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The vein above Coulson’s left eye is throbbing, slightly. It makes his eyelid twitch, just barely but then still definitely noticeable if you know where to look, and Clint knows.
Coulson doesn’t often let his facial muscles come out to play, but Clint’s known him long enough that he’s pretty sure he’s got the entire catalogue of not-expressions memorized. This one means annoyance; or rather, annoyance skating precariously close to the edge of anger.
Fuck.
Coulson doesn’t get angry often, either; he’s seen too much, done too much, endured too much, that by now his scale is not exactly in line with other people’s. Not even other field ops. And for all its rarity, Coulson’s anger really is a terrible thing to behold: frightening when it’s directed at you and awe-inspiring when it’s directed elsewhere on your behalf, and Clint would know.
He’s experienced both.
So he takes in the setting (Coulson’s office) and the details (the time; Coulson’s relative levels of personal and professional disarray; tertiary knowledge of what else is going on in the wider world of SHIELD) and the fact that Coulson just pulled him off what the newbies still like to call “maneuvers” (the reality is actually a lot closer to “taking a leisurely stroll through the desert because it keeps us out of the scientists’ collective hair”) when he’d been the one to specifically request that Clint take the worst offenders out to burn off a little steam in the first place -- and takes a shot in the dark.
“So -- where am I going, and who am I going with?”
Because that has to be it. Nothing pushes Coulson’s buttons faster than someone messing with his people, and Fury isn’t above appropriating Clint’s services at a moment’s notice. Best marksman in the world means best marksman in SHIELD means his services are requested a hell of a lot more often than they’re actually granted, probably a lot more often than even Clint knows about, because it’s Coulson’s job as handler to screen his asset’s playdates. Usually.
Unless Fury pulls rank.
Coulson’s face doesn’t move, not at all, but still something in there sort of shifts: the frequency of the eyelid tic calms down ever so slightly, just enough that a sniper would notice.
Clint doesn’t smile. That he never misses is just another fact of life.
Other handlers feign annoyance -- and some don’t even have to fake it -- when Clint calls them out on the fly like that. Coulson, because he’s Coulson, just takes it in his stride. And though he’s never said -- because he doesn’t have to -- Clint knows the man takes comfort in how the agent he shepherds most often in the field knows him so well that oftentimes words are little more than extraneous details between them. (He’d also say the feeling’s mutual, except then he’d be lying, and he doesn’t like lying to Coulson. Not flat out, at least.)
(Despite how often it’s saved his life in the past it still makes that spot between Clint’s shoulders itch, knowing how transparent he can be to someone as badass as Coulson is. He might be credible now, under SHIELD’s umbrella, but that hardly erases his past. Predictability will never not be a weakness.)
Clint smiles, bright and beatific, because if Coulson is almost-angry levels of annoyed then it’s always better to present him with a proper target. He may or may not be able to take Coulson in a fair fight (he doesn’t know; he’s never tried) but Clint knows exactly how to present himself so that he pings in Coulson’s radar, and force-feeding him a threat assessment is a great way to calm him down. Coulson, like any other well-trained operative with decades of field experience, finds it soothing to fall back on that training, reflex or not.
Knowing how to handle the handlers is one of Clint’s sneakier survival skills.
(Marksmanship 101 says that a weapon is only as good as its operator, and Clint will be fucked if he doesn’t make sure the men who pull his strings all have their collective shit together. Or at least that's what he tells himself.)
“DC,” Coulson answers, his not-expression relaxing enough that the tic smooths out into nothingness. Clint calls it a tactical victory. “Fury wants to brief you directly. And as for the who, that’d be Romanov and Tillman. Wheels up in twenty. Try not to get them killed.”
Translation: Coulson doesn’t know where Clint is going, doesn’t agree with Natasha’s inclusion, doesn’t approve of Tillman as their temporary cat herder, and knows from the timetable that it’s probably going to be a clusterfuck right from the get-go. Sometimes Clint hates being right, because -- yeah. Fuck and double fuck.
“So who’s babysitting Stark while Tasha’s TDY?” Clint asks. It’s a valid question, if a semi-rhetorical one. SOP would be to pass the Stark detail off to the next most qualified agent, and three guesses who that is. But then, Fury isn’t always as easy to predict as Coulson is, so who the fuck knows.
And asking is just a courtesy, anyway; Coulson looks like he needs to vent a little.
Clint’s rewarded with the sight of Coulson’s not-expression fading into a grimace. It’s a controlled gesture: the slight downturn of his mouth, the subtle pinching of his eyes. “Who do you think?”
Clint winces, exaggerates the gesture to tuck a healthy dose of better you than me beneath the thinnest veneer of sympathy. Coulson is decidedly unimpressed, but that’s okay. ‘Decidedly unimpressed’ is still a reaction, and that’s all he’d been aiming for anyway.
“Go pack. You miss the plane, you fly commercial on your own dime.”
“What about you?” Clint asks, half curiosity, half some twisted need to keep pushing, see how far it gets him. Well, that and Coulson’s words were meant as a dismissal and frankly it would be weird if he started obeying orders outside of the field.
(It would be weird if he started obeying orders in the field, too, but they don’t hand out specialist titles for looking pretty and “Hawkeye, you know what to do,” is just one of the reasons Coulson is the only handler Clint actually respects for their ability to, you know, handle. SHIELD agents are generally not known for their people skills.)
“Same twenty. We’re getting split at Nellis. And I mean it, Barton. I’m not holding the plane. Pack. Your. Gear.”
And just like that, Clint knows that Coulson’s almost-anger has been successfully sublimated under a new layer of “so help me Barton I will trade you to the marine corps for a candy bar,” which is the exact right note Clint was hoping to hit, playing Coulson the way he’s been. Annoyed-Coulson is fantastically goal oriented; almost-angry Coulson has too much of a hair trigger to be let out amongst the decent people. Not that he’s sure Stark even remotely qualifies as decent people, but still. The longer he can keep Coulson from brooding over how his two best assets are headed for a shitstorm without him, the better off everyone will be.
“Race you,” Clint dares, because -- well, he’s pretty goal-oriented, too. And he’s not quite there yet.
(Sometimes all you can do in the face of a (subtly) raging bull is strike your brightest colors and strut it right across their line of sight. Clint... might know a little something about that.)
Coulson glares. It’s a flat, closed-off glare of total non-amusement. Also, it’s another win. “I hear Santa Fe has a lovely airport. Personally I bet TSA finds three knives on you -- do you want the over, or the under?”
“Aw, you’re no fun, Phil.”
“And I think God every day for that fact,” Coulson deadpans. Then there’s a moment where -- well, Coulson doesn’t sigh, nothing nearly so obvious; he doesn’t even really visibly relax -- but the open threat still lurking in the corners of his not-expression somehow sort of not-melts into something that could maybe, in certain lighting, be almost considered fond. And, well, that’s pretty much checkmate, right there. Annoyance successfully smothered by the full load of Clint’s own brand of charm, because of course Coulson knows exactly what Clint’s been doing this whole time, and even if he doesn’t approve (when does he ever?) at least he can unbend enough to appreciate the effort.
Or, well, maybe it’s more Coulson realizes exactly what he’s been doing this whole time, because when Coulson’s that level of not-angry he’s not always thinking straight. Can’t always see the range through the field of paper targets, but meh.
Whatever works.
Handling the handlers isn’t just a skill, it’s a motherfucking art form.
Then the fondness disappears back into the ether like it had never been. “I really wasn’t kidding about shoving you onto a 737.”
“Perish the thought,” Clint says, only half sarcastic. He only flies commercial when he has to drop off grid. Coulson knows there are few things he hates more, which is of course the only reason he brought it up. And letting Coulson know the threat still motivates is courtesy again. (So few people are ever actively courteous to Coulson, choosing instead to take his image as fact. Clint does his best not to be offended on his behalf. This is his compromise.)
“I’ll be on the tarmac in ten,” he follows with, and knows that Coulson will take it as the challenge it’s meant as. It’s even odds if the man will even be able to leave his office inside that time, let alone make it to the airstrip.
“See that you are,” Clint hears, because between one beat and the next he’s already out the door and down the hall, leaving Coulson talking to empty air. Hopefully leaving Coulson annoyed enough again that he’ll be cursing Clint instead of Fury until they’re face to face in the belly of a baby herc, and then it's wash, rinse, repeat until duty sends them separate ways. Duty, Clint knows, is always the best distraction.
Handling the handlers. He could write a fucking book. Too bad it’d never be published.
...Maybe an addendum to the SHIELD training manual? Or an inter-office memo: Proper Care And Feeding Of Your Supervisory Agent. He’ll pitch it to Coulson on the plane, see how far it gets him.
-fin-