Work Text:
“This isn’t what I ordered.” A cup was slammed down onto the counter, coffee spilling everywhere.
Clint repressed a sigh.
“Decaf almond milk, two shots of vanilla with foam?”
“That’s what I asked for, but this is definitely not almond milk.”
“Sir, I assure you, I put almond milk in it.”
“Well, that’s not what I taste," the man doubled down.
“Okay, let me redo that for you.”
Clint got real creative with developing new curse words as he redid the coffee. Todd was definitely adding the extra drink to his debt.
“Here you go, Sir.”
“What about reimbursement for my trouble? I’ll take one of those chocolate cookies.”
“I’m sorry, Sir, but I can’t give you that for free.”
“Fucking indebted,” the man sneered, grabbing his coffee.
Indebted. Fancy word for slave. The guy wasn’t really original, Clint thought, while aiming a coffee capsule at the trash can and throwing it.
Clint had the misfortune of growing up in the foster care system, thus owing a shit ton of money to the government. They even billed him for the years he had spent at the circus before they caught him and took him back to a foster home. And once he aged out, it was working for whoever bought his contract out from the government. Usually shitty jobs with even shittier pay (which he didn't see penny of, as it went straight into the government's pockets), and sometimes pretty dangerous, too. Not that he had any say in what he worked. Un-fucking-fair. At this rate, he was going to be an indebted until he was at least forty, if he didn’t have a medical emergency until then. Which, knowing Clint’s luck, was unlikely.
So here he was, at 24, with an unfinished high school degree, working at a café shop for minimal wage, for that asshole Todd who rented his contract. Clint let out a sigh and turned back to thecounter. There was no point in wallowing in self-pity when he had debts to pay.
“Hello, what can I get you?”
“A latte with three shots of espresso and something to eat. What do you recommend?”
The customer was hot. Not actor hot, more like the middle-aged guy in a sharp suit and winning smile kind of hot. Exactly Clint’s type.
“What about our BLT sandwich? It’s pretty good.”
“Okay, then one of those, please.”
“That’ll be 21 dollars, eighteen cents.”
The guy put a ten and a twenty-dollar bill on the counter.
“Keep the change.”
Well, it seems he was generous and handsome, a winning combination in Clint’s book. The man sat down in the corner, pulling his phone out as he slowly sipped his coffee. It took a while for Clint to serve everyone in line, but once he was finished, the man was still only halfway through his drink. Clint grabbed a washcloth, hastily wiping the empty tables off before he stopped in front of the man.
“Is everything alright?”
“Yes, thank you. You were right, the BLT is great.”
“Not the only tasty thing here,” Clint winked at him.
The man let out a startled laugh.
“I don’t doubt it.”
“I’m Clint, by the way.”
“Phil.”
He offered his hand, which would have been normal behaviour, was it towards anyone else, but Clint wasn’t anyone else. He was an indebted, so basic fucking decency still surprised him. The guy’s hand was warm. He had nice eyes, too. Brown and kind.
“Long day at work, huh? Or at least I hope so, because that would explain the three shots of espresso. Please tell me you're not a caffeine addict getting their fix here,” Clint joked.
“Not an addict, more like a recreational user. And yeah, work has been rough lately.”
“What do you do?”
“Accounting. I’m saving the word number by number,” Phil said.
“Sounds dangerous,” Clint gave his best flirty smile.
“Yes, it definitely can be. Almost died quite a few times, if you can believe it,” there was a mischievous sparkle in his eyes, and Clint fucking loved it.
He was about to reply when the door chimed. He gave an apologetic smile to Phil.
“I’ll be right back.”
It was fucking Todd, just what he needed.
“Are you chatting up customers again?!”
“Good afternoon to you too. And no, I was just asking him if he needed anything else.”
“Cut the bullshit, Barton. You’re here to work, not to chit-chat, and you better keep that in mind unless you want me docking your pay.”
“You mean the money I don’t see a penny off?”
“And you’re not going to, in the next four decades if you continue like this.”
Clint bit his lip to keep himself from talking back. That asshole would really dock his pay; he just needed an excuse. He was sent to the back of the shop to refill the shelves, and by the time he came back to the counter, Phil was gone. Just his luck. The dating scene was pretty scarce when you had almost no free time and zero money. It’s been a while since he got laid, and he really wouldn’t have minded Phil bending him over the counter after work. Well, tough luck.
But to his surprise, Phil returned the next day. And they continued their awkward little dance of flirting and chatting. Clint learned that Phil had a vintage car named Lola, who was his baby, that he was an amateur cellist, and a big fan of Captain America. Sadly, whenever he would proposition Phil, the man would gently change the topic. But whatever, Clint was in for this in the long run. Not like he had many other guys in his life.
And things were going really well, until the Russians decided to shoot up the Café shop. It was an average Monday afternoon (of course, all shitty things happen on a Monday. Typical.). Clint serving coffee. Customers being assholes. Todd being an even bigger asshole. Some light flirting with Phil as he served his latte (extra caramel, whipped cream). Then, suddenly, two black cars stopped just outside the window where Phil was sitting, and some masked guys got out, with honest-to-God machine guns. Clint didn’t think, didn’t have time to, he just grabbed onto Phil, and dragged him down to the ground with him, a millisecond before the bullets shattered the window. There was broken glass all around them, and the customers were screaming, but Phil seemed completely fucking calm.
“Stay down,” he said, and he produced a gun from somewhere.
With one swift movement, he pushed the table over, seeking cover behind it, as he returned fire. Clint stared at him, wide-eyed. What the actual fuck. Phil was actually holding his own pretty well, up until the point one of the armed idiots managed to hit a flower pot on the wall (Todd insisted they would brighten up the place) with a badly aimed bullet, and it shattered right on top of Phil’s head, knocking him unconscious. One of the masked guys yelled at the other one in Russian, and based on the little Russian Clint picked up at the circus from the strongman, it wasn’t anything good for Phil.
He should have stayed down. He should have let them take Phil. Hell, he had no idea if Phil was even the good guy in this situation. After all, there were masked Russians coming after him. He might have been in the mafia. Or a gangleader. Or a dirty spy. But he was nice to Clint. He never once acted like Clint was lesser than him for being indebted. So he cursed, grabbing Phil’s scattered gun from the floor, and emerging from behind the table just enough to be able to shoot.
Listen, if there was one thing Clint was good at, it was shooting. Sure, he preferred the bow and arrow, but a gun wasn’t that different. You just had to aim, and shoot, and pray that the motherfucker on the other end didn’t get up. He learned how to use both over the years, and to use them well.
Phil actually did a pretty decent job at neutralizing the Russians; he could see that now. Three of them were lying on the pavement, presumably dead. But there were still three left, approaching the shop openly, now that they thought Phil was incapacitated. And that was their first mistake.
Clint didn’t kill them. He wasn’t crazy enough for that; he knew what trouble that would mean to an indebted. But a bullet through the upper arm, making them unable to shoot back? Sure, he could do that. The shots surprised them enough that he could get two of them. The third shot back, so Clint ducked down before popping right back up, shooting the guy in the chest. Non-fatal, he hoped. One of the wounded tried to run for it, so he shot him in the thigh, and by the time the last one was down, there were police cars swarming the area, sirens blaring. Clint crawled to Phil, checking his pulse, and he was relieved to find that Phil was still alive and breathing. Probably just a nasty concussion, if he was lucky. He watched as he got loaded into an ambulance, before one of the cops ushered Clint into a police car to bring him in for questioning.
After a few long and exhausting hours of questioning, where Clint felt more like a suspect than a hero, they let him go with a muttered, " We’ll be in touch". Clint had a massive headache, and all he wanted to do was go to sleep in the shitty little room above the shop, but of course Todd was waiting for him downstairs.
“What the hell, Barton?!” he yelled, his face a fine shade of tomato red, as he gestured around the ruins of the shop. “You got my place shot up!”
“The guys attacked your shop. I defended the customers. You should thank me, really,” Clint snapped, too tired to put up with Todd’s bullshit.
The man went even redder, if possible, and he jabbed his finger against Clint’s chest.
“You’ll clean this mess up, right now. Every shard of glass, every scrap of debris, you hear me? I want the shop spotless when I come in tomorrow morning. And I’m going to get the repairs docked from your pay.”
“It’s not my fault the Russian mafia decided to shoot your place up!”
“You made things worse. So shut up, and do your job.”
Clint bit his tongue and grabbed the broom. He was in for a long night.
A week later, the café was still not open. They replaced the window, the cost of which Todd happily rubbed into Clint’s face, but the walls were still riddled with bullets, and the light needed to be fixed. Right now, Clint was standing on top of a ladder, fiddling with the broken lamp. He heard the door open, which was strange, because he remembered locking it, but maybe he forgot. So he just yelled, not even looking back:
“We’re closed!”
“I only need a moment of your time, Mr Barton.”
That voice almost made Clint fall down the ladder. He snapped his head around, and there stood Phil, in his suit, handsome as ever. However, he wasn’t alone. A tall black man with an eyepatch (seriously, an eye patch?!) was hovering behind him.
“Phil!” he grinned, climbing down. “Good to see you conscious.”
“All thanks to you. I owe you, Mr. Barton.”
Mr. Barton? Well, that was a step back from Clint.
“It’s okay,” Clint shrugged. “Just glad you’re alive. Do I dare ask who those masked dudes were?”
“Not unless you have a death wish,” the eyepatch guy spoke up, his voice a deep rumble.
It creeped Clint the fuck out. Phil gave an annoyed look to the other guy, but then he turned back to Clint.
“It’s confidential, yes. Nevertheless, I’m very thankful to you. And so is SHIELD.”
“SHIELD?” Clint echoed, feeling pretty dumb.
Phil fished out a business card from his pocket and handed it to him.
“Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division.”
“Well, that’s a mouthful. Are you guys like FBI?”
Eyepatch guy loudly snorted at that.
“We’re way fucking better than them. That’s why you haven’t heard of us.”
“”Nick,” Phil groaned. “But yes, essentially SHIELD is a counter-terrorism and intelligence agency.”
“Wait, why are you telling me this?” Clint really fucking hoped they didn’t have to kill him for knowing all this, because it felt like he was definitely not supposed to know it.
“Because we’re here to offer you a job,” Eyepatch guy stated calmly. “You saved Agent Coulson’s life. It was obvious from the CCTV footage that you’re a decent shot and can operate under pressure. So we dug a little.”
“I apologise for the intrusion of privacy,” Phil quickly added. “But it was necessary.”
“Hawkeye, the World’s Greatest Marksman,” Nick said. “There wasn’t a lot about that period of your life, but we found some crappy video footage. Boy, you can shoot.”
Clint stared at them, mouth hanging open.
“You were only sixteen, but your aim with a shitty bow was almost as good as some of our agents with a gun. I wonder what you could do with a decent weapon.”
“Wait, hold on. Are you offering me a job? As in, to shoot for you?”
“Not immediately,” Phil said, deadly serious. “You would have to go through the basic training before we would put you on the field. But yes, if you prove yourself, you would shoot for us, as well as do other tasks."
Clint felt like his head was going to explode.
“Are you serious?”
“Dead serious,” Nick said. “So what do you say?”
“I...I’m an indebted. I can’t even decide where I work; the government holds my contract. And they’re loaning it to Todd right now.”
Nick waved dismissively, as if it was nothing.
“Don’t worry about that. The government will happily hand over your contract to us.”
“So why not ask them? Why come to me?” asked Clint, still baffled.
“This is your decision, Clint,” Phil said, and fuck, wasn’t it incredibly sexy to have him treat Clint like a normal human being, even if he was some kind of super agent and Clint a glorified slave.
“This isn’t something to decide likely. It’s a dangerous job. On occasion, it can involve killing. Granted, you would be killing bad guys, and we would brief you on why they are being killed, but it’s still not an easy task. If you don’t want to do it, you can say no, and we’ll leave.”
“After getting you to sign a shit ton of NDAs,” Nick added. “But don’t let Cheese scare you. There are plenty of benefits. For example, you being able to knock off your debt within the first year and work for us as a free man after that.”
“A year?!” Clint said, dumbfounded.
He never expected to be free before 40. Maybe never. To be free within a year...
“Usually it would take a bit longer, but SHIELD is being generous because you saved Coulson’s ass.”
“Where do I sign?” Clint said.
This was his chance. His out. Like hell he was going to stay with Todd and his ratty café. Plus, he got to use his bow again and be near Phil, so yes, he was going to take his chances.
“That’s the spirit,” Nick laughed.
“Are you sure? We can give you a few days to think it over,” Phil said.
“I’m sure,” Clint said. “And perhaps, as a signing bonus, would you go on a date with me?”
Nick laughed loudly, clasping Phil on the shoulder, who definitely went a little red.
“We can discuss that once you’re not an indebted to SHIELD,” he said, his voice composed despite the flush on his cheeks.
“I’m a patient man,” Clint smirked.
A year later
“So, can I wine and dine you tonight, Sir?” Clint, officially a free man since about ten minutes ago, asked, as he dropped down onto the floor from the vents in Phil’s office.
Phil put down the paperwork he was working on, looking amused.
“I gather you’ve received your emancipation paperwork?”
“Yes Sir,” Clint grinned. “Officially a free man. Free to date you, anyway.”
“You didn’t waste much time.”
“I’m a man of patience, but a year was pushing it, Sir.”
“Very well,” Phil said. “I like pizza.”
“Pizza it is,” Clint agreed, smiling ear to ear. “I know just the place.”