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Phil is sitting in the Starbucks in the hotel lobby, waiting for the hours until their extraction to pass and working on the after-action reports for the mission they've just completed, when he hears a familiar voice.
"Hi. I'd like a tall cotton candy Frappuccino, please."
He raises his head to stare at Clint, taking a sip of his own triple shot Americano as he does so.
Clint pays and tips and then leans against the wall by the pick-up counter, head back and eyes closed. He looks tired. The op was successful, but not without its pitfalls. Clint has four stitches just under his hairline, and the very careful way he's holding himself suggests a pulled core muscle of some sort. Phil thinks that extraction can't come soon enough. Clint won't sleep, he knows, until he's somewhere he feels secure.
Clint's t-shirt is clinging to his well-muscled form, and he has his arms crossed over his chest, further highlighting his physique. Phil is not the only one watching him. There is a gaggle of teenage girls in the corner, peering at him and whispering, giggles breaking out every few seconds. Phil can't exactly blame them. He wonder if Clint even notices.
"Tall cotton candy Frappuccino," the barista announces, and Clint opens his eyes and reaches for his drink, breath hitching a little as he overextends.
"Thanks," he says with a smile that turns the teenage barista's cheeks pink. He turns and heads straight for Phil's table, carefully lowering himself into the chair opposite. "Hey, boss."
"What is that?" Phil asks, warily eying the violently pink concoction.
Clint shoves a straw into it and takes a sip. "Vanilla bean frap with a pump of raspberry syrup."
Phil blinks. "But... there isn't even any coffee in it!" he says in consternation, because if there isn't coffee in it, what's the point?
Taking another sip, Clint shrugs and then freezes, face going blank until the pain obviously eases.
"I don't get them very often," he admits, "And even when I do, I only get a small. But sometimes I just want one."
With that, Phil understands. The mission they just finished was rough, and this drink is somehow comforting for Clint. Phil knows he doesn't find comfort in very many reminders of his past.
So Phil just nods and goes back to his work, letting Clint enjoy his drink in peace.
It's about half gone when Clint says, unexpectedly, "I'd never had cotton candy before we joined up with Carson's."
Phil glances up, but Clint is sprawled back in his chair, staring beyond Phil's shoulder, his gaze unfocused.
Phil knows it's pain and fatigue and nostalgia making Clint open up, and he lets him talk. As far as he knows, Clint doesn't discuss his past with anyone, and Phil is honored to know that Clint trusts him enough to share even a little bit of it with him.
Clint's smile is faraway, but there's a rueful twist to his lip.
"A couple of kids started fighting over the cone their parents bought them, and it fell. Their parents dragged them away screaming, and I picked it up before anyone else could," Clint says, his voice quiet and a little lost.
Phil's heart clenches at the thought of Clint, small and alone, picking candy up off the ground as an unexpected treat, but he says nothing.
Clint's huff of laughter is soft. "I remember thinking after the first mouthful that it must be what heaven is made out of."
He snaps out if it suddenly and glances at Phil, wide-eyed. Phil keeps his face neutral and gives him a small smile.
Clint rolls his eyes and drops his gaze to his drink, fiddling with the straw. "Kids, y'know?" he says, embarrassed.
Phil hums in agreement, his heart aching for both the child Clint was, and the tired, wistful man he is now, sitting here in front of Phil.
"Thanks for not leaving me behind, boss," Clint says quietly, and Phil's hand clenches around his pen.
"That will never happen," he promises. "We don't leave our people behind, you know that. Someone will always come get you."
Clint nods like he always does when Phil promises that, but something in his eyes makes Phil hope that Clint's actually starting to believe it.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Six months later, Phil's promise is being put to the test.
He's so focused on getting to HQ that he realizes he forgot to stop for coffee. Anxiety over Clint and Natasha missing a second check-in has pushed everything else out of his sleep-fogged mind. He is not their handler on this mission, and he has no reason to head to the office several hours before dawn, but it's not like was going to go back to bed after Sitwell's call.
Phil owes Jasper coffee for that phone call too, and Jasper will not thank him for break room swill.
He probably won't thank Phil for Starbucks coffee either, but that's what he's getting, Phil thinks as he sees the familiar logo. It's closest, and he doesn't want to waste anymore time.
He orders the usual for him and Jas, and then surprises himself by adding on a tall cotton candy frappuccino.
The barista, a kid who looks all of twelve years old, eyes Phil's hairline and perfectly tailored suit with half-lidded, sleepy eyes, smirking as he adds it to the order. Phil tamps down his annoyance but tucks his wallet away before pulling out the tip he'd normally add.
The drink is just as pink as he remembers, and tooth-achingly sweet when he takes a sip. It tastes more of raspberry than cotton candy, and he supposes it's more about the name and the color than the actual flavor for Clint -- it's about the comfort of one of the few good memories his childhood spawned.
He takes another sip and has to concede that there is a very cotton-candyish aftertaste after all.
The sweetness is going to give him a headache, he thinks, but he is unwilling to throw it away half-finished. He knows that's ridiculous, but that doesn't make it any less true, so he determinedly works at finishing it as he resumes his headlong rush toward HQ.
Clint will be fine. They'll be fine. They'll both be fine, and the ache he feels is a toothache from all the sugar, that's all.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
It takes four more missed check-ins, two extraction teams, five explosions, way too many staples and stitches, and three pints of blood between them before Clint and Natasha are back at HQ, safely ensconced in SHIELD medical.
Phil gets a few strange looks as he traverses the halls of HQ with the bright pink drink in his hand, but he blithely ignores them. He talked to Clint's doctors, and they approved, and that's all he cares about. Phil figures the calories are good for Clint, and the coolness might soothe a throat injured by smoke inhalation.
When he enters the room Clint and Natasha are sharing, Natasha is still out, as he knew she would be, but Clint is sleeping restlessly, head moving on the pillow. Phil knows letting the nightmare continue will do more harm than good.
"Clint," he says softly, and Clint jerks awake with a moan of pain as he jolts himself.
"Sir?" he grits out, blinking groggily, and his voice is even raspier than usual.
"Shhh, don't talk. Here, I brought you this."
Clint's glassy eyes light up. "Hey, thanks!" he exclaims, and then breaks into harsh coughing.
Phil hastily sets down Clint's drink and his own coffee and braces Clint while he coughs, feeding him some ice chips and raising the head of the bed so Clint can sit comfortably.
Clint's coughing trails off into heaving breaths until he finally calms, raising his hands to rub his watering eyes and wincing when the movement pulls on his IV line.
"Better?" Phil asks as he gives Clint a few more ice chips, and Clint nods.
Phil unwraps a straw and pops it into Clint's drink before handing him the cup. The grateful, tired smile Clint gives him as he takes it is too much for Phil, and he can't help but reach out to smooth the lock of hair back from Clint's forehead.
Clint leans into the touch, blinking owlishly up at Phil, his forehead creasing in confusion.
"Sir?" he whispers, but Phil puts a finger over his lips, which are cool from the straw. The touch makes them both shiver. Without really thinking about it, Phil gently slides a hand through Clint's dirty hair to cup the back of his head, thumb stroking Clint's temple.
"For now you need to stay quiet, but when the doctors okay you for speech again, I'd like you to call me Phil, okay?" he murmurs.
Clint nods, still looking a little lost, and Phil smiles.
"And when you're off the meds and you're well and out of here, I'd like for us to have a conversation," he adds, and Clint's brow furrows a little more.
"It'll be a good conversation, I hope," Phil says, with a smile to reassure Clint -- and himself.
It seems to work, because Clint's brow eases, and his hazy eyes are looking at Phil with hope, and something like awe.
Phil wants nothing more than to sit on the edge of Clint's bed and stroke his hair as Clint finishes his ridiculous drink, and let all of the worry and stress and fear of the past few days melt away with every touch.
But that isn't fair to either of them when they haven't had that conversation yet, not when the doctors and nurses can come in at any moment, not when Natasha might wake up at any time.
Stroking his fingertips down Clint's cheek one last time, he settles into the chair by Clint's bedside.
He pulls out his tablet but ends up watching Clint instead. Clint is staring at him as he sips his drink, and when he catches Phil looking back, he smiles around the green straw, soft and a little shy.
Phil smiles back, feeling lighter than he has in years. Even here, in the starkness of SHIELD medical, with Clint pale and hazy with painkillers and fatigue, happiness floods through Phil.
They'll have that conversation, Phil will make sure of it, but it isn't really necessary. Everything they need to say is clear in the way Clint looks at him, in the way Phil feels when he looks back at Clint.
Clint is here, and he's safe, and they're going to be okay. They're going to be so much more than okay, and Phil can't wait to get to it.
END
