Chapter Text
Level Six Agent of SHIELD, Phillip J. Coulson does not panic.
He's known for his calm, his cool, his dry humor and deadpan reaction to unexpected changes in plan. He can keep a straight face in the most dire of circumstances, a skill that serves him well as he enters the office of his best friend and boss Nicolas Fury, because right now, inside, he is panicking.
This has to be a joke. It's exactly the sort of joke someone like Fury would play, the kind where he's completely fed up with Phil's pining over a certain specialist and has decided to take matters into his own hands. If that's the case, it's easily remedied; Phil has already written up a five page report on why commissioning SHIELD resources for such an endeavor would be a colossal waste of time and money.
If it's not though, if this is a legitimate operation that just so happens to satisfy the underhanded motives of a certain one-eyed Director...
Well then.
Phil is well and truly screwed.
And not the fun, bend-over-and-hold-on-to-something type of screwed.
Nodding to Debbie, Fury's middle-aged, unflappable dragon of a secretary, he slips past her and into the man's office before he can be stopped, closing the door behind him and locking it for good measure.
"Care to explain to me exactly what this is?" he asks in his driest tone, tossing the Missions Brief lightly onto the Director's desk before taking a seat in the more comfortable of the two visitor's chairs.
The man doesn't spare him the slightest glance, still typing away at his computer one key at a time, hunt-and-peck style, but Phil is used to his tactics and doesn't let it phase him. He makes himself as comfortable as possible in the straight-backed instrument of torture Fury keeps for chastising errant agents, smoothing his tie down his chest and crossing his ankle over his knee, prepared to settle in for the long haul if need be.
Hell, he's ready to go toe to toe with his friend if he has to, so great is the thundering of his heart and the dark cloud of alarm at the back of his mind.
With a final click of his mouse, Fury turns to face him, leaning back himself and touching his fingertips together, peering at him over his hands with a gaze far more intense than it has any right to be, given the man only has the one eye.
"What seems to be the problem Agent?" he asks flatly, and shit, Phil knows that tone.
This isn't going to be good.
"Operation Prenup?" he demands, because while Fury does have a sense of humor, contrary to popular opinion, it wasn't usually so blunt. "Surely you can't be serious about this."
"As serious as a heart attack Coulson," the man answers, and the sick, swooping feeling in the pit of Phil's stomach doubles. Fury studies him for a moment before reaching into his filing cabinet, pulling out a manila folder twice as thick as the one Phil had slapped down and tossing it across the desk. "There have been at least seven break-ins at three different SHIELD-owned properties in the last three months, and I damn well want to know what the hell is going on."
Grabbing the folder, Phil flips it open and quickly thumbs through the file, skimming the summary sheets and taking note of the addresses listed. That was one question answered at least – this really was a legitimate op, which actually makes the situation that much worse.
"Nothing missing?" he queries, still paging through. "No defacement of property?"
"Nothing," Fury confirms. "No damage, no real signs of forced entry, no theft that we can discern."
"And you really think a SHIELD agent would be foolish enough to attempt to steal SHIELD secrets from other SHIELD agents?"
"Dunno, but that's what I need you to find out."
Phil sighs, closes the file and pinches the bridge of his nose. A real op then, one with real-life consequences if it fails. All seven apartments listed in the report belonged to married or common-law couples, of which at least one member in each was an active-duty SHIELD agent. None of them were that high up in the hierarchy, and while agents certainly did take their work home with them on occasion, none of the targets were involved in anything all that top-secret.
Still, Phil understands the severity of the situation, understands Fury's anger. He is angry too – Phil can see it simmering away beneath his leather jacket. It's the principle of the thing; when someone signs on with SHIELD they do sign a prenup of sorts. They're giving their life to the organization, marrying into the family so-to-speak, and there are certain expectations and standards of behavior that come along with it. Break that contract and an agent is let go, with prejudice.
"You're sure about this?"
"Of course I'm not," Fury scoffs, flicking his wrist in a dismissive motion Phil is all too familiar with. "But the good doctor is the common denominator, the only link we can find between the break-ins, except for the fact that they all occurred on SHIELD property. That's why I'm sending in you and Barton."
Yes, him and Barton.
That's exactly the problem.
"Jeffries is a marriage counselor," Phil points out, trying and failing to keep his voice level. "He does couples counseling."
"Exactly," Fury replies, leveling him with his most unimpressed stare. "Christ, if any two agents in this organization can pull off a fake relationship it's you two. Hell, this is an intelligence agency and half the people here already think you're secretly married. The other half just think you're banging each other after-ops in the back of the quinjet."
"Yes, thank you, as if the betting pools weren't reminder enough," Phil snarls, his cheeks going warm. No doubt the tips of his ears have gone bright red, a tell that he's never been able to get a handle on and one that only the subject of SHIELD Specialist Clinton F. Barton can bring out of him. "You know neither is the case."
"A damn shame if you ask me," Fury grumbles. "Lord knows you two have been ass-over-tea-kettle in love long enough by now."
"You're delusional," Phil mutters.
Halfway delusional anyway.
His more amorous feelings for the archer are far less secret than he might wish they were. Hell, if the pools are to be believed, forty-five percent of his colleagues have at least a hundred dollars riding on him cracking and bending Barton over the nearest horizontal surface the next time the sniper mouths off over the comms.
Only Clint himself seems to be entirely without a clue, and if that isn't a glaring hint Coulson doesn't know what is.
In a way he supposes he and Barton are the perfect pair to send in on this op. Excluding Clint's lack of reciprocal feelings, they do know each other very well. He'd been the one to recruit the archer seven years ago, and has been the man's exclusive handler for the last four. It had taken them all some time to realize that Coulson was one of the few who was capable of getting around Barton's authority issues and getting the very best out of him, though if you asked Phil it only took some decent human kindness and a well-earned dose of respect. Together they could easily pull off the kind of undercover mission Fury had proposed in the file he'd left on Phil's desk.
Only problem was, it would probably break Phil's heart.
"I want it done Coulson," Fury rumbles, turning back to his computer screen, a blatant dismissal. "Jeffries is the only link between all of the apartments that have been broken into. If he is using his sessions with our agents to attempt to locate SHIELD information I want him stopped, by the end of the year."
"The end of the..."
"Dismissed Agent."
Shit.
Shit, shit, shit.
Feet cold, fingers numb, Phil grabs the two file folders and flees.
AVAVA
Fury watches his best friend turn a neat about-face and hides a smirk behind a scowl.
This shit couldn't have worked out more to his advantage if he had engineered it himself.
Oh, to be fair to Coulson, the break-ins do need to be investigated, but that's just another reason that those two are the perfect agents for this op. Dr. Jeffrey Jeffries may or may not be hunting up SHIELD secrets to sell to alternative agencies, but the man is an undeniably good counselor. He's been the saving grace of several SHIELD couples throughout his tenure with the organization, and had been the only one smart enough, objective enough, and intrusive enough to break up several others.
He'd seriously consider showing leniency if Jeffries manages to get his two best agents straightened out.
Perhaps not the best metaphor, he muses, considering the fact that he's sending two men to couples counseling under the guise of relationship problems.
Though Coulson could certainly stand to work on his intimacy issues.
Yet another reason Barton and Coulson are the perfect agents to send in on this op. Coulson is high enough on the ladder to present a tempting target and Barton's got the eye to catch any tell-tale patterns that might emerge from this little charade. If Jeffries is the one breaking into his agents' homes looking for secrets Fury is going to destroy the man; if not, well, no harm, no foul.
Either way, he wins.
Clicking into SHIELD's secure housing-allotment site, he picks out a nice little one-bedroom apartment on the top floor of the building on eighth, the one that's only been hit twice since all this started. He backdates the lease six months, puts both Coulson and Barton's names on the contract.
Settling back in his chair, he considers the look that had crossed Coulson's face when he realized that this could be a long-term op, potentially months at one session a week, and smiles.
Oh yes, this one could be fun.