Chapter Text
Clint Barton tried really hard not to crawl around in the air vents in SHIELD HQ any more. He only did it … sometimes. He’d stopped eavesdropping on Hill – mostly – after she’d taken to throwing sleeping gas in the vents whenever she suspected he was in there, and he’d mostly stopped loitering in the crawlspace under Fury’s office after the one-eyed bastard had started shooting at the floor whenever he got pissed off, because there was no way on Earth he was going to be able to explain being shot to Coulson. He occasionally hung out in the vents above the mess, because Nat liked it when he brought her gossip – he was pretty certain she liked gossip just because now, rather than because she was collecting intel to help her blackmail her way out, but he knew that most of the junior agents wouldn’t really talk to her, because she had this tendency to swear in Russian and make idle comments about the best way to really get to a man’s heart. Even Hill had gone a funny colour the first time Nat had told her about the uses for a decorative wooden spoon.
Nat had threatened him several of the same uses when she’d found him in the vent with the best view of the women’s showers on the third floor, however.
All in all, he didn’t sneak about as much as he had done in his first years at SHIELD. He didn’t really feel the need any more, except for the vent above Coulson’s desk. That was a nice vent. He’d started out tucking himself away in there – where he could hear everything that was said – when Coulson had first become his handler, and he suspected he wasn’t being told everything (this was also why he’d gone hunting for a way to eavesdrop on Fury’s office). Then he decided it was also a handy place to overhear things, as people tended to come to Coulson when they’d fucked up and were scared Fury was going to grind their bones for bread (Clint wouldn’t entirely put it past him). After a year or so, once he’d really tested the hypothesis that Coulson wasn’t telling him everything – and had it roundly defeated – he told himself the gossip was better than what he overheard in the mess, and it didn’t smell as bad as the gym, but, if was honest with himself, he liked it. Coulson’s presence was … reassuring. Relaxing. So he hung out in the vent when Coulson locked him out of the weapons room, or the range, or Fury bitched him out, or Nat was away on a mission, and sometimes when he was just bored. Sometimes he actually just lounged in one of the chairs Coulson had in his office, but only when it was just Coulson there. He’d gotten A Look after interrupting one too many briefings with junior agents with some smart-arsed comment. He knew Coulson’s Looks. That one had implied that he’d been talking with Nat about spoons.
Today he was in the vent.
Coulson was doing paperwork during his lunch break.
And Clint was watching, not really focused on what he was doing, just tucked in the vent, where he could see Coulson at his desk, all but perched on his shoulder, watching him fill out paperwork, check emails, write terse memos (Coulson had clear, precise, tidy handwriting). Clint couldn’t see why Coulson spent so much time on paperwork, because Clint hated paperwork, but he liked watching Coulson write. It was soothing, the sound of Coulson’s preferred fountain pen on paper. Maybe something on the radio, Coulson liked jazz and the World Service, and shared Clint’s taste for noisy rock (Nat said it was just prancing men who wouldn’t know a tune if she hit them with one, but he’d caught her going to a gig with Hill and humming something about a rebel girl once, so he ignored her). But it didn’t really matter what Coulson listened to, because Clint was fairly inclined to like whatever Coulson liked.
Something about Coulson today was off, however. Not enough to worry Clint, but enough to make him curious. So he watched a little more than usual, trying to work out what was going on, because if he was honest with himself – or Nat got him drunk and punched him until he confessed – he was a little more interested in Coulson than was usually called for by the agent/handler relationship. Not that Clint would ever tell Coulson, because, well, he wasn’t, and there wasn’t a chance in hell of anything actually happening between them. So he carried on as usual, and the usual for Clint meant hiding out in the vent above Coulson’s desk instead of doing anything he should actually be doing.
Coulson was leant slightly over his desk as usual, not too much, a posture Clint knew he could maintain for hours – he must have been listening in one of those interminable health and safety lectures he had forced Clint to attend, at gunpoint – pen in one hand, but still on the table. His breathing was off. Faster. Not too fast, just not regular enough for a man doing paperwork at his desk. The rest of him was still, almost motionless.
Not motionless. Clint leant forward slightly, his nose almost pressing the grate slats. There. The right arm, in his lap. Not on the desk. Moving slightly.
Coulson’s breath hitched, almost silently, his head drooping forward on his neck for a moment.
Oh god. Clint stared. Oh god. Coulson didn’t do that. Not outside of Clint’s guilty, furtive imaginings, the ones he would never admit to on pain of death (or Nat with the potato masher). Not at his desk.
Except he was.
It was unmistakeable now, to Clint. He couldn’t really see anything, just the curve of Coulson’s neck, which he wanted to run his tongue over, the slight movement of his arm, and Clint ached to feel that same regular rhythm on his own cock. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. He felt his cock harden as he lay in the vent, not daring to move, unable to look away.
Coulson’s movements were quick, precise. Efficient. Getting the job done. Clint wondered if he fucked like that, if he’d bring his lover to orgasm in the same way he worked an op, thoroughly, totally focused on the task. The smart-mouthed part of him wondered if Coulson filled out paperwork when he wanked in his office. Fuck. He wanted to be down there, his hand where Coulson’s was, his cock in the agent’s hand. Damnit. He wished reaching his erection was possible in this position. He wished he could thrust against something other than vent metal. Oh, fuck. He ought to look away.
Coulson came suddenly, his breath hissing, neck muscles taught. Clint didn’t hear him groan, just that sharp release of air, saw his back go rigid for a moment, felt his own cock twitch in sympathy and need. A flick of a tissue into the waste bin, and Coulson cleared his throat, reached for his coffee mug (standard-issue SHIELD office mug, blue logo on white glaze, always on Coulson’s desk), sipped, and resumed writing. Clint wanted to sigh. He wanted hands on his cock, mouth and tongue and just a touch of teeth, he wanted to come and come hard. He didn’t dare move, even knowing that he could move without Coulson hearing him.
Coulson checked his watch (expensive, discreet, analogue, always exact), and put his pen down, closed the file, and stood. He rolled his shoulders briefly, the material of his neatly-tailored suit shifting (Clint knew nothing about clothes, but he’d overheard Sitwell making a comment to Hill about Coulson and Jermyn Street tailors, and he didn’t care enough to know more because he was pretty convinced Coulson could make a trash bag look like Armani). Clint watched Coulson’s arse as he left the office, the door locking behind him.
Then he sighed, and banged his head on the top of the vent, because fuck everything.