clint's pretty sure he's actually supposed to be using a cane or a crutch of something, just because the stitches are in such a weird place that one wrong move and he might tear them all out again.
Not that he's been thinking about Coulson's ass, specifically...
Any more than usual anyway.
He's just worried.
Coulson's a good handler, and a good friend, and Clint...
Well he hasn't had a whole lot of good in his life, which is why he's so hesitant to gamble with the little bit of good that he's got.
He knows by now that there's nothing he can do to drive Nat off – they'd slept together one or two times in the beginning after all, and she was still around – but with Coulson...
Clint isn't even a hundred percent sure that he swings Clint's way.
It's a stupid crush to have harbored for so long, but it won't go away, even seems to be getting more intense as time passes, so the best he can really hope for is a distraction, which is what Natasha chooses to provide him.
He doesn't know if dragging him to the gym for a sparring session is her way of punishing him or pitying him.
He thinks maybe it's the latter when she leads him up to the Senior Agents' gym. They'd only made Level Four a couple months ago, and to be honest both of them are still more comfortable in the more familiar Juniors' Gym downstairs (commonly known by the snootier specialists as the Gymboree), but everything provided to upper level agents is a teeny bit nicer, one of the few perks SHIELD offers as incentive for advancement. The pool is cleaner, the mats thicker, and the equipment slightly newer, even if the layout is marginally different enough to set his teeth on edge.
Case in point, the sparring area isn't separated from the treadmills or the free weights by much more than a wide strip of open floor. It's not like Clint has performance anxiety – he's a showman at heart after all – but it's just kinda weird after coming from the cramped, poorly lit compartments downstairs.
He doesn't know why she's brought him up here, but he knows her, so he should know that she's up to something.
He's barely got his feet under him and has only made one strike at her when he figures it out.
Coincidentally he stops dead on the mats at the same time, earning himself a roundhouse kick to the gut.
Probably for the best, because between that and landing hard on his back, all the air in his body goes wooshing out again, countering the damage he'd done by nearly swallowing his tongue when Coulson had stepped into the gym dressed in a tank-top and silky, black basketball shorts.
Damn.
He'd known, of course he'd known there was a body under all those suits Coulson liked to wear, but knowing something and actually seeing it are totally different. The glimpses he used to sneak in the odd decontamination shower hadn't been worth the guilt he felt doing it, but here he's got a good, long look at strong, toned arms and legs, and god help him if he can't perfectly picture the curve of Coulson's ass under those shorts just from memory.
He's pretty sure he's staring.
"You've got some drool right there," Natasha says flatly as she hauls him up off the floor, and Clint actually swipes the back of his wrist across his chin cause yeah, that's totally something he'd be doing in this situation.
She knocks him down again just because he's not paying attention.
To her anyway.
What follows is an exercise in humiliation and revelation as he finds himself completely incapable of focusing on Natasha's fists and feet of fury, getting himself beat black and blue because he can't keep his eyes of the spectacle that is Agent Coulson working out. He warms up quick and easy with a brief jog on the treadmills and a few minutes lifting, and Clint guesses he's here to work on a little PT because he knows what medical is like after a gunshot wound.
He wouldn't begrudge any agent their rehabilitation, but ten minutes in to Coulson's workout Clint's ready to unleash some serious frustration on somebody.
It's technically named the 'Booty-Builder,' but almost everyone calls it the AssBlaster 3000. Anyone who doesn't calls it the Bump-n-Grind, and that isn't much better. All three titles are stupidly graphic, but not nearly as much as the image of Coulson strapping himself into it and thrusting away.
Yeah, thrusting.
Cause that's exactly what that god forsaken machine is for. You put your feet on the pegs, throw a padded bar across your hips, and thrust away against the tension weights.
It's exactly what it sounds like.
For all that he's been shot in the ass, Coulson's got a nice, smooth rhythm and Clint's mind immediately takes it to a dark and dirty place. It's not like he's never entertained some filthy fantasies about the man before, but actually seeing it right in front of him...
Yeah he doesn't handle it well.
He's pretty sure he actually runs for the showers, accidentally shoulder-checking Nat on his way out.
He knows he's gonna pay for that.
He doesn't realize just how much.
AVAVA
He lasts a week.
After all this time, all these years, one week is the most he can stand.
He's watched Coulson be a complete and utter BAMF more times than he can count, seen him kick ass, take names, and bottle-feed a newborn kitten with the same competence that he does everything else, but this, this is the last straw.
The Widow is good, he'll give her that, because she's most certainly the one orchestrating this nonsense. She's pointed about it, but in a way that makes Clint think it really is just one big coincidence, at least at first. She forces him into sparring sessions the same way she always does when she thinks he needs something kicked into his thick head, and she picks a different time every day. Before breakfast, right after lunch, mid-afternoon, hell, once at two in the morning, and yet somehow, some way, Coulson always ends up wandering in a few minutes behind them.
He usually watches for a while before he starts his PT.
He's done that before, but it's always been with a far more critical eye, a far more analytical look on his face. Before it was always strategic, directing their attention to each other's weaknesses, tossing out suggestions... now he's silent. He watches, but he's watching Clint, not Clint and Nat, and he feels his handler's gaze like electricity rippling across his skin. Heat rushes through his body and he hopes the flush can be attributed to exertion, but he doubts the same can be said for the number of times Natasha puts him on his back.
She's always had a few pins on him whenever they spar, but nothing like this.
Still, Coulson doesn't mention it, and Clint's pretty damn sure he's caught the man checking out his ass a time or two when Natasha hauls him back up.
He just... doesn't know what that means.
He usually manages to put it out of his mind for all of about half an hour while Coulson makes his way through his rehab routine across the way. Clint knows his routine by heart so he doesn't have to watch to know where he's at, what he's doing.
Sounds kind of creepy when he thinks about it like that, but his visual memory is unparalleled – it's hardly his fault that the curve of Coulson's biceps as he does a three-minute plank gets stuck in his head like glue.
That's not the problem anyway.
No, the problem is the god damn AssBlaster 3000, that Coulson always manages to strap himself into just as Natasha's finishing up with him, every day like freaking clockwork.
He gets that it's part of the guy's rehab routine ok? Position of the wound, you've gotta work the skin and muscle both to stop the scar tissue from forming, from getting thick and tight and prohibiting movement. Plus, it would be kinda hard to keep on being a badass ninja superspy if your butt muscles didn't work; as an Agent in Accounting had once told him – a limp puts a definite crimp in one's style.
But damn it all to hell, this just isn't fair!
He doesn't know where Nat goes, just hears her scoff as if from far, far away. The world's kind of narrowed in on him in the moment, but he's pretty sure that's what that sound was. His heart's pounding in his ears a little loudly, and his skin's all hot and tingly and his gym shorts are tight, and he's super glad he wears a certain piece of protective gear when he spars cause otherwise he might have a problem.
Don't get him wrong, he still has that problem, it's just a little less... noticeable, if you catch his drift.
At least he hopes so.
Very, very suddenly he's a little bit pissed at Coulson.
Like, truly and deeply pissed.
What is this asshole playing at, why is he tormenting him? Clint knows he wasn't a great guy in his past life, but he doesn't think he's done anything to deserve this, to be subjected to watching the man he loves do the slow bump-n-grind on the god damn AssBlaster 3000 across a public gym.
It's irrational and he knows it and he very nearly has it under control when Coulson unbuckles himself and hops off, wiping the sweat from his face with the towel wrapped around his neck. Scanning the gym in a move that looks as casual as it's not, he catches Clint's gaze and holds it for what feels like forever before he winks, honest to Jesus winks at him and saunters off toward the locker rooms.
It's stupid to follow him, he knows that even as he takes that first, fateful step forward.
He's never claimed to be a genius.
What with all the ways he's pictured it, all the ways he's hoped it would finally happen, he never figured it would happen the way it does.
He never thought he'd stalk his handler into the private showers, grab him by the arm, spin him around and slam him up against the wall for a kiss that's as deep and hot and biting as any he's ever had. It's years of want and frustration and build-up all unleashed, and he's so shocked that Phil's kissing him back – and fuck it, it is 'Phil' now – that he doesn't realize their positions are being reversed until his back is against the wall and Phil's got his hands fisted in the front of Clint's shirt, pulling him even closer.
"Such an ass," he manages to pant when Phil pulls back to nip at the hinge of his jaw.
Reaching down, he gets a double handful of said ass and gives it a squeeze, mindful of the healing wound under his thumb.
"Worked didn't it?" Phil snarks, his teeth testing the cords of Clint's neck.
"Wait, you..."
"Cost me box tickets to the ballet to get Natasha to time your sparring sessions," Phil hums against his throat. "Didn't think you were interested, not until that day in my office. She told me to kiss you, and you blushed."
"I don't..."
"Yes you do," Phil growls, biting Clint's lower lip and rolling his hips forward and giving him a very good idea of just how much they both do, thanks very much.
Then he pulls back and they're both panting hard, hands at their sides as they stare at each other, mouths red and swollen.
"At least I hope you do," Phil says, soft and very suddenly vulnerable. "I mean, I... I hope all that work on that ridiculous excuse for an exercise machine wasn't for nothing, but Clint, I want more than that."
Clint can't breathe.
His heart is pounding and all his dreams are coming true and he cannot believe that this is happening, and he has to touch, he has to, because if he's not he can't be sure that it's real.
It's different than the last time.
He doesn't clutch or grab or squeeze, just wraps his arms around Phil's waist nice and soft and slow and snuggles up to him, hugs him the way he's always wanted to.
And he has wanted to.
As much as the sex, maybe even more, he's thought about the domesticity, the casual affection he could have with a partner, with Phil. He's thought about cuddling with him on the couch, putting his head in his lap, even just laying his hand on his shoulder.
Now, now he tucks his face into the curve of Phil's shoulder and holds him close, filled with a gentle warmth when Phil holds him right back.
"I want that," he admits, and it's maybe the first time he's ever said it out loud.
He doesn't care, he gets Phil's hand stroking slowly up and down his spine for his trouble, and it's very nearly everything he's ever wanted. They stand there for a minute, quiet, till Clint lifts his head and grins.
"I still want the ass though," he quips.
Phil just laughs and slaps Clint's.