No Good With Words But I'm Worse (PG)
Title: No Good with Words but I'm Worse
Rating: PG
Word Count: 3015
Summary: Phil Coulson isn't much for dancing. He's the definition of a wallflower, but this party just might be one to remember.
Notes: Inspired by russandoll's work If I can't Dance, Then I Don't Want any Part of your Revolution
Phil likes Mabel. She’s been with SHIELD since the beginning and isn’t afraid to remind the junior agents that her age demands their respect. (Phil never needed to be taught that lesson, his mother raised him better.) Mabel always remembers that Phil likes his tea with one sugar - she has it waiting for him when he steps out of the car park because the two of them operate on long-standing routine. She greets him with a smile, a plea to get more sleep and a cup of black tea that isn’t the Lipton Yellow Label the junior agents receive. Phil thanks her, compliments her hair and heads to the bank of elevators. The exchange takes two minutes at the most and Phil is in his office at half past six. They’ve been doing this since Phil started at SHIELD.
No one would be surprised to learn Phil isn’t a party goer. He finds them loud, obnoxious and full of too many people that never seem to remember he is a SHIELD agent, no longer the young man that worked in stationery due to his old-fashioned penmanship and dedication to organization. Phil attends the retirement party and orders a tumbler of scotch.
The first sip is a smooth burn down his throat. Phil catches Mabel’s eye from where she has gathered a group of junior agents (is one of them crying? Phil keeps himself from rolling his eyes with sheer willpower) and the older woman smiles brightly at him. Phil decides to find a table in the back corner instead of his previous plan of departing to his office to finish signing the requisition forms for the Avengers Initiative. He knows that Mabel will miss her own party to track him down and Phil has no desire to repeat the scolding that occurred six years ago when he checked himself out of Medical to keep up their morning routine like he hadn’t been hit with an experimental virus hours earlier. It won't be hard to stay out of the way, tucked away in this darkened corner and sip his scotch, even though Phil knows he is the definition and stereotype of the word 'wallflower' - it's a character trait that he's cultivated and built a career on.
He drinks a little more and judges the buffet line across the room. If he has any hope of getting a piece of cake before Agent Johns, he has to act now. Phil stands, straightens his suit and marches onward, into the crowd.
Phil slips in between chatting agents, skirting around the edge of the half-full dance floor and picks up a small ceramic plate. He reaches for the serving knife and a dark-skinned hand grabs it before him.
“Still prefer a piece from the middle?” Nick Fury asks. His teeth gleam in a smile.
“Yes sir,” Phil responds with a short nod. Nick chuckles and cuts a larger piece than Phil would have served himself.
“Loosen up, agent. It’s a party, don’t forget to have some fun.” He stares at Phil until the younger man tugs on his tie to loosen it and then turns away, a swirl of black coat and quiet rumble of laughter.
The plate is pre-chilled, icy condensation dripping onto Phil’s hand. He doesn’t move, still a bit shocked at the Director being so informal (or maybe it was the fact that the man had made a beeline for Agent Romanov, who was entering the room) until someone behind him coughs and nudges him forward.
Phil doesn’t make any apologies about holding up the line, weaving his way back to his quiet seat in the back with the flickering tea light in the middle.
He eats his cake - it’s vanilla with buttercream frosting - and watches the dance floor fill up. Of course Tony Stark cajoles the Captain out in front of everyone, and Phil hides a wry smile behind a bite of cake when the billionaire gripes loudly about the state of his trodden upon toes.
The rest of the Avengers have arrived, Thor taking large forkfuls of cake as his girlfriend Dr. Foster converses with Dr. Banner. Steve finally manages to drag Tony off the dance floor and heads promptly toward the bar, no doubt to fulfill a request of the other man. Barton is making small talk with everyone, floating around the room to chat and flirt with everyone he can.
Phil’s attention is drawn once again to the dance floor, as is everyone’s, when the Director steps into the middle with Natasha on his arm. The two are a striking pair, the woman dressed in an evening gown that’s slightly overdressing for the party but Phil remembers that she should have just gotten off an assignment in the downtown area, so it’s not surprising. What is surprising to everyone, Phil included, is that the pair execute a frighteningly good tango. The dance floor clears quickly and it’s the two of them, whirling, dancing, sultry looks exchanged like there isn’t a crowd gathered. Phil doesn’t even want to know, and turns back to the last bite of cake.
He leans back in his chair, watching as the Captain stumbles onto the dance floor yet again and keeping track of Barton’s movements around the room for reasons he doesn’t examine too closely. Stark makes a comment Phil really didn’t need to overhear and Barton draws closer to Phil’s corner table.
He’s wholly unsurprised when Barton reaches for the chair opposite Phil’s and flips it backward, dropping into it and leaning forward on the backrest.
“You’re allowed to have fun,” Barton opens the conversation with an easy grin. “You’re off-duty.”
Phil gives him a wry smile in return. When you work for SHIELD, there’s no such concept and Phil says as much in a quiet tone.
“You guys have a rota, I’ve seen it.” Barton fires back and Phil doesn’t even want to know how he accessed that file because it is above the marksman's security level. Not tonight, at least. (Phil's totally capable of being off-duty, just watch.) “Sitwell’s on call tonight,” the marksman continues, like he didn’t just admit to breaking a half-dozen firewalls with unfeigned nonchalance. “Even he was tearing it up out there.”
Phil sips at his scotch, eyes noting that the dance floor is mostly empty except for the married Agents Riley swaying in the opposite corner. “I would, too, if I was an under-fifteen ballroom champion.” He sets his glass down as Barton exclaims.
“You’re shitting me.” Phil watches Barton twist his head impossibly far to look over the room that’s somehow still full, despite the party starting hours ago. “No way-”
Phil shrugs and can practically feel Barton's gaze sharpen on him. “It could be classified information,” he says noncommittally. It actually isn’t, because Sitwell has the newspaper clipping framed and moves it from office to office every few years, but Phil doubts that Barton has spent much time in Sitwell’s office.
“Then you definitely wouldn’t tell me,” Barton narrows his eyes and Phil tells himself he’s growing warm, cheeks flushing because of the alcohol. “No,” Barton decides in the next breath. “You’re totally shitting me. Though he’s got some moves, I’ll give him that.”
Phil leans back in his chair, hands folded neatly in his lap because it’s uncouth to put them on the table and besides, the plate is in the way. “SHIELD values all skillsets.” Which is apparently the wrong thing to say, because the tone Barton has is one that Phil’s only heard when he puts himself in harm’s way and doesn’t walk away unscathed. Like Phil exists in the margins, a superfluous being who corrals paperwork and arranges the new weapons from R&D show up in time for the firefight.
“Why haven’t you danced, sir?” Barton questions, almost accusingly. “Everyone else has.”
Phil shrugs for the second time that night. How does one explain years of dance training at a mother’s insistence, a late growth spurt, the cruelty of children no matter where his mother was stationed? “I’m not really big into dancing,” Phil settles on telling the other man. He remembers waltzing around a hotel ballroom with perfect execution but being told he was too stiff. There’s little need to put himself in that position nowadays and it’s not like anyone’s looking to write in Phil’s dance card anyhow. His reputation at SHIELD has seen to that. (It’s lonely at the top.)
“You okay, sir?” Barton asks and Phil’s fingers twitch against his thigh. His voice is the same gentle tone Phil’s heard him use with Agent Romanov when they got sent to Belarus and the woman stopped talking for a solid week.
“You know me - I don’t really,” Phil tries to explain because he isn’t trading memories with the younger man anytime soon. “Parties aren’t really my kind of thing.”
“You do understand that a retirement party doesn’t exactly constitute a wild social scene, don't you?” Barton looks like he’s torn between growing angry and holding back laughter.
“I spend my day picking up after superheroes,” Phil explains in a dry tone. He doesn’t understand why this seems to be an issue. “My world view is skewed.” That’s really an understatement, but Phil can feel the scotch dulling his brain, his response time and loosening his tongue.
That earns a laugh from Barton and Phil smiles at him. By his judgement and the ticking of his watch, Barton has sufficiently fulfilled his quest to talk with everyone assembled. (Of course he saved Phil for last.) He’s spent between two minutes (with the post delivery boy in the beginning of the evening) and seven minutes (with Director Fury and Agent Romanov) chatting. That Phil glances at his watch face to find that six minutes have passed is a bit of a shock. He figures it’s because he is the last person to talk to Barton, and he is the man’s handler and somehow warrants slightly more attention than the average agent.
“It’s okay, Barton. You can go.” Phil releases him from his duty because he's sure the agent has better uses of his time on a Friday night. It only makes the other man’s fists clench and lips press into a thin line; Phil doesn’t look too deep into why he’s noticing these things.
“You’re dismissing me from the party, sir?”
“No, I just mean-” Phil gestures, like spreading his hands towards the slowly emptying room has some deeper meaning. “You don’t have to stay and talk to me. You’ve done your part.”
Barton looks surprised, then frustrated. He takes a breath and opens his mouth only to close it again, not saying a word for the span of a heartbeat. Phil stares steadily into the blue eyes and the words explode out of the marksman. “I’ve done my part?” He’s definitely angry now, Phil doesn’t need a psychology course to see that. “Seriously? Why d’you think I came over here?” He runs a hand through his blond hair, a jerky movement that with the application of more force would be pulling the strands out.
Phil doesn’t know how to respond. He doesn’t shrink into himself like he desperately wants to, doesn’t sip at his drink because with his luck, he’d swallow the wrong way and begin coughing - drawing more attention than he wants. Barton's stare is penetrating and Phil stays silent.
“We’ve worked together for how long?”
“Five years,” Phil says almost immediately. Then he amends, “give or take.”
Barton rests his elbows on the table in front of him, leaning his weight into the back of the chair. “Five years of you putting up with my bullshit and dragging my injured ass out of combat zones and signing fucking medical waivers on my behalf and letting me sleep on your couch when my place had that infestation and helping me the fuck out when I got Steve in that fucking Secret Santa and you think I came to talk to you out of pity?” His voice rises slightly at the end and Phil doesn’t understand.
“I don’t know,” he confides in one breath. Phil closes his eyes because he doesn’t need to see Barton’s face when he confesses what he’s been carrying around. “There used to be a divide between work and the rest of my life but,” he opens his eyes because Barton, Clint deserves it. (Deserves more, so much more than what Phil can offer.) “It got fuzzy. Around the time of New Mexico.” The close quarters, the clusterfuck of a mission with Thor-turned-human and the Destroyer robot that wiped out most of Puente Antiguo. It was the late nights, trading sarcasm over radio channels and falling asleep in the passenger seat, speeding down desert roads.
“This isn’t work, sir-”
Phil interrupts at the honorific. “That assertion might work better if you didn’t call me sir,” he says mildly, like he hasn’t indulged the occasional daydream about hearing his name fall from Clint’s lips.
“Fine, Coul-” Clint blows out a breath tinged with impatience. “Phil.” It sounds even better than Phil had imagined. “This isn’t work. This is a party. Attended by everyone we work with, sure, but it’s still a party. You get to unwind.” He holds up a finger, pointing straight at Phil. Phil doesn’t break eye contact as Clint chastises him. “And loosening your tie and undoing your top button doesn’t count as unwinding.”
“I have alcohol,” Phil points out.
The mild rejoinder earns him a smile that Phil hasn’t seen before (and when did he start cataloguing them). “It’s a start.” Phil smiles back as Clint continues, “Knock it back, Phil. We’re going dancing.”
He throws the half-full tumbler, wincing at the burn. He sets the glass down and mourns the loss of a damn good Glenlivet. “That’s not how to drink good scotch,” he informs Clint, in case he was unaware. Phil wipes his mouth with the back of his hand belatedly, since he didn’t grab a cocktail napkin with the cake earlier. Clint’s eyes follow the motion and Phil takes the opportunity to remind him of something. “And I don’t dance, Clint.” He stands from the table despite this. The music is some sort of 4/4 beat that’s easy enough to dance to.
“You’ll dance with me,” Clint says with surefire confidence and rises to his feet. He nearly knocks the chair over when he swings his leg over the seat but he’s holding his hand out and waiting for Phil to take it. Phil looks at the well-muscled arm, the crisscrossing scars on Clint’s knuckles and waits for the punch line. He buries memories of years past and grasps Clint’s hand with his own, shifting his weight so he’s closer to the taller man, just a shade.
Clint draws them onto the dance floor just as the music slows and Phil wrinkles his nose like he’s twelve all over again. “Not my doing,” Clint promises as Mariah Carey starts crooning. “But yeah, they’re playing our song, sir.”
Phil laughs at the earnest tone and rests his hand on Clint’s shoulder. They’re almost the same height, it’s not difficult to do, unlike when Phil was nervous and just learning to dance with another person. He pauses but goes ahead with his initial idea and settles his other hand on Clint’s hip. For his part, the other man doesn’t waste time sliding a hand around Phil. He pushes up underneath Phil’s suit jacket, resting a large palm against the small of Phil’s back. The cotton of Phil’s dress shirt is little protection against the heat.
“This is probably a bad idea,” Phil whispers into Clint’s ear because this feels good, natural even, and they’re both still in SHIELD HQ, surrounded by other agents who have eyes and ways of noticing things.
“Nah,” Clint rebuffs, his voice just as quiet. The warm breath tickles Phil’s ear, sending a bolt of heat down his spine. “It’s the best idea I’ve ever had, even better than when I was six and decided to try flying off the garage roof.”
Phil isn’t really listening, taking in the fact that they’re supposedly dancing but really doing nothing more than swaying back and forth in their corner. It’s the corner closest to Phil’s table and they never move more than three steps away, like Clint recognizes that Phil doesn’t want to go any further. He pushes his hand into the blond hair, taking a risk, a leap of faith that the fact that Clint’s eyes haven’t left his since they stepped away from the table.
He hums along with the song and Clint closes his eyes. Phil feels him take a deep breath but there’s no time to wonder when exactly they got so close to each other because Clint’s lips are chapped but warm. Phil closes his eyes and smiles slightly against Clint’s mouth.
They break off and Phil is struck by the feeling of bone-deep content that’s rushing through him. It’s dizzying and warming and it might be too much but it’s still everything Phil thought it would be.
He takes a page out of Clint’s play book and cracks a joke. “So this isn’t work, Clint?” Phil raises an eyebrow, even as his fingers start to unwind from Clint’s surprisingly soft hair.
“‘s definitely play, sir. Phil. ‘m willing to provide demonstrations whenever-” Phil cuts him off because whatever he’s about to say doesn’t need to be overheard. Actions are one thing, words another entirely. He slides his hand down from cradling Clint’s head to fist in his shirt, rucking the soft material and not caring.
“Less talk, Clint. More demonstration.” he orders and Clint leans down to oblige him.
Life is excellent and Phil’s never been so glad he attended a party. (The fact that Mabel tells Clint in what she believes to be a quiet tone to ‘take care of that nice Mr Coulson’ amuses Phil greatly, even though he glances around the room to see who else overheard. That she also shares how Phil takes his tea is even better, if Clint’s grave nod and promise that he won’t forget are anything to go by.)
Rating: PG
Word Count: 3015
Summary: Phil Coulson isn't much for dancing. He's the definition of a wallflower, but this party just might be one to remember.
Notes: Inspired by russandoll's work If I can't Dance, Then I Don't Want any Part of your Revolution
Phil likes Mabel. She’s been with SHIELD since the beginning and isn’t afraid to remind the junior agents that her age demands their respect. (Phil never needed to be taught that lesson, his mother raised him better.) Mabel always remembers that Phil likes his tea with one sugar - she has it waiting for him when he steps out of the car park because the two of them operate on long-standing routine. She greets him with a smile, a plea to get more sleep and a cup of black tea that isn’t the Lipton Yellow Label the junior agents receive. Phil thanks her, compliments her hair and heads to the bank of elevators. The exchange takes two minutes at the most and Phil is in his office at half past six. They’ve been doing this since Phil started at SHIELD.
No one would be surprised to learn Phil isn’t a party goer. He finds them loud, obnoxious and full of too many people that never seem to remember he is a SHIELD agent, no longer the young man that worked in stationery due to his old-fashioned penmanship and dedication to organization. Phil attends the retirement party and orders a tumbler of scotch.
The first sip is a smooth burn down his throat. Phil catches Mabel’s eye from where she has gathered a group of junior agents (is one of them crying? Phil keeps himself from rolling his eyes with sheer willpower) and the older woman smiles brightly at him. Phil decides to find a table in the back corner instead of his previous plan of departing to his office to finish signing the requisition forms for the Avengers Initiative. He knows that Mabel will miss her own party to track him down and Phil has no desire to repeat the scolding that occurred six years ago when he checked himself out of Medical to keep up their morning routine like he hadn’t been hit with an experimental virus hours earlier. It won't be hard to stay out of the way, tucked away in this darkened corner and sip his scotch, even though Phil knows he is the definition and stereotype of the word 'wallflower' - it's a character trait that he's cultivated and built a career on.
He drinks a little more and judges the buffet line across the room. If he has any hope of getting a piece of cake before Agent Johns, he has to act now. Phil stands, straightens his suit and marches onward, into the crowd.
Phil slips in between chatting agents, skirting around the edge of the half-full dance floor and picks up a small ceramic plate. He reaches for the serving knife and a dark-skinned hand grabs it before him.
“Still prefer a piece from the middle?” Nick Fury asks. His teeth gleam in a smile.
“Yes sir,” Phil responds with a short nod. Nick chuckles and cuts a larger piece than Phil would have served himself.
“Loosen up, agent. It’s a party, don’t forget to have some fun.” He stares at Phil until the younger man tugs on his tie to loosen it and then turns away, a swirl of black coat and quiet rumble of laughter.
The plate is pre-chilled, icy condensation dripping onto Phil’s hand. He doesn’t move, still a bit shocked at the Director being so informal (or maybe it was the fact that the man had made a beeline for Agent Romanov, who was entering the room) until someone behind him coughs and nudges him forward.
Phil doesn’t make any apologies about holding up the line, weaving his way back to his quiet seat in the back with the flickering tea light in the middle.
He eats his cake - it’s vanilla with buttercream frosting - and watches the dance floor fill up. Of course Tony Stark cajoles the Captain out in front of everyone, and Phil hides a wry smile behind a bite of cake when the billionaire gripes loudly about the state of his trodden upon toes.
The rest of the Avengers have arrived, Thor taking large forkfuls of cake as his girlfriend Dr. Foster converses with Dr. Banner. Steve finally manages to drag Tony off the dance floor and heads promptly toward the bar, no doubt to fulfill a request of the other man. Barton is making small talk with everyone, floating around the room to chat and flirt with everyone he can.
Phil’s attention is drawn once again to the dance floor, as is everyone’s, when the Director steps into the middle with Natasha on his arm. The two are a striking pair, the woman dressed in an evening gown that’s slightly overdressing for the party but Phil remembers that she should have just gotten off an assignment in the downtown area, so it’s not surprising. What is surprising to everyone, Phil included, is that the pair execute a frighteningly good tango. The dance floor clears quickly and it’s the two of them, whirling, dancing, sultry looks exchanged like there isn’t a crowd gathered. Phil doesn’t even want to know, and turns back to the last bite of cake.
He leans back in his chair, watching as the Captain stumbles onto the dance floor yet again and keeping track of Barton’s movements around the room for reasons he doesn’t examine too closely. Stark makes a comment Phil really didn’t need to overhear and Barton draws closer to Phil’s corner table.
He’s wholly unsurprised when Barton reaches for the chair opposite Phil’s and flips it backward, dropping into it and leaning forward on the backrest.
“You’re allowed to have fun,” Barton opens the conversation with an easy grin. “You’re off-duty.”
Phil gives him a wry smile in return. When you work for SHIELD, there’s no such concept and Phil says as much in a quiet tone.
“You guys have a rota, I’ve seen it.” Barton fires back and Phil doesn’t even want to know how he accessed that file because it is above the marksman's security level. Not tonight, at least. (Phil's totally capable of being off-duty, just watch.) “Sitwell’s on call tonight,” the marksman continues, like he didn’t just admit to breaking a half-dozen firewalls with unfeigned nonchalance. “Even he was tearing it up out there.”
Phil sips at his scotch, eyes noting that the dance floor is mostly empty except for the married Agents Riley swaying in the opposite corner. “I would, too, if I was an under-fifteen ballroom champion.” He sets his glass down as Barton exclaims.
“You’re shitting me.” Phil watches Barton twist his head impossibly far to look over the room that’s somehow still full, despite the party starting hours ago. “No way-”
Phil shrugs and can practically feel Barton's gaze sharpen on him. “It could be classified information,” he says noncommittally. It actually isn’t, because Sitwell has the newspaper clipping framed and moves it from office to office every few years, but Phil doubts that Barton has spent much time in Sitwell’s office.
“Then you definitely wouldn’t tell me,” Barton narrows his eyes and Phil tells himself he’s growing warm, cheeks flushing because of the alcohol. “No,” Barton decides in the next breath. “You’re totally shitting me. Though he’s got some moves, I’ll give him that.”
Phil leans back in his chair, hands folded neatly in his lap because it’s uncouth to put them on the table and besides, the plate is in the way. “SHIELD values all skillsets.” Which is apparently the wrong thing to say, because the tone Barton has is one that Phil’s only heard when he puts himself in harm’s way and doesn’t walk away unscathed. Like Phil exists in the margins, a superfluous being who corrals paperwork and arranges the new weapons from R&D show up in time for the firefight.
“Why haven’t you danced, sir?” Barton questions, almost accusingly. “Everyone else has.”
Phil shrugs for the second time that night. How does one explain years of dance training at a mother’s insistence, a late growth spurt, the cruelty of children no matter where his mother was stationed? “I’m not really big into dancing,” Phil settles on telling the other man. He remembers waltzing around a hotel ballroom with perfect execution but being told he was too stiff. There’s little need to put himself in that position nowadays and it’s not like anyone’s looking to write in Phil’s dance card anyhow. His reputation at SHIELD has seen to that. (It’s lonely at the top.)
“You okay, sir?” Barton asks and Phil’s fingers twitch against his thigh. His voice is the same gentle tone Phil’s heard him use with Agent Romanov when they got sent to Belarus and the woman stopped talking for a solid week.
“You know me - I don’t really,” Phil tries to explain because he isn’t trading memories with the younger man anytime soon. “Parties aren’t really my kind of thing.”
“You do understand that a retirement party doesn’t exactly constitute a wild social scene, don't you?” Barton looks like he’s torn between growing angry and holding back laughter.
“I spend my day picking up after superheroes,” Phil explains in a dry tone. He doesn’t understand why this seems to be an issue. “My world view is skewed.” That’s really an understatement, but Phil can feel the scotch dulling his brain, his response time and loosening his tongue.
That earns a laugh from Barton and Phil smiles at him. By his judgement and the ticking of his watch, Barton has sufficiently fulfilled his quest to talk with everyone assembled. (Of course he saved Phil for last.) He’s spent between two minutes (with the post delivery boy in the beginning of the evening) and seven minutes (with Director Fury and Agent Romanov) chatting. That Phil glances at his watch face to find that six minutes have passed is a bit of a shock. He figures it’s because he is the last person to talk to Barton, and he is the man’s handler and somehow warrants slightly more attention than the average agent.
“It’s okay, Barton. You can go.” Phil releases him from his duty because he's sure the agent has better uses of his time on a Friday night. It only makes the other man’s fists clench and lips press into a thin line; Phil doesn’t look too deep into why he’s noticing these things.
“You’re dismissing me from the party, sir?”
“No, I just mean-” Phil gestures, like spreading his hands towards the slowly emptying room has some deeper meaning. “You don’t have to stay and talk to me. You’ve done your part.”
Barton looks surprised, then frustrated. He takes a breath and opens his mouth only to close it again, not saying a word for the span of a heartbeat. Phil stares steadily into the blue eyes and the words explode out of the marksman. “I’ve done my part?” He’s definitely angry now, Phil doesn’t need a psychology course to see that. “Seriously? Why d’you think I came over here?” He runs a hand through his blond hair, a jerky movement that with the application of more force would be pulling the strands out.
Phil doesn’t know how to respond. He doesn’t shrink into himself like he desperately wants to, doesn’t sip at his drink because with his luck, he’d swallow the wrong way and begin coughing - drawing more attention than he wants. Barton's stare is penetrating and Phil stays silent.
“We’ve worked together for how long?”
“Five years,” Phil says almost immediately. Then he amends, “give or take.”
Barton rests his elbows on the table in front of him, leaning his weight into the back of the chair. “Five years of you putting up with my bullshit and dragging my injured ass out of combat zones and signing fucking medical waivers on my behalf and letting me sleep on your couch when my place had that infestation and helping me the fuck out when I got Steve in that fucking Secret Santa and you think I came to talk to you out of pity?” His voice rises slightly at the end and Phil doesn’t understand.
“I don’t know,” he confides in one breath. Phil closes his eyes because he doesn’t need to see Barton’s face when he confesses what he’s been carrying around. “There used to be a divide between work and the rest of my life but,” he opens his eyes because Barton, Clint deserves it. (Deserves more, so much more than what Phil can offer.) “It got fuzzy. Around the time of New Mexico.” The close quarters, the clusterfuck of a mission with Thor-turned-human and the Destroyer robot that wiped out most of Puente Antiguo. It was the late nights, trading sarcasm over radio channels and falling asleep in the passenger seat, speeding down desert roads.
“This isn’t work, sir-”
Phil interrupts at the honorific. “That assertion might work better if you didn’t call me sir,” he says mildly, like he hasn’t indulged the occasional daydream about hearing his name fall from Clint’s lips.
“Fine, Coul-” Clint blows out a breath tinged with impatience. “Phil.” It sounds even better than Phil had imagined. “This isn’t work. This is a party. Attended by everyone we work with, sure, but it’s still a party. You get to unwind.” He holds up a finger, pointing straight at Phil. Phil doesn’t break eye contact as Clint chastises him. “And loosening your tie and undoing your top button doesn’t count as unwinding.”
“I have alcohol,” Phil points out.
The mild rejoinder earns him a smile that Phil hasn’t seen before (and when did he start cataloguing them). “It’s a start.” Phil smiles back as Clint continues, “Knock it back, Phil. We’re going dancing.”
He throws the half-full tumbler, wincing at the burn. He sets the glass down and mourns the loss of a damn good Glenlivet. “That’s not how to drink good scotch,” he informs Clint, in case he was unaware. Phil wipes his mouth with the back of his hand belatedly, since he didn’t grab a cocktail napkin with the cake earlier. Clint’s eyes follow the motion and Phil takes the opportunity to remind him of something. “And I don’t dance, Clint.” He stands from the table despite this. The music is some sort of 4/4 beat that’s easy enough to dance to.
“You’ll dance with me,” Clint says with surefire confidence and rises to his feet. He nearly knocks the chair over when he swings his leg over the seat but he’s holding his hand out and waiting for Phil to take it. Phil looks at the well-muscled arm, the crisscrossing scars on Clint’s knuckles and waits for the punch line. He buries memories of years past and grasps Clint’s hand with his own, shifting his weight so he’s closer to the taller man, just a shade.
Clint draws them onto the dance floor just as the music slows and Phil wrinkles his nose like he’s twelve all over again. “Not my doing,” Clint promises as Mariah Carey starts crooning. “But yeah, they’re playing our song, sir.”
Phil laughs at the earnest tone and rests his hand on Clint’s shoulder. They’re almost the same height, it’s not difficult to do, unlike when Phil was nervous and just learning to dance with another person. He pauses but goes ahead with his initial idea and settles his other hand on Clint’s hip. For his part, the other man doesn’t waste time sliding a hand around Phil. He pushes up underneath Phil’s suit jacket, resting a large palm against the small of Phil’s back. The cotton of Phil’s dress shirt is little protection against the heat.
“This is probably a bad idea,” Phil whispers into Clint’s ear because this feels good, natural even, and they’re both still in SHIELD HQ, surrounded by other agents who have eyes and ways of noticing things.
“Nah,” Clint rebuffs, his voice just as quiet. The warm breath tickles Phil’s ear, sending a bolt of heat down his spine. “It’s the best idea I’ve ever had, even better than when I was six and decided to try flying off the garage roof.”
Phil isn’t really listening, taking in the fact that they’re supposedly dancing but really doing nothing more than swaying back and forth in their corner. It’s the corner closest to Phil’s table and they never move more than three steps away, like Clint recognizes that Phil doesn’t want to go any further. He pushes his hand into the blond hair, taking a risk, a leap of faith that the fact that Clint’s eyes haven’t left his since they stepped away from the table.
He hums along with the song and Clint closes his eyes. Phil feels him take a deep breath but there’s no time to wonder when exactly they got so close to each other because Clint’s lips are chapped but warm. Phil closes his eyes and smiles slightly against Clint’s mouth.
They break off and Phil is struck by the feeling of bone-deep content that’s rushing through him. It’s dizzying and warming and it might be too much but it’s still everything Phil thought it would be.
He takes a page out of Clint’s play book and cracks a joke. “So this isn’t work, Clint?” Phil raises an eyebrow, even as his fingers start to unwind from Clint’s surprisingly soft hair.
“‘s definitely play, sir. Phil. ‘m willing to provide demonstrations whenever-” Phil cuts him off because whatever he’s about to say doesn’t need to be overheard. Actions are one thing, words another entirely. He slides his hand down from cradling Clint’s head to fist in his shirt, rucking the soft material and not caring.
“Less talk, Clint. More demonstration.” he orders and Clint leans down to oblige him.
Life is excellent and Phil’s never been so glad he attended a party. (The fact that Mabel tells Clint in what she believes to be a quiet tone to ‘take care of that nice Mr Coulson’ amuses Phil greatly, even though he glances around the room to see who else overheard. That she also shares how Phil takes his tea is even better, if Clint’s grave nod and promise that he won’t forget are anything to go by.)