10. Chapter 10

When Phil pulled into a gas station, Clint and the Black Widow dumped their obvious weaponry into the footwell and eeled out of the passenger door. Phil's instructions were to go into the little mart and kill time looking at snacks on the shelves. It got boring fast and Phil spent a lot of time trying to look like he was possibly the most indecisive grocery shopper on the continent.

"You ready to leave, baby?" Speaking in German, Clint appeared out of nowhere and wrapped an arm around Phil's waist.

Phil did his best not to act startled. "Yes, dear."

"Let's buy this and go. I parked the car down the street." Clint steered him to the cashier booth, and pulled out a beat up wallet. Phil put his random assortment of stuff -- hand sanitizer, a six pack of soda, and a small package of donuts that hardly seemed worthy of the name -- on the counter. Clint paid in cash, deftly handling the money as if he dealt in Euros every day.

The car was a typical small European city car, and Phil felt like he was being shoved into a shoebox. Clint drove away, and it was only then that Phil realized the ambulance was nowhere to be seen. Sighing at the way he seemed perpetually one step behind the specialists, he turned to Clint. "Where to?"

"Hotel, I think. A coffee shop would work but it's a bit public."

Phil nodded and let Clint get them to a hotel, where he used one of the credit cards in the wallet to pay for two days, explaining to Phil as they walked to their room that it looked less suspicious.

When the door was safely closed behind them, Phil stood in the middle of the room, clutching his backpack to his chest, his mind speeding through the things he needed to do. "How long do you think we have?"

Clint shrugged, throwing his jacket onto the bed. "Five hours."

Phil reviewed his map of Europe in his head. "The Widow can play cat and mouse with a Viennese ambulance that long?"

"No, she could probably do that for at least three days. You only asked for a few hours, she told me she'd give you five."

"Oh." He looked down at the computer in his arms. "I'm not sure my laptop is secure."

"No kidding. Don't let it connect to any wi-fi, though, and we should be okay."

"I thought they had trackers," Phil said, pulling his laptop out and inspecting it.

"They do. Natasha took care of that."

Phil glared at him, because the trackers were used on all equipment that was over $1000 on inventory, and they were supposedly indestructible, not to mention that he had no memory of the Widow even getting near his backpack. "How?"

"You're crazy if you think I'm telling you that." Clint fell backwards and bounced on the bed, grinning.

Phil made a note to have some minions comb over the portable items inventory (which would certainly secure his position as one of the most hated supervisors at SHIELD), then carefully turned off the wi-fi using the manual switch so it would not even try to ping any networks. He opened up the small laptop and plugged in his flashdrive with the results of his off-the-cuff analysis he had done back at the office building in Budapest. It seemed like it had happened weeks earlier, not a couple of hours ago. He sighed heavily as he sat down at the lonely little table. He felt his body crashing hard, the comedown from the excitement doubling up with his body's own reaction to all the stresses he had put it through in the last 12 hours. Or really the last 40, since he had gotten on that quinjet back in New York.

"Hey, you're falling out."

Phil blinked, trying to pretend he had not just dozed off over his laptop. "Shit."

Clint was crouched down next to him, worry crinkling the skin around his eyes. "Take a nap."

"Give me one of those sodas." Phil reached a hand out for the market bag.

Hawkeye glared at him. "You have time to take 30 minutes."

"This is important, Hawkeye. I can stay awake for a little longer."

"Stubborn bastard," Hawkeye sighed and handed over one of the caffeine-laden drinks. Phil downed the thing in short order, knowing he was pushing his body way past the point of reasonable effort and into the realm of "going to pay for days and days."

He looked up at Clint, whose face was tight with worry and frustration. Phil nodded, because he couldn't begrudge the man's concern. "Let me work on this for a little bit, see what I've got. If it's promising, I'll get to a stopping point and take some down time."

"One hour, then you take a break." Clint countered.

"Yeah. Yeah, that's fine." Phil turned mechanically back to his laptop and pulled up the analysis. They were a mish-mash of relationships, account transactions bouncing back and forth over the course of months. The only reason Phil saw any kind of pattern at all was because he was looking at the data his macros had pulled, and not the original files, the copies of which he was wary of opening. He didn't even notice that Clint had stood up again until he grabbed his jacket.

"Hour's almost up. I'm going out for food."

"I'm fine," Phil said, knowing it was a pretty transparent lie but unhappy about Clint going outside. Any exposure was a risk for the next few hours, and they both knew that.

"That horrible dinner didn't stick with me, and I'm pretty sure you've run through your reserves." Clint put a gentle hand on Phil's shoulder. "Let me take care of you."

"Because I'm a handicap?" Phil spit out the words a little more bitterly than he intended then cringed, wondering where his filter had gone.

Clint removed his hand, his manner professional and distant. "Because you got my team out of a tight spot, and I need you in top form to take down that fucking mole who tried to sell my partner into slavery."

Phil grabbed his wrist before he moved away. "I'm sorry."

Clint shrugged, pulling his hand free at the same time. "It's fine, I get it."

"You…get it?" Phil frowned. He was confused, and suspected he was more in need of food than he originally thought, if his brain was that sluggish.

"Yeah, I mean, you're top dog, right? You don't need someone like me around." He threw his jacket on. "But you're still my problem for a few hours yet, so I'm going to go get you some real food."

"I meant I was sorry I snapped at you. I'm not really sure where the conversation went after that."

Clint opened the stolen wallet and looked at the credit cards. "You don't need me to take care of you, that's not your thing. I'm not your thing. Whatever." He huffed and shoved the wallet into his back pocket, still not looking at Phil.

"In ten years, you've never gotten my name right, not once. You ask me out while I'm coming down from a near-brush with asthma and also certain death, and now you're acting like we're in high school."

"Oh I'm so fucking sorry—" Clint snarled.

"And since when were you into men? Ever? Much less." Phil waved a hand over himself. "Much less this. Really?" He pinched the bridge of his nose. "You've been flirting with me hot and cold in possibly the most inopportune time of my life to start up a relationship. Fuck you, sincerely. Go get me some breakfast, just get out of my face so I can do my job." Phil tuned him out and looked at his laptop, barely hearing it when Clint, or Hawkeye, or Agent Barton left the room.

It was an hour later before Clint walked back in, quiet and low-key. He had a couple of bags in his hands that smelled delightfully of pastries and eggs. He stood awkwardly next to the table, holding the bags and looking a little bit like a kicked dog. He didn't say anything.

Sighing, Phil nodded at the other chair and closed his laptop, leaving it on the table but pushed to one side. Clint sat down and spread out the food. Phil, feeling the tremors in his hands from his exhaustion and stress, fell on the food like a starving man.

"Any luck?" Clint asked after a few minutes, still looking down.

Phil swallowed and put down his fork. "Clint."

Clint took a very deep breath before straightening up and looking at Phil. "Yes sir?"

"Did you really ask me out for a coffee date somewhere between Budapest and Vienna?"

Clint opened his mouth but paused when Phil turned his high-power glare on him. He sighed. "Yes sir, I did. But—"

"No, you don't get to backtrack out of that. What you will do now is explain to me why."

"Why?" Clint asked, angling his body, radiating distrust.

"Yes: why?"

Clint's face pinched like he had bitten a lemon. "Seriously?"

"I'm not dating a man who can't express his emotions in a healthy, mature way. Or, at least, some kind of way."

Clint perked up. "You'd date me?"

"Yes. Once we clear up this whole fucking mess you've made."

Clint slumped in the chair. "I'm kind of good at making a mess, sir."

"I'm the one who has to sign off on whether we cover those messes or dock your pay, so believe me, I know."

Clint picked at his Danish, letting the pause drag on for a while before finally sighing heavily. "I knew your name."

Phil stared at him. "I told you my name dozens of times over the years, you never used it, not once."

He took a deep breath, looking off to the side. "You're important. You've always been important, ever since I joined SHIELD the one person people told me not to piss off was that guy in accounting who wore the tailored suits: Phil Coulson."

"I would think Fury has a lock on that warning."

"Hell no, I piss him off all the time." Clint grinned, biting into some pastry.

Phil had to smile. "Guess that makes two of us."

Clint nodded again. "First time I saw you was right after I first joined up. Some kind of training session, I don't know, couldn't tell you what it was about. I just remember you walking in the room to make your presentation and everyone snapping to attention. You ruled that room, even the senior agents were squirming. The instructor was Agent Myer, and I've never seen him look nervous before or since. You were hot as hell."

Phil blinked in surprise. "Myer's class? I teach a module on attack accounting and tax evasion." He couldn't think of a worse way to impress anybody.

"Yeah, that was boring. You were hot." The grin turned sly and sweet, Clint looking up at Phil through his eyelashes. Phil frowned at him and Clint laughed.

"Had to keep you off the game, couldn't let you know I was interested. Diversion, sleight of hand thing. Like I had a chance with the high ranking smart guy, always a level or two up from me, dressed in tailored suits?"

"And gay." Phil jumped on the intuition.

Clint tensed up but only gave him a curt nod.

"I'm not in the closet. If you want this, it's not going to be a secret."

Clint looked up at him, his expression open and his eyes wide. "So you'd date me?"

"I already answered that, but yes, I would. If you want to. I'm still flummoxed about the fact that you date men at all."

Clint's eyes darkened. "No, I really don't."

There was something deep and wrong there, but Phil understood instinctively that it was not on the table for discussion. "I'm the exception?"

"Not the only exception. I've been down this road, I just don't…it's a chance not worth taking, most of the time. Like I said, I trust you."

It was suddenly a lot of responsibility to be loaded down with. Phil dove back into his own plate of food for a while. Clint's head was bowed over his little plate, and even his shoulders seemed to convey a wary sense of trepidation. Phil's brain was barely tripping on an empty tank, despite the food, and he knew he was missing something important. But one memory stood out, the kiss in the warehouse when Phil had manhandled Clint -- who was stronger, and faster, and better trained, but had been just short of eager to let Phil hold him.

Slowly, telegraphing his movements, Phil reached over and grabbed a fistful of Clint's hair, pulling his head up.

Clint's mouth was frozen open in a gasp, his eyes glossy and his pupils dilating.

"You trust me."

Clint stuttered for a moment and tried to nod, but Phil tightened his grip, pulling at Clint's hair. Clint sucked in a deep breath. "Yes sir."

It was pretty much every pornographic fantasy that Phil had entertained about Agent Clint Barton for the last ten years, and he wasn't really sure what he was doing but playing by ear had gone well for them so far. He nodded. "I can work with that. Now finish your food while I wrap this job up."

He let go but Clint kept his head up, a very tentative smile edging along his lips.

Phil ignored his instinct to grab Clint and throw him on the bed, mostly because he thought the exertion would make him pass out. Instead he tapped the laptop. "We're not done talking, but I'm ready to get online to run a final chase on the connections. I've set up some algorithms that I can launch the second I'm signed into the bank accounts in question, and I expect we'll have our mole's identity within 45 seconds after that. It will still get us pinged on the data stream, not to mention my login being used will get Fury's immediate attention."

Clint frowned at his plate. "If your logins still work."

"Oh, they do. It's part of the whole contingency plan in place in case I ever get kidnapped. If my logins are used, it is a great way to track anyone who has me. I have orders to play hard to get but then give up my codes within the hour, if asked."

"Huh. Smart." Clint nodded.

"Nick's -- Fury's -- idea."

"See? You're on a first name basis with Fury. Fuck." Clint leaned back in the chair and stared at the ceiling. "What the hell was I thinking?"

Phil chose to ignore that for the time being. "How long after that will SHIELD descend on us?"

"What? Oh. Hm." Clint snapped his fingers. "An hour. Mostly that's travel time. They'll have to run down the IP address and then triangulate from there, but they will have our location within 15 minutes. Once they know where the login is coming from, they will send in a local team. And probably local police as back up. This whole hotel is going to be locked down pretty tight. I'd feel pretty bad for us if we were trying to run for it." He grinned.

Phil nodded, mulling it over. "Once I get what I need, there is no need to hide. I'll ping Fury directly."

"Eh, still an hour or so. Like I said, mostly travel time." He kicked back in the chair and folded his hands over his stomach. "Am I doing anything?"

"Cleaning up breakfast mess, mostly."

"On it." Clink laughed and stood up, sorting the trash.

Phil turned the wi-fi back on and logged into on open wireless network that was nearby, avoiding the hotel's connection mostly out of paranoia. He had three tabs open, and as soon as he was connected logged into one account after the other, using his admin access to push the macros into the reports he was running.

"You had all those account numbers memorized, didn't you?" Clint asked over his shoulder.

"Yes. Of course."

Clint whistled but went to throw the trash out, a good excuse to case the area to see if anyone was on the way yet.

Three times the results pinged a name Phil recognized. He grimaced.

Clint was walking back in through the door just then, and caught the look. "What?"

"Agent Felix Blake is a senior handler, right?"

Clint rolled his eyes. "Yeah. One step away from promotion to assistant deputy director. He was pretty pissed when Hill was leapfrogged over him—" Clint stalled. "Holy shit. Really?"

Phil nodded. "Looks like."

Clint's entire demeanor turned tense and angry. "That fucker."

"Smart fucker, though. This?" Phil tapped his screen. "This is good. Very good. I doubt he was acting without some kind of support network. Who or how I can't say, but he's been thorough. And he had me fooled, I thought he could barely add." Phil's face tightened up in dismay, unhappy about how he had been played in the most obvious way.

"Fucker!" Clint repeated passionately, pacing back and forth in front of the door, looking for all the world like a caged animal.

"Time to end this. I'm pinging Nick."

Clint stopped. "Yeah, okay. 'Nick'."

Phil ignored the jab. His heart-rate spiked as he saved the data and then opened the interoffice chat program, logging in and poking Fury. Clint walked over to watch.

NFury: If that's you, Barton, you're fucking fired and dead. Turn over Coulson and I might make it quick.

"Wow." Clint hissed, reading the text, glancing at Phil and trying not to look worried about it.

PJCoulson: Nick: 43-15-89-Alpha. Mole is Agent Felix Blake, senior handler. He's probably already in transit.

NFury: Shit. Done. There was a long pause. You okay, Phil? Got your inhaler?

PJCoulson: Asshole. Also I'm with Agent Barton, the turncoat thing was an act.

NFury: I have a six people who wet their pants because of him. He's paying for the uniform cleaning.

Clint laughed out loud.

PJCoulson: I'll figure something out. Tired, going to rest until the cleanup crew gets here.

NFury: I'm told ETA 48 minutes. Is Black Widow with you?

PJCoulson: No, she's somewhere in the ambulance we left the air field with. I thought I would need more time, so she was the distraction. Best idea I could come up with. She'll surface in about three more hours.

There was a long pause before Fury answered. NFury: Your idea. You got Delta to go along with it?

"Yeah, here we go." Clint sighed as he stood up and walked away.

PJCoulson: Yes. They are professionals and we all worked well together as a team.

NFury: Forget I asked. Save that bullshitting for the debrief.

Phil could imagine the huff-and-eye roll was getting long distance.

NFury: Hold on a sec. Reports coming in…

"Something's happening." Phil looked up at Clint, motioning him to come back over. They stared at the chat window for nearly a minute before Fury got back to him.

NFury: You don't fuck around, do you? HYDRA? Really, fucker? Goddamnit Phil, I'm telling your mother.

Phil felt himself pale, his fingers frozen over the keyboard while Clint scrunched up his face in confusion. He was saved by Fury's next message. NFury: Look, stay low. This is blowing up. Hawkeye is with you, right?

PJCoulson: Standing threateningly over my shoulder as we speak.

NFury: Hawkeye, your first job is to keep Phil safe. Lock down, protocol Event Horizon.

Clint laughed. "Tell him I'm on the job."

Phil wrote as much and Fury immediately signed off, the little blinking cursor in the empty chat box mocking Phil. "What is Event Horizon?"

"Meh. It means shit is going down across several national borders. It's just code for 'stay inside, don't make trouble.' He's got bigger problems than sending an extraction team after us, and we're not in immediate danger." Clint smiled at him. "What it means is that your 45 second transmission stirred up an international hornet's nest. Congratulations, sir, I think you just became an honorary member of Strike Team Delta." His grin turned bright and endless.

Phil got up and took Clint's face in his hands. He kissed him, pulling Clint closer as he pressed up against him, basking in the warmth of connection. He shifted to wrap one arm around Clint's torso, yanking so their bodies were lined up from shoulder to knee. Clint's initial gasp of surprise spilled over into a long groan. Phil felt his knees go weak from the complete surrender that Clint was giving over to him, opening his mouth eagerly to Phil's demands, and giving back as good as he got.

Then he blinked up at the ceiling from the bed. "What?"

"Your knees gave out, you practically fainted. You're whipped, sir, you need some shut eye." Clint was lying next to him propped up on his elbow, his other arm draped over Phil's chest. Phil opened his mouth to argue, but Clint's look of worry and uncertainty stopped him. Clint took a deep breath. "Let me take care of you, Sir." The words were nearly a whisper and Clint was not even looking him in the eye, concentrating instead on his hand that was rubbing slow circles over Phil's chest.

Phil brought up his arm that was between them and took a firm hold of Clint's chin. "Secure the room, and take my shoes off. Then come back to bed."

Clint blushed furiously, but managed to smirk. "You need your sleep, Sir."

"I know that. I want you next to me while I sleep." Phil cleared his throat, swamped by memories of adolescent fantasies where he was an important somebody whom Captain America had to keep safe. They translated a little too easily to Hawkeye. "To protect me. I'll sleep better if I can touch you, if I know you're nearby."

Clint's harsh intake of breath told Phil the risk of his pride had been worth it. "Yes Sir," Clint said quickly and rolled out of bed. His mind graying out from exhaustion, Phil did not actually remember when Clint crawled in next to him and covered them with the bedspread.