4. Chapter 4

They split up in London, with Phil and Culbreath waiting 12 hours to catch a flight into Budapest, travelling as businessmen heading in for a (very conveniently timed) tech convention. The rest of the team kept going on the quinjet to infiltrate into the city and set up base, or whatever else field teams did. Phil knew the general outlines of ops from years of approving and auditing their expense reports, but on the whole had kept out of the nuts-and-bolts of how they were run. That was what handlers were for, after all, and Sitwell's expense reports were just beautiful so Phil assumed the man knew what he was doing.

He and Culbreath checked into their hotel early in the evening. It was one of the international chains designed to put North Americans at ease in distinctly foreign climes, and while Phil would have much preferred something less bland and rectangular, he was not there on vacation. He was surprised when the whole team met together for dinner, assuming that staying split up would be more stealthy or something, but there they were in the hotel's 'grill' featuring Hungarian dishes spiced for Americanized palates. At least it overlooked the Danube.

The Widow looked a little frumpy in a black wig and a badly fitted dress, while the rest of the men all matched in cheap business suits. Hawkeye's hair was slicked back, taking about ten years off of him in a surprisingly unflattering way. Sitwell had changed out his regular wire frame glasses for bulky tortoise shell ones and was somehow radiating a veneer of "I'm very gay," which given SHIELD gossip about him was about as far from true has humanly possible. Phil had to admit he was impressed, especially since he knew he did not look one whit different than he ever did, even if his own borrowed suit also fit tragically in that uniform way all cheap suits did. He was non-descript and middle-aged and he knew it.

Hawkeye sat next to him and talked a lot about the convention's schedule the following day. Phil had no idea if it was cover or code, so focused on his clichéd goulash. Figueroa and Culbreath spent the whole time arguing about sports, which looked like a genuine enough fight to Phil. Sometimes the Widow piped up in a squeaky voice to agree with anything Sitwell said, but mostly it was the group of them acting like American businesspeople trying not to be obnoxious. Phil and Sitwell glared at each other when Sitwell signed the check with a mean-spirited flourish that clearly said, "audit your own damn dinner, sucker!"

They all migrated over to the bar, where Hawkeye buddied up to Phil and leaned in. "Culbreath needs to go with Sitwell to check over the set up, since he's on backup. They're going to flirt and pretend to leave together after about an hour. Widow's playing a lightweight and leaving early to go get in place, and Figueroa is ducking out the back next time he goes for a piss. I'm on you."

Phil tried not to spit out his drink. "You haven't even sweet talked me yet."

Hawkeye grinned happily, a mischievous gleam in his eyes, and Phil was gone. All he could do was try not to blush like a 17 year old virgin under the assassin's all-seeing gaze. Which was sweeping up and down Phil's horrible suit in a very unsubtle way. Phil blushed anyway and Hawkeye chuckled.

"Good plan, sir. That way we can leave and go up to your room together."

"Okay," Phil agreed, his voice strangled. He slammed his drink, realizing what a bad idea that was as soon as he set it down.

"Take it easy there, cowboy," Hawkeye muttered, waving over the bartender.

Phil babied his second drink for a long time, which was easy because Hawkeye was genuinely entertaining. They could not talk shop, but they found common ground with "terrible television shows I feel compelled to watch" as well as Dog Cops. Phil had drifted into "flirt with the handsome guy at the bar" mode without even realizing it until Hawkeye draped an arm over his shoulder and leaned in with a downright smoldering look. Phil froze.

"Maybe we should take this upstairs, baby?" Hawkeye crooned.

"Uh."

Hawkeye's eyebrows went up.

"I mean, yeah, that. Yeah." Phil nodded and tried not to fumble the tumbler in his hand as he finished off the dregs of his drink. As he set the glass down Hawkeye tilted his head towards him with his fingers lightly on Phil's jaw then kissed him softly. He smelled of musky sweat and expensive whiskey, his muscled arm pressing across Phil's shoulders as his lips nibbled at Phil's mouth. Phil's heart stopped on a dime and he felt the familiar sharp pull of his lungs trying to suck in air. He broke off quickly, disappointed, but closed his eyes as he slowly breathed in.

"You okay?" Hawkeye nuzzled his ear, which did not help.

"Yeah, fine, great. Let's go?" Phil pushed off the bar and away from Hawkeye, who smirked at him with enough heat to melt rocks. Phil was so utterly screwed, words failed him.

They walked to the elevator in the lobby with restraint, brushing shoulders and barely speaking, which helped Phil ground himself again. He was there for a mission, not to flirt with the straight guy who turned over girlfriends on an annual basis. Anyone who had seen them earlier would assume they were headed up to Phil's room to fuck, and that pretty much meant their job there was done. He took out his inhaler when the elevator closed and sucked in a puff of medicine, trying not to cough it out when Hawkeye started rubbing his back, his hand tracing slow, warm circles.

"You sure you're okay?"

"Fury knows my medical file. I won't drop dead on you." Phil whispered, flinching out of Hawkeye's touch.

Hawkeye frowned at him. "I know that. Look, let's not pretend you aren't possibly the third most important person in the whole damn organization, if not second. You wouldn't get sent out here with us if it was that dangerous. My job is just to make sure we do what we need to do and get you home safely so we can all get cleared off of Fury's shit list."

Phil sighed. That answered his question about whether the team knew his real purpose in tagging along, which was unfortunate, but he had to trust Nick's judgment. He was an asshole but he always had his reasons, and clearly one of those reasons was that he suspected someone on Delta had been turned.

Hawkeye stepped closer, muscling into Phil's space and slamming his mouth over Phil's right as the doors of the elevator slid open. A couple standing on the other side gaped at them as Hawkeye broke off with a mumbled apology and dragged Phil out into the hallway, pulling him along and getting handsy under Phil's jacket.

"Oversell it much?" Phil hissed, trying to smile alluringly through clinched teeth.

"Relax, baby, I'm going to make it so good for you," Hawkeye grinned like a brat and Phil tried not to roll his eyes as he pulled out his room card and swiped them in. Hawkeye shoved him against a wall and started kissing him again until the door finally closed completely. Hawkeye pulled off of sucking Phil's lower lip slowly, and Phil realized he had both hands clutching Hawkeye's ass.

"Damn it," Phil sighed, pushing him away again. "Sorry. Habit."

Hawkeye chuckled. "I get that a lot."

"Right." Phil fumbled for his inhaler again, but put it away. He knew better than to stagger doses too closely together, it would set his heart rate off the chart. He looked up into Hawkeye's eyes, studying Phil carefully and seeing far too much of what was going on in Phil's head.

"If I had known I wouldn't have played it so heavy. I'm not that much of a jerk."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Phil willfully pushed the topic aside. "I guess we're here for the duration?"

Hawkeye took off his jacket and tie, and suddenly Phil understood the whole point of poorly fitting suits: they hid tactical field uniforms really well. He had not even realized Hawkeye was wearing two sets of clothes, and he had been glad-handing his ass. Phil tried not to feel completely out of his league.

"Yeah. Rendezvous in T minus four hours. Change out, relax." Hawkeye went over to Culbreath's suitcase and opened it up, pulling out a pair of boots. At Phil's raised eyebrow, Hawkeye shrugged. "We wear the same size, so trade off all the time. I'm honestly not sure whose boots are whose anymore." He kicked off the dress shoes and pulled on the boots.

"Convenient." Phil nodded, getting out his tablet and firing it up. After changing into his own tactical field uniform, which seemed a lot less impressive than Hawkeye's despite being technically identical, he logged into the secure VPN. After checking his assignment docket, making sure Fury hadn't added anything to it, he caught up on some emails. He wasn't sure if he was disturbed or pleased by how well his team kept going without him; he chose to believe it was because of his excellent leadership abilities, and left it at that.

He looked up when Hawkeye sat on his bed, bouncing up and down. "So hey, time to review."

"Okay." Phil put the tablet away. They still had an hour and half until they were set to be in motion, but Phil appreciated the need to take extra time for review.

"Normally Culbreath is our tech guy, but Fury made it clear that part of your, ah, 'experience' would be to go in with us and extract the data we're looking for with your very own hands."

Phil nodded. "Yes. It should be straightforward, if the intel I've read about their systems is accurate and the codes we have are valid."

"Mmmmm." Hawkeye rubbed the back of his neck. "That's actually asking a lot out of our intel group."

"They are best intel group on the planet."

"Which helps, sure."

Phil frowned. "Those assholes suck up 17% of my operating budget, they better be the best, and their data right on the money."

Hawkeye laughed. "I like you, Keller."

"Coulson, for fuck's sake, get my name right."

Hawkeye nodded slowly. "Since we've lip locked and all: Clint Barton. Call me Clint." He stuck out his hand.

Phil eyed it for a moment, but what the hell, it wasn't a lot of people who were on first name basis with Hawkeye. "Phil Coulson. Call me Phil." He shook his hand and forced himself to let go after a short moment of enjoying the feel of the archer's callouses.

"What I'm saying is, field ops never go as planned. Never, ever ever. Never. Just expect for things to not…match up. If you hit a wall, let us know, we'll adapt."

"Got it."

"Okay. So, here's the plan." Clint outlined their approach to the office building, how they planned to get in, extraction points, and schedule. It was the same thing Sitwell had emailed out earlier, which meant if their mole was paying attention, their op had already gone belly up. Phil honestly did not know whether to mention that or not, and his expression must have tipped off Clint.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"You sure?"

"I'm sure. Just first time jitters."

Clint opened his mouth but Phil held up a warning finger. "Don't even. Not a word."

Clint laughed instead and went to do some stretches, deep bends and lunges and back extensions that did absolutely nothing to help Phil's heart rate or attention span. It didn't seem like there would much harm in staring but then again, Hawkeye -- Clint -- was a very well-known rake who was (probably) an ex of the Black Widow and documented as straight. Not that Phil had seen his personnel file, but word got around. Even in SHIELD the queers held rank and everyone knew about each other, and who was batting for which team. Hawkeye had never come up in rotation, and Phil had been (discretely) following that line of gossip for years. He was the first to admit that he tended to have impossible, unhealthy crushes; first with Captain America in his formative years, and now with Hawkeye the World's Greatest Marksman during his middle age. Both were equally hopeless, and Phil was enough of an adult to admit that much.

Nonetheless, he had not even been on a date since being promoted to Level 8 and made the chief financial officer of SHIELD. Part of it was due to a creeping sense of old age, of being past his prime, but a bigger part of it was his job. He could not pretend to have time for a typical family life, and he knew that playing free and easy with casual hookups was a security risk. That left co-workers, but he was too high up on the ladder for an office romance to be anything other than a sexual harassment law suit in waiting. That was assuming he only picked from the pool of people who did not actively hate him, which was small because he was always slashing budgets and denying funding requests for most of the organization. In any case Phil didn't want to be used any more than he wanted someone to feel obligated to him, and more importantly Phil was the kind of guy who liked to settle down. He did the playboy thing all through Levels 2 and 3 and it was fun, but it was phase and he didn't miss it. Except possibly in those moments he was stealing looks at Clint Barton's breath-taking physique, when the idle fantasy of a no-strings-attached roll in the hay sounded excellent.

Sighing, he tried to focus on his email. After a few moments, though, he noticed that Clint kept checking his phone again and again.

"Are we waiting on a check in?" Phil folded up his tablet cover.

Clint stood up from the deep knee bend he was in and looked at his phone. "Officially? No. Nothing on the comms until zero hour." He bit his lip, which looked frankly adorable, while staring at Phil. "Look, Phil: we're Strike Team Delta. We do things our own way."

Phil sighed. "I have seen the expense reports, Hawkeye. They always get shifted up the ladder for my signature; no one else wants to approve them. Even when Sitwell is handling."

"Oh. Okay. Sorry?"

"Get to the point."

"Right, yes sir. I mean, normally Nat would have pinged me by now to let me know she was in place, or let me know she couldn't get to location."

Phil didn't like the implication any more than Clint did. "Can you 'ping' Sitwell?"

"He hates that. But yeah, good idea." Clint punched at his phone and they waited.

And waited.

"I get the feeling he should have responded by now." Phil stood and slid his feet into his black trainers and tied them up.

Clint glanced at the door. "Yeah."

"Can you 'ping' anyone else?"

Clint shook his head. "Sitwell's an exception. This is just between the Widow and me, usually." He pocketed the phone and stood up straight. "We're heading out. You got what you need? Don't leave anything sensitive behind. We're not coming back."

"I'm ready." Phil slung his small carry-all backpack on and holstered his gun before pulling on his winter jacket. The tactical field uniform felt weird and bulky and completely out of place in a mid-priced convention hotel. He rolled his shoulders. "What's the plan?"

"Figure out what happened to our team, but mostly get you to the extraction point. Stand back." Clint moved to the door and crouched down, opening it and peeking out from just a foot above floor level. Phil tried really hard not to focus on how limber he was.

They made it out to the stairwell when they heard the elevator ping. A couple of burley men stepped out and headed in the opposite direction, straight for Phil's room. Clint closed the door to the stair well silently and they took off at top speed -- or, at least, Phil's top speed -- down the stairs. At the bottom floor, Clint stopped them and patted Phil's chest down. "You breathing okay? Winded? Scared? They didn't see us, total amateurs, I'm almost offended." Clint held his face still and peeled back an eyelid.

"Hey!"

Clint stepped back. "Just making sure your eyes aren't dilated."

They heard the stairwell door slam open and what sounded like a herd of elephants start down. Clint turned and led them out through service corridors, past startled employees, and into a fairly busy alleyway. At the street, Clint calmly walked up to an idling sedan, opened the door, yanked the driver out and got in. Phil dashed for it and landed in the backseat as Clint floored it, the irate carjacking victim still standing on the sidewalk, screaming for the police.

"There went operational security!" Phil yelled.

"I don't think we've had that for a while. Hopefully the extraction point is secure."

"No, no! You can't take me there."

"Don't worry! I'm a professional!" Clint yelled as he flew through traffic at murderous speed. Phil rolled around in the back seat until he got a grip on the driver's side seat, then felt around Clint's body.

"What are you DOING????" Clint yelled.

"Buckling you in! Eyes on the road!" Phil finally managed to snap the seat belt around Clint, then fell backwards and scrambled for his own.

"Fucking freak! If you get hurt Fury will carve out my balls with a spoon!"

"We are not going to the extraction point! That's an order!"

"Like hell it is! I'm getting you out of here!"

"No! I've got to get to the target location!"

"Seriously, Phil, you've got nothing to prove here." Clint swerved around a corner, slamming Phil into the side door. "This was supposed to be a milk run, and it's not. You're too important to risk just to make a point. Fury wins, whatever, I'm getting you the fuck out of here."

Phil instinctively reached forward and grabbed a handful of Clint's hair. Clint gasped and possibly squeaked, but kept his eyes on the road. Phil shook his head a little, yanking hard on his hair. Clint squeaked again. "We are not going to the extraction point. This isn't a milk run, it never was. Fury sent me in specifically to source that computer system for proof of a mole in our ranks. High ranking, and almost definitely watching this whole op from the start, and possibly involving a member of your team." He let go and Clint took a deep breath, followed by another, raspy and wet sounding. Finally he nodded.

"Okay, okay, you made your point. It would explain why everything went FUBAR. But I guarantee you they are expecting us at the target location. Natasha -- shit, she's probably been compromised, or forced into hiding. Sitwell and Culbreath, damnit. Figueroa's been gone the longest." Clint hit the steering wheel.

"They might still be alive."

"Maybe, but like Nat they're in hiding if so; that's assuming one of them isn't working with the mole. Anyway our standing orders in situations like this are to cut and run, met at the extraction point."

"We can't trust the extraction point, Clint," Phil pointed out softly.

Clint cursed again. "Fuck, this is what handlers are for. Shit." He spun the car around and a few minutes later they were skulking into a parking garage, lights off, rolling into an empty space. Clint rested his head against the steering wheel. Phil leaned back in the seat, trying to organize his thoughts. If there was one strength he had on offer, it was his ability to find patterns and organize data.

"We broke up, and one by one disappeared. I'm guessing the Black Widow was taken off the chess board first, as she's the most dangerous and the most adaptable. Would she ever go, ah, incommunicado? Voluntarily?"

Clint sighed from the front seat, not moving. "Not often, and only in extreme situations. If she were just in hiding, she'd ping me."

"What if your channels aren't secure?"

"They are. They're ours."

"You don't run them through SHIELD at all?" Phil was surprised, but then again, maybe not. Strike Team Delta had a well-earned reputation.

"Sure, but not through regular set ups. Nothing actually assigned to us."

"But discoverable, if someone were looking."

"I hate my life," Clint grumbled, knocking his head on the steering wheel again. "Not that it matters, I won't live long once Fury gets his hands on me after this clusterfuck."

"How far are we from the target location right now?"

Clint sat up and blinked, and took on the expression of a computer processing data. "Not far, actually. A mile, tops. But they are waiting for us."

"No, they aren't. They expected to clear the board completely, and they would have if you and the Widow didn't have your own protocol outside of standard procedures. They might double the guard but they are not expecting the target to be hit. In fact I'm betting they think we are on our way to the extraction point."

"Huh." Clint nodded. "But that cuts our time by a lot. We'll have to go in fast and hard, because once they case the extraction point and we aren't there, they will circle back."

"So what are we waiting for?"

Clint turned in the seat to give Phil an absolutely filthy grin. "I knew I liked you, Phil."