hoosierbitch (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hoosierbitch) wrote2013-04-07 09:27 pm
hoosierbitch) wrote2013-04-07 09:27 pm
Entry tags:
Fic: Alright is Two Different Words [Clint/Coulson, Dyslexia!Verse, part 3/4]
Title: Alright is Two Different Words [3/4]
Author:hoosierbitch
Series: Dyslexia!Verse
Rating: R
Notes: The first part of this series is As It Is Written. The second part was written by the amazingarsenicjade. You can find the whole thing via my LJ dyslexia!verse tag, or on AO3.)
Content Advisory: References to child abuse and neglect. If you need more information, please contact me, I’m happy to help.
Thanks: ivorysilk and alfadorcat did a lot of coaxing, soothing, and midwiving, before we even got to the betaing. Any remaining mistakes are all mine.
Summary: Dating’s fucking hard.
*
He looks like a stranger.
He glares at the mirror, adjusts his stance, and evaluates again.
He looks…rectangular, somehow, in the crisp button-down shirt he’d stolen from storage and the dark jeans he’s never worn outside of the Macy’s (the saleswoman had stared at his ass the whole time he’d tried them on. He’d been grateful for her help—he’d been drowning in a sea of denim before she took pity on him and helped him out. He hoped the Macy’s salespeople worked on commission; he’d bought a lot).
The jeans he’d settled on for tonight—‘professional cut,’ whatever that is—have weird creases down the front, like some stranger in a sweat shop had ironed them for him. It makes his thighs itch. The jeans are tighter than the sweats he usually wears, and he can’t figure out how to wear them with his combat boots. Tucking his jeans in makes them bunch up funny, but pulling them over the tops creates a bulge around his calves. He could cuff them, but that would reveal their pale, undyed underbelly, and Clint’s not sure that that’s okay. At least he still looks tough, strong; that’s usually the look he goes for; he looks like he’d be hard to knock down.
He doesn’t look like somebody Phil Coulson would want to go on a date with. (A date. Clint’s first.)
He fidgets with the jacket that he’d grabbed with the shirt (they’d been on the same hanger in the store, so he’s pretty sure they match). He buttons it. Unbuttons it. Takes it off. Puts it back on; buttons it. The undershirt, underwear, and boots are the only things about his outfit that aren’t new. The boots are the only shoes he has, and the t-shirt’s worn thin. One of the junior agents had said that the t-shirt made his arms look good, so. So hopefully, if they get to a point that Clint can take off his button-down, or roll up his sleeves, hopefully Phil will like his arms and hopefully this whole fucking thing won’t be a disaster.
He scrubs his hand over his hair, trying to get it to do something. Stand up on end, maybe, or look sexy, or—he should just shave it. He and Fury could match. Fury’d hate that.
It’s only 6pm. He’s got a whole hour to kill. He sits down on the edge of his bed, puts his elbows on his knees, and tries to calm himself down.
Coulson won’t care what he looks like.
Probably.
(Clint still doesn’t know what it is that Coulson wants from him.)
Clint should call and cancel. If he was smart, that’s what he’d do: pick up the phone, dial Phil’s number (and probably accidentally call the Fazoli’s in Brooklyn whose number is only one digit different than Phil’s), and say that something’s come up. Or that he’s sick. Got called on a mission. Forgot that he was meeting with someone else. The problem is that Phil can usually tell when Clint’s been lying, and most of the excuses Clint has are things that Phil could check up on and disprove.
Coulson is his handler; it’s his job to make sure Clint’s okay. (Clint’s not quite sure how that’ll translate when they’re off the clock.)
He stands up and looks at himself in the mirror again. He looks like a bouncer, with his dark clothes and scarred knuckles. Phil’s probably going to show up in a tuxedo or something and Clint’s going to look like his Mafioso bodyguard.
He takes off the jacket and switches to a plain white windbreaker he’d found in the range one day. Then changes back to his jacket, then takes his boots off. He’s about to change his jeans when the alarms sound and the speaker system starts blaring. There’s been an attack.
Thank god.
*
It only takes him a few minutes to change into combat gear and grab his bow. He knows what he looks like in these clothes, he knows where all the pockets and weapons and armor plating are hidden. The first wave of agents is pulling out and Clint snags a ride on a helicopter. They’re headed to Massachusetts, where some Godzilla-like monster is tearing up a mountain. Halfway through the ride Clint’s earpiece fizzles and then he hears Coulson’s voice.
“Hawkeye, report.”
“I’m in the air, sir. Jumped on board with Sitwell’s team. Figure I’ll do some recon when we get there, report back on the situation. Cool?”
“We’ll specify the parameters of your assignment once we get more intel. Until then, report back every twenty minutes. Sitwell will be your supervisor until I am on scene—I’ll be there about ten minutes after you arrive.” He’s probably imagining that Coulson sounds more worried about him than is usual.
“Yes, sir.”
“Be safe.”
Clint bites his lip and doesn’t say anything. Most of his usual responses are kind of rude, and the only serious ones he can think of are too honest.
*
The fight is long. Half of the mountain is practically barren by the time they bring the creature down. Tree trunks have been smashed into splinters and stone has been pounded into clouds of dust that have turned all of the shiny black SHIELD vehicles dull grey mixed with the creature’s ochre blood. There are a few deer carcasses and a lot of small wildlife mixed in with the debris, but at least no agents have died.
Clint collects as many of his arrows as he can. The science team is used to working around him; they take readings from the creature’s body while he plucks arrows out of its eyeballs. His weapons didn’t do as much damage as Sitwell’s rocket launcher, but he’s the one who had gotten the beast into position.
He’s covered in dust and his hands are coated with the creature’s sludgy blood when he gets back to the command center. Coulson’s there, standing in the middle of a swirl of people, calmly giving orders to everyone. He’s got a bulletproof vest on, but under that, instead of a suit, he’s wearing a blue sweater. It’s hard to see clearly, since Coulson’s covered in a mix of blood and dirt, but Clint’s pretty sure his pants are a dark grey instead of black.
Coulson’s still dressed up for their date.
Clint climbs on top of a van and crouches there until it’s time to leave. He watches Coulson. Knowing that his handler is smart and actually seeing him take quiet, competent control of an enormous crime scene swarming with agents are two different things; Clint never tires of watching him in action.
Coulson says that Clint’s mind works in its own unique way; coming at problems sideways, upside down. Coulson (like Mary the fortuneteller, who Clint had known when he was still Barney’s dumbass little brother) says that Clint’s mind is special: he views the world through his own private kaleidoscope. Sometimes, though, Clint wishes for Coulson’s eyes, which see everything all at once; wishes for Coulson’s mind, which moves like a river, taking everyone else along with him.
In the middle of a destroyed battlefield Coulson’s texting Fury, reading a report that Sitwell’s holding up in front of him, and engaging in two separate conversations at the same time.
Everybody there respects him. They listen to him, they report to him, they obey him. Hill teases him about his clothes when there’s a lull in the activity and Coulson lies and says he’d been planning on going to an opera when they got the call.
(Watching, Clint realizes he'd been right: he absolutely would have looked like the mafia bodyguard trying to protect Coulson from hitmen. As nice as Coulson probably looked, Clint’s kind of glad Godzilla chose today to visit.)
Clint imagines what would happen if Coulson admitted that he was taking bird-brain out on a date. If they were lucky, he’d just get laughed at. If they weren’t, Coulson would get called fag by the people who are calling him sir.
Clint’s never questioned the fact that Coulson’s out of his league, but right now it feels like they’re members of different species. Clint waits until the fleet start to move out before he jumps down to the mobile command center and goes to Coulson’s side.
“I bet you planned this,” Coulson says, lifting one arm from his side only to drop it again with a sad splat. “You waited until I was in the splash zone before you got the target into position, didn’t you?
“You’ll have to wait for my mission report to find out,” Clint says, smirking; he’s been trained out of all his tells.
(He’d made the shot as quickly as he could; he’d had to jump across a line of trees like a spider monkey to get there, and he’d only barely made it in time. The monster had been heading for the front lines; for Coulson. Be safe.)
“At least you weren’t wearing one of your suits,” Clint says, painting those words over the jumble of panicked warnings still uselessly swimming around his mind.
“My suits are insured,” Coulson says, looking cross. “This was my first date outfit, which isn’t under SHEILD coverage.”
Clint’s not sure what it says about him that he finds Coulson’s ridiculous clothing obsession kind of endearing. “What about your second date outfit?” he asks, after a quick check of the area to make sure they’re alone.
Coulson looks up at him and smiles. A bit of goo drips off the tip of his nose. “My second date outfit is just fine.”
*
Their next date is delayed because Clint spends two weeks in Brazil sitting on top of a mansion, keeping his scope trained on an empty parking lot and reading The Giving Tree on his Kindle. The Kindle (a present from Coulson, like the ficus and subscription to Bowhunting magazine) lets him look up words quickly, and he can hide whatever he’s reading from other people. The Giving Tree makes Clint feel sad and he reads it a couple of times to figure out why.
He keeps wanting to discuss it with Coulson, but of course, Coulson isn’t in Brazil, and it doesn’t seem like the kind of thing he ought to break radio silence for.
On the fifth day after the op goes live, Clint starts A Wrinkle in Time. It’s the longest, densest book he’s tried yet. Ten days later he shoots seven different people. The op’s gone perfectly, according to the chatter among the agents on the flight back, but Clint can’t help but feel that any op that ends in bloodshed is a failure. Most of the projects Coulson works on are to prevent the ones like this.
He finishes chapter three right when they land. The list of words that he’s had to look up is getting embarrassingly long, and he’s completely lost track of the story. He’ll go over the vocab and the plot in the morning with Coulson, which makes it less demoralizing.
It’ll probably take a while.
Clint’s kind of looking forward to it.
Hill debriefs him that night and sends him on his way. His room is too quiet, he’s not hungry, so he sneaks down to the range and tucks himself up in an alcove near the ceiling. The familiar soundtrack of bullets hitting targets, guns being dismantled, and people talking lulls him to sleep.
He forgets to bring coffee to his meeting with Coulson in the morning, but Coulson’s already got breakfast for two set out on the desk. Clint sits down, pulls out his Kindle, closes his eyes, and breathes for a few minutes. He can hear Coulson drinking his coffee and typing away and it makes Clint feel at home in a way that the base and his bedroom hadn’t been able to do.
“Let’s talk Giving Tree,” Coulson says, when Clint opens his eyes and reaches for a croissant. Clint tucks his feet up on the leather chair and turns his Kindle on.
Within half an hour the food is gone and they’ve moved on to L’Engle. When Coulson’s phone beeps for the fifth time Clint pushes himself out of the chair and moves to leave.
“I’m glad you’re back,” Coulson says. “I missed you.”
Clint—who’s never had anyone who’d wanted him to stay around, let alone someone who wanted him to come back—says, “Yeah,” and, later, when he brings Coulson some lunch, he says, “I missed you, too.”
*
Coulson plans their second date. He’s by far the smarter of the two of them, so Clint hopes this one won’t go as badly as their first had. “Friday’s retro night at the cinema, and they’re showing Return of the Jedi,” Coulson says, shifting in his seat. It’d be the equivalent of bouncing up and down in anyone else.
“Sure. That’s, uh—Star Wars, right?” Coulson stares at him. For a long time. Clint wonders if this is how his targets feel. It’s not a pleasant experience. “What?”
“You haven’t seen Star Wars?”
Clint shifts his weight. “No. Is that—”
“You poor, deprived human being,” Coulson says, reaching out to pat Clint’s shoulder. Clint hasn’t flinched away from Coulson in months, but he has to consciously stop himself this time. Clint understands that Coulson’s teasing him, he gets that, it’s not a bad thing. It’s just that Clint doesn’t like feeling any stupider around Coulson than is absolutely necessary, and having his pop culture ignorance added to the mix doesn’t feel great.
“Missed out on a couple of movies when I was growing up,” he says, trying to use his words like whitewash, covering up all his faults.
Coulson’s hand stops patting Clint on the shoulder and he just squeezes instead. Coulson seems to find more excuses for casual touches these days. Clint’s on the look-out for some windows of opportunity of his own, but he’s never sure when it’s okay to make a move.
He’s come to accept that Coulson’s touches are meant to comfort, to soothe, sometimes, to tease. They’re not invitations. They’re not a request, and definitely not a demand. Over their breakfast reading session last Sunday, when they’d finally given up on Wrinkle of Time and moved to Where the Wild Things Are, Coulson had said, “I don’t want to do anything you’re not comfortable with.”
Clint might not be able to read words longer than five letters on a page, but he can read between the lines of Coulson’s voice just fine. Coulson had been telling the truth. Clint, who wasn’t used to those kind of words yet, had mumbled something indistinct and held the book up in front of his face.
Everything makes him uncomfortable.
He wants Coulson to keep touching him.
He’s been spending a lot of time in the range, because the lines and curves and force of his arrows make sense, unlike the stumbling slow activity of his brain.
“This is great,” Coulson says. “I get to be there to introduce you to the magic for the first time. I hate to show them to you out of order, but this will probably be the only chance we have to see Jedi in theatres. I’ll explain the plot of the first two before we get there.”
“There’s more than one?”
*
Clint opens his door at 6:57pm. Just like he’d expected, Coulson’s leaning against the opposite wall, arms folded, looking at his watch. He shrugs, caught out, and gives Clint a little smile.
“Your obsession with being exactly on time is sad,” Clint says. He’s watched Coulson from the vents before, standing outside of rooms until the exact time he was supposed to arrive, knocking on the door in time with the chime of some internal clock.
“It keeps the newbies on their toes. They think I’m a robot,” Coulson says proudly.
“Some of them think you’re an alien.”
Coulson frowns. “I prefer robot.” Clint’s pretty sure that they don’t program robots with senses of humor, but the trainees don’t get to see that side of Coulson.
Coulson holds out the coat he had folded over his arms, and says, “I brought you a present.”
Clint takes it from it and holds it out. It’s black, leather; it fits loosely across his shoulders and is pulled in at the wrists. He’d worn it for an op in Belgrade. He’d loved it. “Is the wardrobe department going to come after me for this?”
“I am a man of mysterious means,” Coulson says.
Clint narrows his eyes. “You baked Marsha something.”
“Apple crumble muffins.” Coulson smiles again and Clint tastes the memory of those muffins; he’d just finished his first chapter book. Balto. Wide, frozen expanses of cold, an intrepid race across the ice, and at the end of the journey a Sierra Club bag of baked goods had been waiting for him.
Clint slips the leather coat on over his button-down shirt (no tie, the top two buttons undone; he’s been people-watching civilians for fashion tips). Coulson gives him a long once-over and then smiles. Clint fights the urge to turn and run, to twirl and give Coulson a show, to zip the coat closed and pull his head inside like a turtle. But he’s always been braver than he is smart, so instead he just says, “Thanks. You look really nice, sir.”
Coulson’s second date outfit is more casual than the one that had been ruined on the mountainside. He’s wearing another nice sweater; this one’s green and looks soft; it makes Coulson’s eyes brighter. Makes Clint more aware of the crinkles that grow around them when Coulson smiles. “You can call me Phil,” Coulson says.
“Phil-not-like-landfill,” Clint replies automatically.
“Phil-like-phlegm,” Phil counters.
They trade F’s and Ph’s as they walk to the car: philosophy, Fredericksburg, phrenology, fantastic.
*
The theatre’s pretty empty, and they’d gotten there early so they could claim seats in the back: no one behind them, eyes on all the exits. Coulson buys the tickets, popcorn, and sodas; Clint repays him by pretending that he has any idea what’s going on in the movie. Part of it’s that he doesn’t remember who half the characters are, but more of it is that Coulson had only gotten one tub of popcorn. And they’re both kind of hungry.
Their hands keep touching.
Clint is very aware of how pathetic it is that the brush of Coulson’s hand can make his entire arm tingle, but that doesn’t stop his body from leaning toward Coulson like a lopsided tower.
The fat little monkeys are throwing some sort of party when Clint finally decides to make his move. He scrubs his fingers clean on his jeans, turns in his seat as much as he can, and puts his only-slightly-buttery hand on Coulson’s face.
He kisses Phil Coulson for the first time in the back row of an old movie theatre. Coulson, after a moment where time stops and Clint’s heart freezes in his chest, kisses him back. Coulson tastes like popcorn and Sprite. His lips are soft. Clint’s eyes close almost automatically, so he’s not sure how he knows that Coulson is smiling.
Clint’s kissed girls before, but this feels different. He doesn’t know if it’s because he wants it so much this time, or if it’s because it’s with a man, or if it’s just because it’s Coulson. He wishes he didn’t have to stop.
In the dark nervous place inside of Clint where he worries that Coulson will leave him, there is another fear: fear that Coulson looks at him like a child, a student, a retard to be pitied. But in the dark of the movie theatre, lit by the flickering movie screen, Clint feels uncomfortable only because of the amazement he sees in Coulson’s face.
“All of my geeky middle school fantasies just came true,” Coulson whispers, pulling back a bit. Clint’s perversely proud of having made Coulson sound so breathless.
“I’m pretty sure we’d have to be watching a Captain America film for that to be true,” he whispers back, body thrumming with adrenaline, with the pleasure of knowing Phil well enough to tease him like this.
“Well,” Coulson says, a look in his eyes that Clint doesn’t know how to read yet, “there’s always next weekend.”
In the end of the movie the rebels win and Clint reaches for and holds Phil’s hand.
Author:
hoosierbitch Series: Dyslexia!Verse
Rating: R
Notes: The first part of this series is As It Is Written. The second part was written by the amazing
arsenicjade. You can find the whole thing via my LJ dyslexia!verse tag, or on AO3.)Content Advisory: References to child abuse and neglect. If you need more information, please contact me, I’m happy to help.
Thanks: ivorysilk and alfadorcat did a lot of coaxing, soothing, and midwiving, before we even got to the betaing. Any remaining mistakes are all mine.
Summary: Dating’s fucking hard.
He looks like a stranger.
He glares at the mirror, adjusts his stance, and evaluates again.
He looks…rectangular, somehow, in the crisp button-down shirt he’d stolen from storage and the dark jeans he’s never worn outside of the Macy’s (the saleswoman had stared at his ass the whole time he’d tried them on. He’d been grateful for her help—he’d been drowning in a sea of denim before she took pity on him and helped him out. He hoped the Macy’s salespeople worked on commission; he’d bought a lot).
The jeans he’d settled on for tonight—‘professional cut,’ whatever that is—have weird creases down the front, like some stranger in a sweat shop had ironed them for him. It makes his thighs itch. The jeans are tighter than the sweats he usually wears, and he can’t figure out how to wear them with his combat boots. Tucking his jeans in makes them bunch up funny, but pulling them over the tops creates a bulge around his calves. He could cuff them, but that would reveal their pale, undyed underbelly, and Clint’s not sure that that’s okay. At least he still looks tough, strong; that’s usually the look he goes for; he looks like he’d be hard to knock down.
He doesn’t look like somebody Phil Coulson would want to go on a date with. (A date. Clint’s first.)
He fidgets with the jacket that he’d grabbed with the shirt (they’d been on the same hanger in the store, so he’s pretty sure they match). He buttons it. Unbuttons it. Takes it off. Puts it back on; buttons it. The undershirt, underwear, and boots are the only things about his outfit that aren’t new. The boots are the only shoes he has, and the t-shirt’s worn thin. One of the junior agents had said that the t-shirt made his arms look good, so. So hopefully, if they get to a point that Clint can take off his button-down, or roll up his sleeves, hopefully Phil will like his arms and hopefully this whole fucking thing won’t be a disaster.
He scrubs his hand over his hair, trying to get it to do something. Stand up on end, maybe, or look sexy, or—he should just shave it. He and Fury could match. Fury’d hate that.
It’s only 6pm. He’s got a whole hour to kill. He sits down on the edge of his bed, puts his elbows on his knees, and tries to calm himself down.
Coulson won’t care what he looks like.
Probably.
(Clint still doesn’t know what it is that Coulson wants from him.)
Clint should call and cancel. If he was smart, that’s what he’d do: pick up the phone, dial Phil’s number (and probably accidentally call the Fazoli’s in Brooklyn whose number is only one digit different than Phil’s), and say that something’s come up. Or that he’s sick. Got called on a mission. Forgot that he was meeting with someone else. The problem is that Phil can usually tell when Clint’s been lying, and most of the excuses Clint has are things that Phil could check up on and disprove.
Coulson is his handler; it’s his job to make sure Clint’s okay. (Clint’s not quite sure how that’ll translate when they’re off the clock.)
He stands up and looks at himself in the mirror again. He looks like a bouncer, with his dark clothes and scarred knuckles. Phil’s probably going to show up in a tuxedo or something and Clint’s going to look like his Mafioso bodyguard.
He takes off the jacket and switches to a plain white windbreaker he’d found in the range one day. Then changes back to his jacket, then takes his boots off. He’s about to change his jeans when the alarms sound and the speaker system starts blaring. There’s been an attack.
Thank god.
It only takes him a few minutes to change into combat gear and grab his bow. He knows what he looks like in these clothes, he knows where all the pockets and weapons and armor plating are hidden. The first wave of agents is pulling out and Clint snags a ride on a helicopter. They’re headed to Massachusetts, where some Godzilla-like monster is tearing up a mountain. Halfway through the ride Clint’s earpiece fizzles and then he hears Coulson’s voice.
“Hawkeye, report.”
“I’m in the air, sir. Jumped on board with Sitwell’s team. Figure I’ll do some recon when we get there, report back on the situation. Cool?”
“We’ll specify the parameters of your assignment once we get more intel. Until then, report back every twenty minutes. Sitwell will be your supervisor until I am on scene—I’ll be there about ten minutes after you arrive.” He’s probably imagining that Coulson sounds more worried about him than is usual.
“Yes, sir.”
“Be safe.”
Clint bites his lip and doesn’t say anything. Most of his usual responses are kind of rude, and the only serious ones he can think of are too honest.
The fight is long. Half of the mountain is practically barren by the time they bring the creature down. Tree trunks have been smashed into splinters and stone has been pounded into clouds of dust that have turned all of the shiny black SHIELD vehicles dull grey mixed with the creature’s ochre blood. There are a few deer carcasses and a lot of small wildlife mixed in with the debris, but at least no agents have died.
Clint collects as many of his arrows as he can. The science team is used to working around him; they take readings from the creature’s body while he plucks arrows out of its eyeballs. His weapons didn’t do as much damage as Sitwell’s rocket launcher, but he’s the one who had gotten the beast into position.
He’s covered in dust and his hands are coated with the creature’s sludgy blood when he gets back to the command center. Coulson’s there, standing in the middle of a swirl of people, calmly giving orders to everyone. He’s got a bulletproof vest on, but under that, instead of a suit, he’s wearing a blue sweater. It’s hard to see clearly, since Coulson’s covered in a mix of blood and dirt, but Clint’s pretty sure his pants are a dark grey instead of black.
Coulson’s still dressed up for their date.
Clint climbs on top of a van and crouches there until it’s time to leave. He watches Coulson. Knowing that his handler is smart and actually seeing him take quiet, competent control of an enormous crime scene swarming with agents are two different things; Clint never tires of watching him in action.
Coulson says that Clint’s mind works in its own unique way; coming at problems sideways, upside down. Coulson (like Mary the fortuneteller, who Clint had known when he was still Barney’s dumbass little brother) says that Clint’s mind is special: he views the world through his own private kaleidoscope. Sometimes, though, Clint wishes for Coulson’s eyes, which see everything all at once; wishes for Coulson’s mind, which moves like a river, taking everyone else along with him.
In the middle of a destroyed battlefield Coulson’s texting Fury, reading a report that Sitwell’s holding up in front of him, and engaging in two separate conversations at the same time.
Everybody there respects him. They listen to him, they report to him, they obey him. Hill teases him about his clothes when there’s a lull in the activity and Coulson lies and says he’d been planning on going to an opera when they got the call.
(Watching, Clint realizes he'd been right: he absolutely would have looked like the mafia bodyguard trying to protect Coulson from hitmen. As nice as Coulson probably looked, Clint’s kind of glad Godzilla chose today to visit.)
Clint imagines what would happen if Coulson admitted that he was taking bird-brain out on a date. If they were lucky, he’d just get laughed at. If they weren’t, Coulson would get called fag by the people who are calling him sir.
Clint’s never questioned the fact that Coulson’s out of his league, but right now it feels like they’re members of different species. Clint waits until the fleet start to move out before he jumps down to the mobile command center and goes to Coulson’s side.
“I bet you planned this,” Coulson says, lifting one arm from his side only to drop it again with a sad splat. “You waited until I was in the splash zone before you got the target into position, didn’t you?
“You’ll have to wait for my mission report to find out,” Clint says, smirking; he’s been trained out of all his tells.
(He’d made the shot as quickly as he could; he’d had to jump across a line of trees like a spider monkey to get there, and he’d only barely made it in time. The monster had been heading for the front lines; for Coulson. Be safe.)
“At least you weren’t wearing one of your suits,” Clint says, painting those words over the jumble of panicked warnings still uselessly swimming around his mind.
“My suits are insured,” Coulson says, looking cross. “This was my first date outfit, which isn’t under SHEILD coverage.”
Clint’s not sure what it says about him that he finds Coulson’s ridiculous clothing obsession kind of endearing. “What about your second date outfit?” he asks, after a quick check of the area to make sure they’re alone.
Coulson looks up at him and smiles. A bit of goo drips off the tip of his nose. “My second date outfit is just fine.”
Their next date is delayed because Clint spends two weeks in Brazil sitting on top of a mansion, keeping his scope trained on an empty parking lot and reading The Giving Tree on his Kindle. The Kindle (a present from Coulson, like the ficus and subscription to Bowhunting magazine) lets him look up words quickly, and he can hide whatever he’s reading from other people. The Giving Tree makes Clint feel sad and he reads it a couple of times to figure out why.
He keeps wanting to discuss it with Coulson, but of course, Coulson isn’t in Brazil, and it doesn’t seem like the kind of thing he ought to break radio silence for.
On the fifth day after the op goes live, Clint starts A Wrinkle in Time. It’s the longest, densest book he’s tried yet. Ten days later he shoots seven different people. The op’s gone perfectly, according to the chatter among the agents on the flight back, but Clint can’t help but feel that any op that ends in bloodshed is a failure. Most of the projects Coulson works on are to prevent the ones like this.
He finishes chapter three right when they land. The list of words that he’s had to look up is getting embarrassingly long, and he’s completely lost track of the story. He’ll go over the vocab and the plot in the morning with Coulson, which makes it less demoralizing.
It’ll probably take a while.
Clint’s kind of looking forward to it.
Hill debriefs him that night and sends him on his way. His room is too quiet, he’s not hungry, so he sneaks down to the range and tucks himself up in an alcove near the ceiling. The familiar soundtrack of bullets hitting targets, guns being dismantled, and people talking lulls him to sleep.
He forgets to bring coffee to his meeting with Coulson in the morning, but Coulson’s already got breakfast for two set out on the desk. Clint sits down, pulls out his Kindle, closes his eyes, and breathes for a few minutes. He can hear Coulson drinking his coffee and typing away and it makes Clint feel at home in a way that the base and his bedroom hadn’t been able to do.
“Let’s talk Giving Tree,” Coulson says, when Clint opens his eyes and reaches for a croissant. Clint tucks his feet up on the leather chair and turns his Kindle on.
Within half an hour the food is gone and they’ve moved on to L’Engle. When Coulson’s phone beeps for the fifth time Clint pushes himself out of the chair and moves to leave.
“I’m glad you’re back,” Coulson says. “I missed you.”
Clint—who’s never had anyone who’d wanted him to stay around, let alone someone who wanted him to come back—says, “Yeah,” and, later, when he brings Coulson some lunch, he says, “I missed you, too.”
Coulson plans their second date. He’s by far the smarter of the two of them, so Clint hopes this one won’t go as badly as their first had. “Friday’s retro night at the cinema, and they’re showing Return of the Jedi,” Coulson says, shifting in his seat. It’d be the equivalent of bouncing up and down in anyone else.
“Sure. That’s, uh—Star Wars, right?” Coulson stares at him. For a long time. Clint wonders if this is how his targets feel. It’s not a pleasant experience. “What?”
“You haven’t seen Star Wars?”
Clint shifts his weight. “No. Is that—”
“You poor, deprived human being,” Coulson says, reaching out to pat Clint’s shoulder. Clint hasn’t flinched away from Coulson in months, but he has to consciously stop himself this time. Clint understands that Coulson’s teasing him, he gets that, it’s not a bad thing. It’s just that Clint doesn’t like feeling any stupider around Coulson than is absolutely necessary, and having his pop culture ignorance added to the mix doesn’t feel great.
“Missed out on a couple of movies when I was growing up,” he says, trying to use his words like whitewash, covering up all his faults.
Coulson’s hand stops patting Clint on the shoulder and he just squeezes instead. Coulson seems to find more excuses for casual touches these days. Clint’s on the look-out for some windows of opportunity of his own, but he’s never sure when it’s okay to make a move.
He’s come to accept that Coulson’s touches are meant to comfort, to soothe, sometimes, to tease. They’re not invitations. They’re not a request, and definitely not a demand. Over their breakfast reading session last Sunday, when they’d finally given up on Wrinkle of Time and moved to Where the Wild Things Are, Coulson had said, “I don’t want to do anything you’re not comfortable with.”
Clint might not be able to read words longer than five letters on a page, but he can read between the lines of Coulson’s voice just fine. Coulson had been telling the truth. Clint, who wasn’t used to those kind of words yet, had mumbled something indistinct and held the book up in front of his face.
Everything makes him uncomfortable.
He wants Coulson to keep touching him.
He’s been spending a lot of time in the range, because the lines and curves and force of his arrows make sense, unlike the stumbling slow activity of his brain.
“This is great,” Coulson says. “I get to be there to introduce you to the magic for the first time. I hate to show them to you out of order, but this will probably be the only chance we have to see Jedi in theatres. I’ll explain the plot of the first two before we get there.”
“There’s more than one?”
Clint opens his door at 6:57pm. Just like he’d expected, Coulson’s leaning against the opposite wall, arms folded, looking at his watch. He shrugs, caught out, and gives Clint a little smile.
“Your obsession with being exactly on time is sad,” Clint says. He’s watched Coulson from the vents before, standing outside of rooms until the exact time he was supposed to arrive, knocking on the door in time with the chime of some internal clock.
“It keeps the newbies on their toes. They think I’m a robot,” Coulson says proudly.
“Some of them think you’re an alien.”
Coulson frowns. “I prefer robot.” Clint’s pretty sure that they don’t program robots with senses of humor, but the trainees don’t get to see that side of Coulson.
Coulson holds out the coat he had folded over his arms, and says, “I brought you a present.”
Clint takes it from it and holds it out. It’s black, leather; it fits loosely across his shoulders and is pulled in at the wrists. He’d worn it for an op in Belgrade. He’d loved it. “Is the wardrobe department going to come after me for this?”
“I am a man of mysterious means,” Coulson says.
Clint narrows his eyes. “You baked Marsha something.”
“Apple crumble muffins.” Coulson smiles again and Clint tastes the memory of those muffins; he’d just finished his first chapter book. Balto. Wide, frozen expanses of cold, an intrepid race across the ice, and at the end of the journey a Sierra Club bag of baked goods had been waiting for him.
Clint slips the leather coat on over his button-down shirt (no tie, the top two buttons undone; he’s been people-watching civilians for fashion tips). Coulson gives him a long once-over and then smiles. Clint fights the urge to turn and run, to twirl and give Coulson a show, to zip the coat closed and pull his head inside like a turtle. But he’s always been braver than he is smart, so instead he just says, “Thanks. You look really nice, sir.”
Coulson’s second date outfit is more casual than the one that had been ruined on the mountainside. He’s wearing another nice sweater; this one’s green and looks soft; it makes Coulson’s eyes brighter. Makes Clint more aware of the crinkles that grow around them when Coulson smiles. “You can call me Phil,” Coulson says.
“Phil-not-like-landfill,” Clint replies automatically.
“Phil-like-phlegm,” Phil counters.
They trade F’s and Ph’s as they walk to the car: philosophy, Fredericksburg, phrenology, fantastic.
The theatre’s pretty empty, and they’d gotten there early so they could claim seats in the back: no one behind them, eyes on all the exits. Coulson buys the tickets, popcorn, and sodas; Clint repays him by pretending that he has any idea what’s going on in the movie. Part of it’s that he doesn’t remember who half the characters are, but more of it is that Coulson had only gotten one tub of popcorn. And they’re both kind of hungry.
Their hands keep touching.
Clint is very aware of how pathetic it is that the brush of Coulson’s hand can make his entire arm tingle, but that doesn’t stop his body from leaning toward Coulson like a lopsided tower.
The fat little monkeys are throwing some sort of party when Clint finally decides to make his move. He scrubs his fingers clean on his jeans, turns in his seat as much as he can, and puts his only-slightly-buttery hand on Coulson’s face.
He kisses Phil Coulson for the first time in the back row of an old movie theatre. Coulson, after a moment where time stops and Clint’s heart freezes in his chest, kisses him back. Coulson tastes like popcorn and Sprite. His lips are soft. Clint’s eyes close almost automatically, so he’s not sure how he knows that Coulson is smiling.
Clint’s kissed girls before, but this feels different. He doesn’t know if it’s because he wants it so much this time, or if it’s because it’s with a man, or if it’s just because it’s Coulson. He wishes he didn’t have to stop.
In the dark nervous place inside of Clint where he worries that Coulson will leave him, there is another fear: fear that Coulson looks at him like a child, a student, a retard to be pitied. But in the dark of the movie theatre, lit by the flickering movie screen, Clint feels uncomfortable only because of the amazement he sees in Coulson’s face.
“All of my geeky middle school fantasies just came true,” Coulson whispers, pulling back a bit. Clint’s perversely proud of having made Coulson sound so breathless.
“I’m pretty sure we’d have to be watching a Captain America film for that to be true,” he whispers back, body thrumming with adrenaline, with the pleasure of knowing Phil well enough to tease him like this.
“Well,” Coulson says, a look in his eyes that Clint doesn’t know how to read yet, “there’s always next weekend.”
In the end of the movie the rebels win and Clint reaches for and holds Phil’s hand.
*
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