Notes: Just watched the Bourne Legacy, loved it! :D So then I wrote this, because it's impossible for me to watch him on screen and not think, "That's really Barton. Look at him being his bad self." Except for like, Brian and Ned. Loved Ned.

Anyway, SPOILERS! for Bourne Legacy, and mentions of Marvel movies and a reference to MI4:Ghost Protocol.

Wrote this at like, three in the morning, so it's probably all kinds of screwed up. :3

EDIT/Triggers: Mainly just to clean up a few badly worded passages, but also to clarify that this is a fanfiction that is pairing Clint Barton with Phil Coulson. That's what the SHIELD husbands in the summary stands for. So just to make sure you're fairly warned this is Phlint, bowtie, clintcoulson, and any other tags for this pairing that you can think of. This is in no way a graphic fic of any sort, but it does center around a homosexual couple having a phone call. Be wary of reading on if any of this offends you in anyway.

When the Dust Settles

It had taken a deal of negotiating but in the dead of night Aaron slipped down to the docks and picked up the burner phone. Shearing was currently asleep in the little room they had acquired from the shack of a place they were hiding out in.

The night was calm and the air off the ocean was pleasant and Marta had been right when she said it was beautiful. They weren't lost, though. Aaron was better than that. He flipped open the phone and dialed a number by memory. Two rings and the other line picked up.

Any phone, anytime, anywhere. Just dial the numbers.

"Cross?"

Aaron smirked and easily murmured, "Only when you step on my toes," a little too flirtatious for what this line was meant for.

There was a sigh on the other end and he wondered for a moment where this called was being received from. Maybe it was late there too. "Barton, I told you this was for emergencies only." Phil sounded tense, but Clint knew Phil had been watching him all this time and that he was glad he decided to check in.

"Maybe I just missed the sound of your voice," he cooed and could hear the way Coulson's lips turned up at the corner.

"Four years isn't enough to break you, is it, Specialist?"

"Longer than four, sir. Admit it, you missed me."

There was a stretch of silence then. They didn't say things like this in the middle of the night on emergency lines in the middle of ongoing operations. It was when they were safe in bed, sated and warm that they would breathlessly whisper stupid things like I missed you and I need you and I love you so much. It was there though, in the quiet way they both just waited and absorbed the silence.

"Me too," one of them finally whispered, because it didn't matter which.

Agent Coulson cleared his throat and it was time to at least get some business in, "Status report, Agent—since you managed to get that assignment on the fly."

When Clint was placed into this mess, Phil had been nervous. When he was forced to have a fucking tracker placed in his hip, he was a mess for a week. Someone other than SHIELD knowing Barton's location at all times? It hadn't been pretty. Phil was good at what he did though, and so he had put on his work face and sent Clint out into the field with a quiet hope he'd get him back.

Coulson watched for his medical reports and his face on stray cameras and his test scores and anything he could get from his desk at SHIELD when he wasn't busy with other things. So, he kind of kept tabs on his agent every couple of days.

When suddenly the members of Cross's little class started dropping like flies, and Clint's signal was lost for a good eight seconds—before the brilliant juniors remembered that oh hey, this is Hawkeye, I bet we have our own signals on him—Phil had been ready to bring the building to the ground. (Luckily, Natasha had been in the field and didn't know about that little piece of fact just yet. There would have been no hope for the architecture.)

"I got the doc, she's fine. No real damage." Clint looked over his shoulder, but he was alone. "Tell Sanchez my bad, I didn't mean to almost maim her. I was under a lot of stress that day," he said as he thought about the poor agent that had delivered his new SHIELD objective to get the only remaining scientist on the project out alive as he fled Alaska. "I'm going to break the news to her soon, probably in the next twelve hours, that we can't just hide out here. See if I can talk her into SHIELD. Not like she has many options. And if she tries to crawl in my pants one more time. . . " He sighed, and damn, he was starting to sound old. This mission had been something else.

"And what about you, any damage there?"

Clint barked out a laugh and looked down at his boots. "You're getting soft, Coulson. You sound like a school girl dying for gossip."

"You never went to school."

"Good thing you like 'em big and dumb." He got a snort out of that. "Oh yeah, you miss flirting on the comms, don't you?" Phil gave him a warning and he sighed again as his fun was ruined. "I'm fine, sir. I don't have to have meds anymore. They fucking viraled me off greens a while ago and didn't mention it, and I viraled off blues just this week. Look at me, whoo," he mutter dryly. He knew Phil read the reports he sent back to SHIELD and that this wasn't really news. This was fucking Phil Coulson after all.

"That's good. I was worried you'd crash without them." So really, he was worried what Fury would allow SHIELD to do about his crash. How sweet. "Fury's been impressed with your test results throughout the entire program, Barton. You did well."

"I knew you'd be watching, sir. Had to impress you, and all that," he managed around a yawn. "Where you at right now, anyway?"

Phil smiled, or it sounded like he did, as he whispered, "On the road, headed for New Mexico. Go get some sleep, Clint. In the morning, convince Dr. Shearing to give SHIELD a chance and I'll have someone arrange a transport for you."

They wanted to make sure Shearing was still given the chance to continue her work, in a place that might be more beneficial to Fury's schemes—or, y'know the greater good, or whatever.

"Yeah, that'd be good. Nat on base?" He was suddenly not wanting the call to end. Maybe the time had broken him a little. It was so good to hear that voice.

"No, she's in the field. It's her turn to seduce the rich guy, sorry." Phil laughed when Clint swore, all hurt and bent out of shape.

"I fucking called that! Fine, whatever. I might just come see you then, talk to you about who has been picking my undercover names."

"That's off limits. There's a ritual drinking game involved that you will not mess with." It sounded like Phil smiled. It sounded like the soft one that was really small and freaked out the junior agents. Clint really loved that one. "Go through medical and get some rest, Barton."

"Yessir." Because that so wasn't going to happen.

"At least stay with Shearing until she gets to the base."

"She's a big girl sir, and I'd rather be in the Land of Enchantment."

"Good night, Agent."

"Love you too, sir."