Despite general opinion Clint Barton is a shockingly grounded individual. He is not emotionally unstable, he goes to his yearly psych appointments, and does not nest in high places angsting for one outlandish reason or the other. He eats regularly without needing prompting, he visits medical when injured, and is fairly self sufficient. Despite this, Clint Barton has one critical weakness in the form of his husband, one Phil Coulson.
Phil Coulson is very nearly solely responsible for the aforementioned calm and generally well adjusted traits of his husband. Clint had not always been the picture of mental health and stability. The man he is now, the man that he fought tooth and nail, bled to become can all be credited in his opinion to Phil. So, plausibly, Clint does not relish it when Phil is away. And away Phil Coulson often is. Maybe before. Before Loki. Before New York. Before losing Phil. Maybe Before, Clint could part with his husband without longing for him like a puppy. Waiting at the door for his master to return, disappointed with every person to walk through it that wasn’t him. Maybe Before, but this is After, and Clint absolutely hated not knowing where Phil was. Abhorred being unable to keep him safe.
Clint would much prefer following Phil, being his eyes up high, watching his back just like the Good Old Days. Lamentably Clint has a new job, one that does not allow him to keep an eye on Phil as often as he would prefer. Fortunately for most everyone else, Clint Barton is a Superhero. He even has a team and lives in a fancy tower with all sorts of cool gadgets and robots and other high tech crap. He loves his team, really, he just loves Phil more. He will always love Phil more, but as his job requires that he be available at any minute’s notice he has to be preferably at least in the same state as the rest of the team. Hence the aforementioned fancy tower and cool shit.
When Phil is gone Clint tends to haunt the residents of Avengers tower, needing to be around the presence of other people, something to take his racing mind off of Phil. The rest of the Avengers love their resident hawk, they do, but damn if they don’t miss Phil just as much as Clint does. If maybe for different reasons. None of them begrudge his need for human contact when Phil’s away, but Clint tends to make a nuisance of himself, Natasha being the only one really capable of handling him when he is in one of his moods. Today Clint is bugging Tony in his lab, hovering over his shoulder like a bumblebee, asking billions of questions about every little thing and making annoying, if innocent, suggestions about his work.
“What are you making now?” he inquires trying to lean over Tony to get a closer look at whatever Tony is fiddling with.
“Nothing.” Tony intones dryly, “Well not nothing, obviously I’m always making something groundbreaking and important, but now? Now I’m just doing some repairs.” Clint makes a noncommittal humming sound and steps away to roam around the lab in search of something to hold his interest.
“Are these new arrow designs for me?” He asks displaying a set of blueprints and then studying them shrewdly as if attempting to divulge their secrets. Tony snatches the paper out of the archer’s hands, rolling them up so as to keep them away from prying eyes.
“No touching.” Tony swats Clint on the back of the head with his new paper weapon. “And who else would they be for Birdbrain?” Clint shrugs and sighs kicking at the leg of a table, causing Tony to pinch the bridge of his nose in frustration. “If I make you these now, will you go away and shoot them somewhere? You know, not here?”
“Nope.” Clint grins brightly popping his p obnoxiously. “JARVIS kicked me out of the range for the day, said something about too many explosions and going on strike or something.”
“I’m not even going to ask.” Tony grumbles under his breath. “So what do you want with me?”
“Bored.” Clint shrugs and wanders to the overstuffed couch in the corner and flops onto it with a huff, folding his arms across his chest.
“Fine, you can watch, but only if you sit there quietly.” Tony levels Clint with his best ‘don’t fuck with me’ glare, eyes boring into the side of the archer’s face. He cracked a smile and mimed zipping his lips. Tony gives him a small smirk and turns back to his work. All goes well for a while, Tony got approximately eight minutes of silence from Barton before the shifting started.
It started small, with just minute shifting as if to get comfortable, the sound of denim scratching over the leather of the couch just loud enough to give Tony the beginnings of renewed annoyance, but innocent enough for him not to begrudge Barton who was blessedly keeping his mouth shut and appeared to be trying. But then the shifting got louder, Barton twists his body around every few minutes like he was trying to sleep on a rock and not Tony Stark’s ridiculously expensive leather couch. Tony shot an exasperated glance in Clint’s direction, causing him to pause in the middle of what appeared to be an attempt to switch sides of the couch by rolling his entire body forward to lay on his front instead of getting up to move like a normal person. Tony raised an eyebrow at him, Clint just gave him a minute shrug and finished the move with a giant flop onto his front grinning madly like a child as he crossed his arms on the raised end of the couch and rested his chin there. Tony gave him a disgruntled look, Barton gazed at him with one of the most comically innocent faces Tony had ever seen, going as far as to bat his eyelashes. The outlandish scene provoked a snort out of Tony who returned to his work.
Again, all was quiet for approximately three and half minutes before Clint began drumming his fingers idly against the couch arm. Tony whirled around in his chair and pierced Clint with a look that was practically glacial, causing the archer to startle. Eyes dropped, shoulders hunched in and fingers curled into fists, knuckles going white. Half formed insults died on Tony’s lips as he exhaled gustily and turned back around. He knew Clint couldn’t help it, probably didn’t even realize what he was doing and Tony really didn’t have the heart to throw him out. Especially when he knew how much the archer missed his husband. Tony despised that whole kicked puppy expression on anyone, and Barton was distressingly proficient with that look.
Clint went absolutely still, body going tense and doing his very best to remain silent. It was excruciating, he felt as if ants were crawling under his skin. He didn’t know where Phil was, and God he didn’t know how to handle that anymore. His anxiety spiking, Clint buried his face into the arm of the couch. He breathed deeply, forcefully calming his racing pulse and carefully relaxed his fingers before going completely limp.
Roughly an hour later, having not heard a peep from Barton since his previous outburst, figuring he had decided to take a nap, Stark had nearly forgotten about his fidgety archer, focusing on delicate circuitry. As such, Tony was utterly unprepared for the loud clicking noise that bombarded his ears in the silent lab. Nearly leaping out of his chair, he bit back a curse and listened carefully, waiting for the sound again. There it was, a slow click followed by a long pause and several more quick clicks. Casually, Tony turned his head to find the source of the offending noise and proceeded to slam his head on his desk in despair. Barton. Of course it was Barton, silly him believing he was unconscious, it was nearly impressive how long he had managed to remain still. But where in God’s name had he gotten a pen? Barton was still sprawled on the couch with his head lying on one arm the other hanging near the floor, a cheap ballpoint pen in his hand, thumb idly retracting the point in and out.
Tony allowed himself one more moment of weakness, thumping his head on the desk once more before bending over and rummaging through his bottom drawer. Locating the object of his intent, Tony pulled it out of the drawer hurling it at Barton’s head, Clint catches it out of the air mostly out of instinct. Clint grunted and frowned down at the object in his hand.
“What is this?” he queried, not sure what to make of the object. It was a bright, almost offensive shade of red, consisting of three prongs with gold circles embedded in their centers connected to what appeared to be a gold raised circular platform where the prongs met in the center.
“It’s a spinner.” Tony answered lazily as if that was all the explanation needed. Clint glared at him,
“Uh huh, what’s it do?”
Tony snorted, “It spins, what do you think it does Tweety? Now be a good little boy and play with that for a while.”
“It spins. That’s it?” Tony nodded absently “Well that’s stupid. I don’t want this.”
“Too bad. At least it’s shiny, should occupy you for at least a couple of hours.” Clint made a disgruntled noise in the back of his throat, gearing up for an argument. “Jesus Barton, it’s a toy! Hold the center, and spin the prongs, watch it spin, the works.” Tony scrubbed a hand through his hair, “Just see if it helps ok? Not trying to insult you here.”
“Yes you are.” Barton’s lip twitches a bit in the corners.
“Well maybe a little.” Tony returns the gesture and pretends to go back to work, watching Clint out of the corner of his eye. His brows are lowered as he appears to wage a staring contest with the offending bit of plastic and metal. Grumbling under his breath, Clint held the toy in his left hand and brought his right up roughly flicking one of the prongs causing the prongs to spin round wildly before eventually coming to a stop. Clint stared at the object with all the intensity of a man in the heat of battle and flicked the toy again, prongs spinning even faster. Clint waited for it to come to a halt once more, fixated on the gyrating toy in his hands and spun it again, watching the colors blur together forming a red circle streaked with gold. Suddenly it didn’t seem so gaudy anymore.
“Huh.”
A languid smile began to creep across Tony’s face like molasses, smugness radiating off of him in waves. Barton didn’t even notice. Maybe he would work on those arrowheads today after all.
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Barton lounged on a couch in the communal floor of the tower, the television was blaring but he didn’t pay it much attention. Instead he was fixated on the little scarlet spinner that had been gifted to him by Stark. His face screwed up in concentration as he attempted to spin it in one hand, the motion feeling awkward and clumsy in his grasp. So absorbed in his goal, he failed to note Steve’s presence as he approached from behind. Fumbling the gadget once again, Clint swore itching to toss the infernal thing across the room.
Steve popped his head over the couch, curious, wanting to get a better look at whatever was the focus of Clint’s ire. Stilling, a mask of casual indifference descended upon Barton’s face, the only remaining motion was that of the spinner still lightly clutched between his fingers.
“What do you have there?” Steve inquired, graciously ignoring the fact that he had successfully startled the archer.
“Thing.” Clint shrugged, once again attempting to spin the item in one hand. “Stark threw it at me.”
Steve’s brows furrowed trying to get a better look. “Is it safe?” He frowned down at the item spinning in Barton’s fingers as if trying to expose the danger surely lurking inside of the brightly colored object. The archer merely shrugged again making a pleased noise at the item that was now wobbling in a slow arc clasped tightly between his fingers.
“Relax Cap, it’s a toy.” Tony strode into the room and grinned widely down at Clint. “Parents give them to children to distract them with something shiny and shut them up. Seems it works with our little pest as well.” Tony ruffled Clint’s hair has he walked past and tumbled onto one of the recliners ignoring the finger flipped lazily in his direction. Steve’s mouth twitched as he settled down next to Clint with his sketchbook in hand, darting quick glances at the archer throughout the evening. Clint seemed content enough to sit there and watch the screen, occasionally pausing to snark at Tony, the little wheel spinning gently all the while. Steve allowed a small smile to break across his face. Well, how about that?
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Over the next couple of weeks spinners of all different shapes and sizes would appear sporadically throughout the tower. A couple in Stark’s workshop, several in the common floor, the gym, the kitchen, particularly memorable ones hidden inside of the vents. All residents of the tower would feign innocence if questioned about the origin of a specific toy, but they would not stop appearing. Even JARVIS was suspect, a custom spinner left casually in the archery range after the AI’s ‘strike’ had come to an end. Outwardly, Barton did not appear affected by the numerous gifts bestowed upon him. Secretly, he treasured each one of the silly toys.
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Approximately four weeks after the first spinner incident, Coulson returned home to the tower. In this time Clint had accumulated nearly thirty spinners and if they were strewn across the apartment, well he couldn’t really bring himself to feel guilty. In fact, the first view of his husband Phil was greeted with was of the archer draped across the couch watching Dog Cops and idly fiddling with a garish purple spinner. A full blown smile spread across Phil’s face despite himself. He strode forward silently and bent down to kiss the top of the archer’s head and smiled sappily at him.
Clint’s face lit up as he leaned his head back and positively beamed at Phil. Sitting up, he grabbed Phil’s arm and forcibly dragged Phil onto the couch and burrowed into his side. Phil couldn’t bring himself to resist even though he desperately needed a shower and simply rested his arm across the archer’s shoulders and held his husband. Clint reached his arm out and dropped the spinner over the back of the couch and settled back into Phil’s side. He breathed in the smell of his husband deeply and exhaled, all tension built over the past month bleeding out of his shoulders. Clint smiled, utterly at peace.