Work Text:
Growing up, Phil Coulson remembered that the most expensive item in the house was his parent’s bed. The only things that might have been more expensive were their cars. When Phil was old enough, Emma and Kevin Coulson, sat him down and explained that they were secret agents for the Men in Black, and while they had plenty of money, their carefully crafted cover stories – stories that Phil had believed up until that moment mind you – only permitted them to live at a certain level. Emma had explained to Phil that if there was one thing that she was willing to splurge on every five years, it was their bed, because being stuck in an uncomfortable bed with a broken bone was not anywhere on her to-do list.
Phil had taken the lesson to heart, even though his own cover allowed him far more comforts in life than his parents’ had allowed them. The first thing he bought with his paycheck after he signed on with SHIELD was an absolutely massive bed that made him feel like he was sleeping on angel clouds.
And for a while, he loved his bed. He had put a TV in the bedroom, much to his mother’s horror, and when he wasn’t working spent most of the time in the bed. But sometime around his late twenties, Phil started to resent his bed. It was too big and too empty, reminding him how alone he really was. To fight it, he bought body pillows to pile under the blankets to try to fill the bed up.
Then eventually it wore him down to the point of buying a much smaller bed to put into the guest room, and he ended up sleeping there instead of his own bedroom. Slowly he moved all of his belongings into what used to be the guest room, because walking into the bedroom was too much.
“We are coming to visit for your thirtieth birthday. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.” Emma informed her son, leaving no room for him to argue the point.
“Really, mom, it’s fine. I will probably be working anyway.” Phil tried to reason anyway, the cell phone trapped between his shoulder and head while he loaded his tray up for lunch in the SHIELD cafeteria.
“I will just have to call Marcus and make sure he understands how important it is that you have your birthday off.”
“Do not call Nick, mother. Pulling rank for my birthday is not a good look for you.” Phil said, feeling the telltale signs of a tension headache forming between his eyes. “And how many times does the man have to tell you, call him Nick or Fury, but bury Marcus in the ground?”
“You’re my only baby boy, Phillip, I will pull rank for your birthday if I damn well please.” And then the line went dead.
Phil sighed before taking a seat at one of the empty tables, content to spend lunch like he did every other thing in his life, alone. Maria Hill had never cared what Phil planned, and she apparently had no plans of changing anytime soon, because she sat down across from Phil, her own tray clattering on the table.
“You have that look like you just got off the phone with someone whose name has been redacted out of the history books.” Maria said, poking at the mac and cheese on her tray, debating if it was edible or not.
“That would be my mother, although not completely untrue.” Phil said, his own fork poking at the mashed potatoes and gravy. “What do you want, Maria? I would like to finish eating, alone, since apparently my parents are going to be visiting for my birthday.”
“Might want to tell them not to come. You’re shipping out tonight.”
Shooting Clint “Hawkeye” Barton to get him to come in was how Phil spent his thirtieth birthday. Sitting in the med bay with the younger man was how he spent the following week, waiting for the man to wake up from the drugs they had pumped into his system. When he finally did, he happily agreed to sign SHILED’s contracts, and Phil went home for the first time in almost two weeks.
It should have felt nice, but it just felt empty, which was only made worse when he opened the freezer and saw at some point his parents must have come to visit anyway and dropped off an ice cream cake. Pulling it out, Phil felt his chest tighten when he saw there was an envelope attached to the plastic boxing. Holding the lined paper and reading it, Phil realized his parents had stayed as long as they could, hoping he would come home and they could celebrate. Which meant there was a paragraph from his mother reminding him that if you are going to spend good money on something, like a bed and the room it was in, he should at least use it. He wasn’t sure if that was because he stayed at work for almost two weeks, sleeping in a hospital chair, or because she had realized Phil wasn’t using the master bedroom anymore. If he was a betting man, he would have put money on the latter.
Clint quickly got a reputation as being a pain in the ass, which is how Phil ended up being his handler. It wasn’t that Clint was a pain in the ass, it was that he saw a flaw and instead of saying something he just fixed the problem. Which in any other line of work would be a blessing, but in SHIELD everyone wanted everything documented. And being Clint’s handler wasn’t something that was strictly bad, but it did mean he spent a disproportionate amount of time with the younger man. Which again, was not strictly a bad thing, but Phil was lonely. The last time he had shared a kiss with anyone was before his first day at SHIELD, and that was getting a little too close to ten years for Phil’s comfort. So, if Phil watched Clint a little too closely when the younger man was in the shooting range, eyes roaming over perfectly shaped muscles, then really who could blame him.
And that is where it stopped, until Phil had hit that ten year mark and Clint threw himself off of a building, relying on an experimental arrow from RD to create a line for him to save himself from death. It had almost worked. Almost was the operative word. The arrow had sank into the other building, and the rope had uncoiled, and Clint had been able to swing mostly to safety, but the release on the arrow that was supposed to drop the rope once it hit a 85 degree angle had not worked. Which meant Clint and the wall of the other building had become quick friends. You know, if your friends were prone to giving you concussions and bruising your entire backside.
Which is how Phil ended up driving Clint to his house to watch him for the next seven to ten days, because Clint hated medical and locking himself in the barracks for seven to ten days wasn’t super helpful for his recovery if something were to go ass up.
“You really don’t have to do this, sir.” Clint insisted for the fourth time since getting in the car with Phil.
“Jesus Christ, Barton. You are staying with me until I am not worried about you dying on my watch. Do you know how much paperwork that is? I didn’t think so. It’s fine, I have the room.” Phil said, finally turning down his street and sliding effortlessly into his spot on the street in front of the brownstone.
Phil carefully helped Clint out of the car and into the brownstone, grabbing the light duffle bag that holds the few pieces of clothing Clint owned that weren’t part of his SHIELD uniform. Getting him up the stairs in the house was more of a challenge, the bruises on his back making every movement painful. Phil guided him to the master bedroom, putting the duffle bag down and opening the door for the attached bathroom.
“Oh god, I am not taking your bedroom, sir.” Clint tried to argue.
“I don’t sleep in here, Barton. It’s fine.” Phil said, and at Clint’s skeptical look, he pulled the closet doors open to show the closet was empty, as well as the dresser drawers.
“Where do you sleep? Because I totally started the rumor about you being a robot, but I’m starting to wonder if maybe it wasn’t a rumor.” Clint said, slowly sitting down on the bed.
“Down the hall, the door on the right. The one across from it is another bathroom.” Phil answered easily. “What do you like for breakfast? I’ll cook in the morning.”
“Whatever is fine.” Clint said, slowly peeling the grey t-shirt off and letting Phil see for the first time just how bruised up his back was. Medical had kept him for the required 24 hours to make sure he wasn’t going to die from an aneurism and that was long enough for the bruises to turn a wonderful black, blue, and purple.
“Damn, Barton.” Phil hissed and Clint just flashed him a dorky smile.
“See you in the morning, boss.” Clint said, dismissing Phil as he stood to unbutton his jeans.
Phil turned and hightailed it out of the room, because Phil was disciplined, not a saint, and Phil without a doubt lusted after Clint. He wouldn’t let himself think of it as anything other than lust either, because if he did, well things would get complicated.
The following morning though, when Clint came downstairs in nothing but dangerously low riding sleep pants, Phil had to look at the ceiling and think of Nick Fury in a pink tutu and point shoes doing complicated ballet before he could turn back around and face Clint again.
Phil had to clear his throat twice before he managed to not feel like his voice was going to sound gravely. “How’s the back?”
“I had to sleep on my stomach, but not to terrible. As long as I don’t put pressure on it.” Clint said, grabbing a stool at the breakfast bar to watch Phil cook. “What’cha making for breakfast?”
“Eggs and toast, or I think I might have some banana bread English muffins left if you would rather have them, instead of the toast.”
“Whatever is fine, as long as you got coffee.”
Phil’s answer to that was to point to the corner of the counter by the sink, where the coffee machine had already been turned on and most of the pot was still there. “Mugs are in the cabinet right above the machine.”
“I may never leave. You cook breakfast and have god’s gift to coffee addicts everywhere.” Clint said hopping off the stool to make a cup of coffee.
“It’s a coffee machine, Barton.”
“I’m easy to please.” Clint snapped back.
Phil had to actively remind himself that context was important while thinking about Nick in a tutu again.
Clint was leaning against the counter, hands wrapped around the mug of coffee like it was his personal savior, but Phil could see he was working on something in his head. Clint got this look whenever he was thinking particularly hard about something, and it was there right now, his eyebrows furrowed and his lower lip pulled between his teeth.
“Why don’t you sleep in your bedroom?” Clint finally asked, just as Phil turned the burner off, the last of the sunny side up eggs finished.
Phil froze for a moment, panic racing through his brain, before grabbing the two plates and putting them on the breakfast bar. “I would rather not talk about it.”
“Ex-wife and you can’t sleep in there anymore? I totally get it. Well, I don’t because like no ex-wife, but the concept.”
Phil shook his head, sitting on the stool. “Never been married, Barton. I really don’t want to discuss this.” Which wasn’t completely true, he did want to talk about it, because maybe it was normal and he just didn’t know, but he was 99.9 percent sure that Clint Barton was not the guy to have this conversation with. Mostly because Phil was sure that Clint was the person he wanted to solve the issue to begin with.
“That bed though man, I don’t think I have ever slept on something so nice. Like ever.” Clint said, taking his seat next to Phil to eat.
Phil quirked his lips, it was as close to a smile as he ever got, breaking the yoke of the egg and sopping it up with toast. “I’ll tell my mom.”
“Whoah, you are not saying your mom bought you that heavenly bed.” Clint said, looking at Phil like he may have grown an extra head.
“No, but some things just stick around, and my parent’s bed was always the most expensive thing in the house growing up.” Phil explained with a shrug.
“So when you got your own place, you just kept the tradition?” Clint guessed.
“Yea, kind of.” Phil said, before elbowing Clint gently in the ribs. “Eat before it gets cold.”
Phil caught Clint standing in the guestroom doorway four days in, just staring at the twin bed that Phil had bought like it was a target to eliminate. Because despite what the file that was thick enough to give War and Peace a run for its money said, Clint Barton was not stupid. Even if Phil really wanted him to be stupid at that moment.
“I thought it would be the same bed, that the room was the problem.” Clint said without turning to look at Phil. “But this…” Clint trailed off, his hand being thrown in the general direction of the bed.
“We aren’t talking about this, Barton.” Phil said, gently pushing past him to reclaim the room, like it would somehow convince Clint to leave it alone.
“The bed is too big, it makes you feel more alone.” Clint just keeps pushing on. “How long has it been, sir?”
“That is none of your business, Barton.” Phil said, a bit more defensively than he really intended to.
Not everything in that file was a lie. Clint Barton couldn’t take a damn hint to save his life. He was like a dog with a bone when he decided he needed to know something, and now Phil and his sex life, or cuddling life, or whatever, was the aforementioned bone.
“No, I think it is. See, because a handler should be in top form all the time, to keep me from getting killed, ya know. And if my handler is coming home to an empty bed for such a long time that he has moved out of his own master bedroom to sleep in a much smaller bed, well then he isn’t in top form.” Clint said, staring at Phil.
“My loneliness is not going to get you killed, Barton.” Phil said, trying to string together the bits and pieces to figure out where Clint was actually going with the conversation, but coming up painfully empty.
“I don’t think that’s true. I think one day it might, because I know how you watch me. And one day you are going to get distracted, watching me do something on a mission.” Clint said, and this time he takes a step forward, radiating purpose. “And you will miss someone coming to kill me, because you are too busy looking at my arms, or maybe my ass. I know you watch me now in the range.” And now Clint is in Phil’s space and Phil wants to protest because he is being called out for being a creeper, but he can’t because he could almost touch Clint now. Then Clint is leaning close, his lips close to Phil’s ear, breath ghosting over the shell of his ear. “Do you go back to your office and jerk off after watching me?”
Phil couldn’t have contained the groan if he wanted to. “No.” He did manage to answer though.
“Why?”
“Because it’s not about that. Sure, sex is great, but it doesn’t mean anything if I don’t get to curl around you every night, and make breakfast in the morning, with you coming out of the bedroom in nothing but boxers to press into my back and kiss my neck, whispering good morning. It doesn’t mean anything if I am not the person who gets to sit by your bed in the med bay, holding your hand and taking care of you while you recover.” Phil blurted, having no intention of telling him any of it but it was so close, Clint was so close.
Clint froze for just a second, and if Phil had been anyone else he probably wouldn’t have noticed. “You want to take care of me?”
“Since the moment I spent most of my birthday and missed my parents visit to bring you in from the cold.” Phil admitted.
“That wasn’t standard procedure, was it?”
Phil shook his head. “I was supposed to come home the minute I got done being debriefed on shooting you to get you to sit still long enough for me to bring you in. But, I wanted to be there for you. I spent so much time reading your file waiting for you to wake up, by the time that you did, I was hopelessly head over heels for this boy from Iowa who spent some time in the circus.”
“You don’t just want to use me, you really want all those things?”
“Especially the boxers and kissing in the morning.” Phil whispered before fisting his hands in the grey shirt that Clint was wearing and kissing him with all the desperation he had felt for the past ten years. Because Phil was disciplined, not a saint.
Clint’s hands splayed over Phil’s back, holding him close, because he wanted this just as much. From the moment he woke up in the med bay and Phil had been there, dozing in a hospital chair, waiting for him.
Clint put in the paperwork for a change of address after his medical leave was over and Phil moved back into the master bedroom. The bed was still too big for it to feel full with just the two of them, but it was better, and Clint made sure every morning they woke up together, that he would walk to the kitchen in purple boxers and wrap his arms around Phil, kissing his neck and whispering good morning before asking Phil what he was making for them.
Two blissful years passed like that. Emma and Kevin saw the difference in their son and when they finally came to meet Clint, the other man was adopted into the family without so much as a second thought, Emma debating the uses of throwing knives with him over morning coffee. But then Operation Russian Red happened.
Clint went off the grid for a week, his last words to Phil had been to trust him, he would be back. It wasn’t the most comforting departing words over the coms, but Phil did trust Clint implicitly, and if Clint thought he needed to go off grid to eliminate the Black Widow, well, Phil trusted him.
Phil shouldn’t have trusted him. Because now Natasha Romanov was sitting at their breakfast bar, drinking coffee at two in the morning, and not dead in a body bag on her way to SHIELD HQ.
“You brought the Black Widow to our house?” Phil whispered, but all the disbelief and worry was just as present as if he had shouted it in Clint’s face.
“She wanted to die, Phil. She needs someone to take care of her.” Clint said by way of explanation, and when Phil turned around to look at the woman, he saw the telltale signs of someone who had been out in the cold to long, both in the physical and mental sense.
“What did you say to get her here?” Phil asked, part out of curiosity and partly because he wanted to know what made the woman tick.
“I told her you shot me to bring me in, told her I could do the same if it would make her feel better. And she kind of deflated, Phil, like the act of me telling her I would do whatever she wanted was just too much for her to actually understand.” Clint whispered back, watching Natasha over Phil’s shoulder. “She needs a home. SHIELD could use another assassin, I mean we could always use more.”
Phil huffed but nodded. “Let me go call my mother, and I’ll have her call Fury, so neither of us die for this, unless Miss Romanov decides to kill us in our sleep.”
“I won’t.” Natasha said from her seat.
“Is that so?” Phil asked, turning to face her, crossing his arms over his chest, and desperately wishing for a suit, instead of his old army ranger shirt that was super soft and cuddly and purple plaid sleep pants that Clint gave him as a gift.
“It is. Mr. Barton has made a compelling argument for turning over a new leaf and not biting the hands that feed me. Fuck me over and you both die though.” Natasha said.
“I’m going to go make that call.” Phil said with a grunt. He spent the better part of two hours on the phone, first with his mother, who gave him a very long lecture about not calling at such an ungodly hour for a favor, and then with Nick, who yelled a lot, and even tried to pull the ‘given that this is a dumb ass decision, Phil, I am ignoring it’.
Natasha spent the better part of the year being watched constantly, something about defecting not being a rousing argument for her loyalty. Which made her bitter. The rumors that surrounded her created a bubble, and no one was let in other than Clint and Phil, and Phil was just barely in for a while. Then Budapest happened, and Natasha more than proved her loyalty, and Clint told Phil he was going to stay with her for a while, they needed each other after everything that happened, and Phil agreed.
Phil hated sleeping in the bed alone but he would have hated himself even more if Natasha went off the deep end after killing people she trained with in the Red Room. She had made it clear that they weren’t friends, but Clint and Phil both knew better, it didn’t matter if you were friends, knowing the people you were killing was traumatizing.
The fifth night that Clint slept at HQ with Natasha, Phil woke up in the middle of the night, the feeling of bugs crawling all over his skin, which meant someone was watching him.
“Shh.”
Phil sat up, rubbing his eyes, pretty sure that was Clint hushing someone. “Clint?”
“Fuck, I didn’t want to wake you up.” Clint hissed, crouching down by the bed. His shirt was gone and Phil reached out to run his fingers over the smooth skin.
“Missed you.” Phil mumbled, laying back down on the bed.
“Me too. Um, so hey, I need to talk to you about something.” Clint said, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Mhm?” Phil mumbled, trying to fight the sleep that was so ready to take him back now that he knew it was Clint that woke him up.
“Tasha is here. She says she will sleep on the floor or whatever, but she wants to sleep in the room with us. She’s been having really awful nightmares about that fucking place, Phil. I couldn’t leave her.”
“Room in bed.” Phil argued, moving closer to the edge.
“Are you sure?” Natasha asked, finally coming out of the shadows to stand in the pale light from the window and for Phil to see her.
Phil nodded on the bed. “Clint in the middle though.”
Clint pressed a quick kiss to Phil’s lips before getting up and walking to the other side of the bed to crawl in behind Phil, and then Natasha followed him, pressing into his back until they looked like stacked spoons.
Phil was up first as usual and went to go cook breakfast, excited to get back to the tradition of Clint kisses in the morning. He was halfway through cooking the three of them eggs and French toast when someone pressed into his back, and glancing down he was a bit confused to see feminine hands splayed over his chest with bright red nail polish.
Then she kissed his neck and whispered good morning, and Phil realized he was a goner.
“Clint told you.” Phil guessed, continuing to cook only to feel her shake her head behind him.
“I watched. Thank you for last night, I would have been fine on the floor.” She said letting go.
“Get back here, he normally stays till I am done cooking or I have to move for something.” Phil instructed, a small smile playing across his lips when she pressed back into his back, putting her hands over his chest again. “This isn’t an expectation, but I am sure Clint would be game, I want to invite you to live with us.”
Natasha hummed, resting her head against his shoulder blade. “Why?”
“Because I like taking care of people, it’s what makes me a good handler, and I want to take care of you. And I think Clint has just the most adorable little crush on you, which means I am starting to get one, and you pressed into my back like this, doing our morning ritual, it’s really nice. I want more of it.”
She hummed again, but remained silent until Clint came downstairs, only in his purple boxers.
“Damn, she’s been here one night and already she’s taking my place.” Clint muttered, grabbing his mug for coffee.
Natasha started pulling away from Phil only for Phil to drop the spatula into the pan and put his hands over hers. “I don’t want to mess your thing up.”
“Clint, I asked Tasha to move in, to share our bed. Comments, questions, concerns?” Phil said, reclaiming the spatula to finish breakfast.
“Cool. Why? Does this mean we are poly? Do we have to fill out more paperwork? How did you know I was going to ask you about this very thing this morning?”
“Because I like taking care of the people I love. Yes. Yes. Because I am that good of a boyfriend.” Phil answered systematically before dishing plates out, finally forcing himself apart from Natasha so they could all sit down and eat.
“No expectations?” Natasha asked, poking at her eggs with a fork once they were all settled.
“If all you want to do is snuggle with us, that’s all we do.” Phil promised and Clint agreed.
“And if I want more?”
“We do a monthly reassessment of kink negotiations anyway, we can just add to it a monthly check in on where we are as a threesome. Sound good?”
“You do what?” Natasha asked, dropping the fork on the plate with a clatter.
“Told you that was weird, Phil.” Clint said smirking before Natasha slapped him upside the back of his head.
“It’s not, it’s just… I don’t know, never pictured you as a kinky guy, Coulson.” Natasha reassured.
“Number one, you need to start calling me Phil. Number two, really? I wear suits for a damn living, you don’t think I am all kinds of kinky once I don’t have to be agent bad ass in charge. Your skills are slipping, honey.” Phil said, only to kick himself realizing the term of endearment slipped out.
Natasha continued to grin at him though, which was equal parts endearing and terrifying. “Honey… I like it.”