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Chapter Text

On Friday, Clint comes back to the tower from an op in Cairo.

He eats two tuna sandwiches. After that, he takes a shower.

Then, since he doesn’t have anything better to do, he finally decides to do something about the strange dick in his pants.

+

Okay, yeah. That sounds bad.

+

Clint doesn’t actually know Coulson very well—Pegasus was only the third op they’d been on together, so he hadn’t had time to form an opinion yet—but Fury and Hill are out dealing with Congressional hearings this month. In their absence, Coulson’s the agent liaison for the Avengers. That means he’s the lucky guy who gets to deal with Clint’s problem today.

His respectably-sized but by no means correct problem.

He finds Coulson in his office, doing the paperwork that pops up like mushrooms after a hard rain. Coulson looks up, gives him the up-down assessment sweep that gets to be obsessive-compulsive for all handlers, and then greets politely, “Barton.”

“Sir,” Clint says. ”I need you to look at my dick.”

Professional that he is, Coulson just asks, “Is there something specific about your dick you needed me to look at?”

“I don’t think it’s mine.”

It says something about either Coulson or Clint—or maybe SHIELD in general—that Coulson doesn’t even look surprised. “Okay,” he says. “Let’s see it, then.”

Clint starts to wrestle with the various straps and buckles that keep his uniform together. As a matter of course, all senior agents keep at least one latex glove on their person at all time: experience, if not protocol, has taught them that it’s a useful thing to have handy. By the time Coulson snaps a pair on, Clint’s down to his regulation underarmor.

Despite his best efforts, Coulson can’t avoid touching bare skin. He does the best he can. Clint shivers once, sharp, then holds himself still again.

Coulson extracts the visiting dick. He considers it in a clinical way. “Alright,” he says. “Were you circumcised before?”

“No.”

“So much for that.” He carefully lifts the soft dick up to inspect its underside. Clint forces himself not to flinch away. It’s the visual rather than the feel that makes him nervous. Too much time with Medical.

Coulson glances up. Clint scowls at him.

“I didn’t feel that,” Clint says.

“Numb?”

“No. I can feel my dick, but it’s like it’s . . . like, far away. And I don’t feel you touching it.”

Coulson looks down at his hand. The dick he’s holding—not Clint’s—isn’t bad looking, even if it is unfamiliar: dusky, Caucasoid. Coulson’s been absent-mindedly rubbing his thumb along its length. It’s stiffening gently, growing in girth. Clint knows from experience that it’s a grower as well as a shower. If it was his, he’d be impressed.

“I don’t feel that either,” he says matter-of-factly.

“And your testicles?”

Clint shrugs. With another glance for permission, Coulson drops to one knee and gently rolls Clint’s—borrowed—balls in a hand.

“Nope. Not mine either,” Clint admits.

“This seems like one of those things where Medical really should get involved,” Coulson says thoughtfully. “I suppose it’s too much to ask if you’ve involved them already.” He doesn’t even bother to look up for Clint’s guilty grimace. “Do you have any idea whose dick this is?”

“You believe me?”

Coulson snaps off his glove and stands. Clint drags his briefs up, settling his . . . his not-his dick into place more for its original owner’s sake than his own, all things considered. “While I’m not qualified to say with any certainty whether it’s yours or not, I would trust you to know your own genitals.”

“Thank you,” Clint says. The initial hurdle of disbelief is always the worst one, in his experience. Not that his experience has extended to body-swapping dicks before.

“When did this start?”

“Sometime between Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning, I guess? I was getting ready to go on an op on Tuesday when I noticed. Not an Avengers thing,” he explains, at Coulson’s look. “I was heading out to be backup for Woo’s team in Des Moines. I just got back.”

“Did it come on gradually?”

“Maybe? I don’t know. I just know when I noticed it. One minute, it was Mr. Happy, the next minute, it’s the neighbor next door. Figure of speech,” Clint amends, when Coulson opens his mouth. “I have no idea who it belongs to. It could’ve changed at almost any point in the twenty-four hours before that. Monday was kind of a shitstorm.”

Coulson nods. Mondays are always a shitstorm. It’s a universal truth. “Was that the Columbia University thing?”

“Ivy League Hunter Killer drones,” Clint sighs. “They kept correcting our grammar while trying to kill us.”

“I saw. They lasered a missing apostrophe on a surveillance truck before blowing up a newspaper stand,” Coulson says. At Clint’s enquiring look, he makes rabbit ears out of his fingers and quotes. “’Donny-missing apostrophe-s Donuts.’”

Clint considers this, remembers that at the best of times he’s hazy on where and when to stick an apostrophe in anything, and changes the subject with: “If it means anything, this isn’t the same dick I had on Tuesday.”

“What?”

“It’s changed a couple of times since then.” Clint explains. “The one on Tuesday was shorter. Bent more to the right. The one on Wednesday had a tattoo. This one I’ve had since Thursday. Here, I took pictures.” He digs his phone out of his pocket and pulls up the photos he’s been faithfully taking since his dick started to go walkabout. He zooms into the Wednesday tattoo. It’s an amazingly good tattoo, given its location.

Coulson silently looks at the pictures. There’s a furrow in his forehead that’s getting deeper by the second. “A different one every day?”

Clint shrugs, “Pretty much. Every so often, I feel someone pissing with my dick. That’s weird. No one’s tried jacking off with it yet.”

“You’re taking this rather well.”

“Not the strangest thing to ever happen to me.”

Coulson just looks at him.

“It’s pretty close, though,” Clint allows.

“Medical should do some tests. At the very least, some DNA might help us figure out what’s going on or who it belongs to. I doubt they could do anything about getting it back, but it couldn’t hurt to ID the person.”

“I could at least shake the hand that’s shaking my dick, I suppose. Will it hurt? They’re not going to draw blood from it or anything, are they?”

“You said you couldn’t feel it.”

“I’m asking on behalf of my current donor,” Clint informs. “I’m being simpatico. If I had your arrow in my quiver, you’d want me to advocate on your behalf, too.”

“I’ll come hold your hand,” Coulson says dryly, and takes him to Medical.

Medical is skeptical at first, and then they get really excited because Secret Santa dick exchanges are apparently not a thing they’ve seen before. Coulson actually does hold his hand, because Clint insists that he promised, but he uses his other hand to call analysts and get them running frame by frame through footage of Monday’s fiasco to see if anything might’ve caught Clint in its backwash.

Clint has never had this much naked enthusiasm directed towards his groin, and he’s slept with Hawkeye groupies. (Accidentally. He’s not proud.) He hopes the guy who owns this dick appreciates the attention. Although he suspects whoever it is is probably huddled in a bathroom stall freaking out right now, considering Medical decides to do some probes, as well as draw some blood.

It’s a little surprising how comforting Coulson is, actually. This is the first real medical fallout Clint has had with Coulson as point. He’s heard good things about the guy and how he takes care of his people, but he’s never actually experienced it firsthand. Coulson keeps Medical under control when they start getting broad in their sample collection. He nixes a prostate exam he considers unnecessary. It’s kinda heart-warming, when most of the other handlers err on the tough love side of the spectrum. He even gets the attending to give Clint a lollipop.

It’s grapealicious.

“What do you want to do now?” Coulson asks Clint, when Medical’s all wound up in knots and flapping their hands excitedly about further observation and pending results and, alarmingly, tissue samples.

“I thought Medical wanted to keep an eye on me.”

Coulson shrugs. “You said this happens cyclically, and it’s been ongoing since Monday or Tuesday? It might help to have a timeframe on when the change actually happens, but you don’t need to be here for that. If you prefer, you could stay in the Tower and we could have Jarvis monitor you.”

Several whitecoats are bleating in distress at the idea of letting Clint slip out of their fingers. Coulson doesn’t seem to notice or care.

“Really?” Clint’s wiped. Frankly, he’d rather be at home.

“You’ll have to go without pants for any pattern to be established. I assume you'd be more comfortable being half-naked at home.”

“You’re my favorite,” Clint tells him, heartfelt.

“Yes. Yes I am,” Coulson says without so much as a blink. “I’ll call Jarvis and read him in. A driver can take you home. Shower and get some rest. As soon as we know anything, I’ll let you know. You’re on mandatory post-op stand-down anyway, so it shouldn’t make much of a difference in your schedule. And it’d be best to keep you out of the field for SHIELD ops until we establish a pattern in what’s happening. Anything with the Avengers though, we can take on a case by case basis.”

Clint waits, because that can’t be it. It can’t be that easy. Coulson hasn’t even mentioned Psych yet, or reports, or any of the dozens of things that previous handlers would already have shoved down his throat.

Except apparently it is that easy. Clint’s left feeling wrong-footed.

“Something else you need?” Coulson asks, when he turns around and finds Clint still hovering there.

“That’s it?”

“Yes. Why?” Coulson tilts his head inquiringly.

Clint clears his throat. “Think we could keep it between ourselves?” he asks, a little hopelessly. “I mean, not tell the other Avengers?” He’s thinking about Steve’s face if he heard, and all the shit Tony would say and do.

Maybe Coulson is too, because he doesn’t even ask why Clint wants to keep this quiet. “Would the rotating penis situation compromise your function in future Avengers ops?”

“No.”

“Then I don’t see the point in borrowing trouble.”

Out of sheer morbid perversity, Clint asks, “What if the next time it’s not a penis, but a vagina?”

“An average American penis weighs approximately 155 grams. Its loss shouldn’t be enough to unbalance you. Is your penis a requirement when you fight or perform operational duties?”

Coulson sounds honestly curious, like he’s not just trying to make a point: he actually wants to know. It’s almost enough to distract from the fact he had those numbers at the tips of his fingertips.

“It might mess me up if I do a honeypot,” Clint says, just to be contrary. He’s never done a honeypot in his life. “And peeing standing up might be a challenge.”

“I’ll put a hold on any honeypot assignment,” Coulson decides. “If the situation arises, I’ll find an agent to teach you how to do the latter. It’s perfectly doable, though admittedly it’s a bit more involved. If the penis does end up swapping for a vagina, please don’t insert anything in it,” he adds as an afterthought.

And on that horrifying note, he wanders off, already on the phone.

Coulson, Clint decides, is awesome. He’s still grinning when he goes to find a taxi.

Jarvis is already read in and promised to confidentiality by the time Clint rolls in, so all he has to do is order takeout, shower, strip, and topple into bed. Fourteen hours later he wakes up, feeling rested but still like something scraped off a public urinal. His dick is the fifth thing he checks, after the time, his messages, the refrigerator, and his bandages. He realizes while he’s pissing that he’s got a brand new model in his hands.

“J-Man,” he says, peering down. Medical drew a little X on it yesterday. It’s gone now. Not to mention, well. “This is a different dick.”

“Yes, Agent Barton.”

“Still not mine.”

“No, Agent Barton. I observed the transformation at 3:47 AM.”

“It was a whole transformation thing, huh? You got video?”

Jarvis obligingly throws the video up on the one-way window above the toilet so Clint can watch it while he finishes up. There’s a little clock on the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. There’s him, sprawled in the bed. A few seconds tick by. There’s a little wobbly glow of white around his groin. Then the glow goes away, and everything’s the same again, except that his dick is now black.

“Showy,” Clint says conversationally.

“Yes, Agent Barton.”

“If this is Fury’s, I’m dead.” Clint shakes and flushes. It continues to be weird peeing out of someone else’s dick.

“Yes, Agent Barton,” Jarvis says. He sounds sympathetic. “I have already transmitted the collected data to Agent Coulson, as requested. He would like you to call him at your earliest convenience.”

“I should put some pants on,” Clint supposes.

“And wash your hands,” Jarvis says helpfully.

“I was getting to that.”

“Of course you were, Agent Barton.”

He washes his hands. Then he gets dressed. It’s a day off, so he decides on Bermuda shorts, combat boots, and a soft purple hoodie he found in a dumpster in Oregon. He makes himself the breakfast of champions (Fruit Loops and not-quite-expired milk!), and then plops down at the counter to call Coulson.

“The DNA results are back. We haven’t been able to identify the donor of your last penis,” Coulson says without preamble. “We’ll need to get swabs off of the new one if we’re going to try running that one as well. Did you see the recording of the transformation?”

“Old dick, glowing dick, new dick, done? Yeah, I saw it.” Huh. That would’ve made a great Dr. Seuss book.

“Jarvis sent over other energy readings. We’re going through them now. The analysts were able to pull two occasions during Monday’s op when you fell off visuals altogether. We’ll need you to fill in the blanks. At your own convenience.”

“Ten-four,” Clint says.

There’s not much to do around the Tower. Steve and Tasha are out on their own ops, Bruce is off in California working with some guy at Stanford, Sam and Pepper are doing their usual 9 to 5, and the last time Clint saw Tony, he was neck deep and crazy-eyed in the middle of a room full of alien salvage. There’s plenty of staff and other folks in the Tower Clint’s friendly with, but he’s afraid if he sticks around he might accidentally tell someone all about his magic penis. Since he can’t see that ending well, he decides he might as well head to SHIELD.

The analysts there have videos queued up for him to go through. Monday’s op was pretty boring, barring the fact it was on a college campus and self-involved college students are pretty hilarious—Clint had slid on his back straight through a couple having some sort of relationship fight, shot down a drone diving for an attack run on them, and gotten a hysterical, “Do you mind? We’re having a discussion here!” from the male half of the pair—but as far as he can tell, nothing on the cameras explains what’s happening in his pants. He hits the cafeteria for a snack and then on a whim, goes to hunt Coulson down before reporting to Medical.

Clint tracks him down to a half-staffed control room in T/O, TeleOps, all the screens hacked into some private compound that’s swarming with the remnants of a SHIELD clean-up crew. Melinda May’s callsign is in one corner. Clint has worked with her a few times, which is why even carrying someone else’s dick, he has to squash his immediate instinct to cross his legs, cup himself, and cringe.

“Barton,” Coulson greets, swiveling to face Clint.

“Anything?” Clint asks.

Coulson tips his head. “I’ve put in a call to Asgard asking someone to come in to consult. Just in case. Hopefully they’ll get back to me soon.”

Just in case means Nobody knows what the fuck is going on, and you asked me not to talk to Tony, so I’m calling in other experts first. Clint feels a flush of warmth at Coulson’s consideration and checks for eavesdroppers—everyone’s on coms and busy—before asking flippantly, “What’d happen if I was carrying Fury’s Smith & Wesson?”

For the first time, Coulson looks a little bit interested. “Is it possible?”

Clint shrugs. “With my luck?”

Coulson hums thoughtful acknowledgment, taps his earpiece, and punches in a few buttons on a control panel. Clint figures he’s just calling Medical to schedule an exam, so it’s jarring when Fury’s voice barks over the T/O speakers, “What?”

“Just checking on your penis and testicles situation, sir,” says Coulson.

Clint’s heart stops. The rest of the room goes eerily still, everyone frozen in place.

Fury says irritably, “What situation? Jesus fuck, who’s naming these goddamn ops? —Hill!”

“Not an op, sir. Your actual penis and testicles. Same set you had yesterday?”

There’s a short, fraught silence. “Autographed originals, in mint condition,” Fury says at last, sounding suspicious. “Why?”

“That’s gratifying,” Coulson says. “Thank you, sir.”

And then he hangs up.

The entire room just gapes at Coulson, who looks back at them and asks mildly, “Problem, agents?”

It’s the—well, the ballsiest thing Clint has ever seen anyone do. Not that Coulson’s rep wasn’t already quirky and terrifying, but it’s a different thing altogether to see it in person.

Coulson, he realizes abruptly, is incredibly hot. Somewhere in the world, Clint’s dick starts to swell.

Clint swallows hard.

Fuck.

Chapter Text

It would never have occurred to Clint in the normal course of things that he’d want to hang out with Coulson, of all people—the guy’s got a reputation for a conformity that (now that he’s thinks about it) Clint’s never actually seen demonstrated beyond Coulson’s whole . . . well, Coulson-ness. He just gives off this black ops hall monitor vibe. But one visit to Medical and a prank call to Nick Fury later, Clint finds himself hopelessly fascinated.

Broken dick, new crush, and downtime. It’s the story of Clint’s life.

So Clint spends his free hours at the Hub, trailing at Coulson’s heels like a codependent puppy. Coulson doesn’t bat an eye, which suits Clint just fine. It’s a relief to hang out with someone who knows about what’s going on. Even though his dick doesn’t usually come up (heh) in his normal day-to-day interactions, now he’s constantly wrestling with the urge to pull it out and shove it into the conversational pudding, so to speak. Everything around him is one wink away from being a dick joke. Not to mention he’s now hyper-sensitive to all the dicks coded into everything he looks at. Jets. Sports cars. Skyscrapers. Guns.

For the first time, it occurs to him that after all the buildup, a girl’s first experience with a real penis must be a major disappointment.

Coulson’s dick is probably never a disappointment. Clint lingers on the thought before shaking it off.

Eight days later, Tasha comes through the Hub and sits down across from Clint at lunch. “You’re spending a lot of time with Coulson,” she says. Subtext: I know something’s wrong but whatever it is, I’ve got your back.

In the fifteen years he’s known her, Clint has learned not to ask how or why she knows what she knows, and instead just lets himself feel warm at her incredibly well-concealed concern. “You like him,” he says. “While we’re on the subject, hi, and welcome back.”

“He’s not entirely useless,” she concedes. “I always thought you two could be friends.” Subtext: I’m happy to see you too and also I like Coulson because he’s slightly more competent than 99.99% of the human population.

“Maybe. He’s not bad.”

“You’d make lovely babies together,” Tasha says, with-- huh. Absolutely no subtext. Weird. Clint has to take a break from his mac and cheese to stare at her. “They’d be quiet, deadpan, and competent. Hopefully they’d get his dress sense though,” she adds, looking him over critically.

“And my hair,” Clint adds after a moment, deciding to just run with it.

Tasha shrugs. “He gives great head,” she says, which—still no subtext, and of course Coulson does. He used to be an L6 field agent before he reached the lofty, managerial heights of L9. Bedroom skills were part of the required training for field agents L5 and above.

For some reason, Clint spends the next few hours thinking about that.

Embarrassingly, it’s never occurred to Clint before that Coulson’s one of the most well-liked and important people in SHIELD. That is to say, he knew Fury liked Coulson—the fact that Coulson was able to ask Fury about his dick and not get his own surgically removed with an icepick is evidence enough of that—but he’d always figured it was a liking along the lines of a man being fond of the beat-up old recliner he’s had for twenty years, or the pair of shoes he’s broken in and refuses to throw away. Stupid of him, if he really thinks about it. Fury doesn’t do sentiment.

In the course of ten days, Clint watches more agents and ops go through Coulson’s office than he thinks are actually run through SHIELD. Everyone’s got something they need to talk to Coulson about. Some want advice on planning; analysis on fallout; questions about intel; how to work the system. That makes sense. But an astonishingly large number of agents want to talk to Coulson about personal problems as well. One little junior agent even comes in for romantic advice, which is hilarious as shit.

He gets why, though. Coulson just exudes the willingness to listen, and help. He’s nice.

Clint’s not nice. In fact, he’s an asshole. If he wasn’t an asshole, he’d leave when people want to talk to Coulson about their personal problems. Also, he wouldn’t draw little comics mocking them in the paperback he’s reading. Not being an asshole doesn’t sound like quite as much fun. Mostly, he lounges on the sofa Coulson has in his office, his earphones on and unplugged, pretending to be engrossed in his book. He figures it’s good exercise for stakeouts, keeping his face straight while all this shit is going on around him.

“I know you were listening,” Coulson says when the door closes behind Agent Emerson and her not entirely unjustified worry that her sexually adventurous lifestyle will leave her open for blackmail as a SHIELD agent.

“I can’t help it,” Clint says, letting his head loll back over the sofa’s arm. Coulson’s face is interestingly upside-down like this. Clint likes new perspectives. Coulson’s eyes are pretty, well. Pretty. “I didn’t realize you were Dr. Phil for the agents here.”

“I hope my advice is better than Dr. Phil’s,” Coulson says.

“He probably gets paid better.”

“Yes, but I get the satisfaction of knowing that I’m doing it for America.”

Clint laughs, because. Well. Coulson. Funny.

“You can kick me out if you need to,” he thinks to add after that, because it is Coulson’s office and it’s not like Coulson invited him to hang out for hours on his sofa. It never even occurred to Clint to ask if he could. “I can find somewhere else to park.”

Coulson tips his head to one side, considering him. “I don’t mind,” he says at last. “Stay if you want. You’re not bad company.”

“I don’t talk much,” Clint points out.

“No, you don’t,” Coulson says approvingly, and goes back to his paperwork.

Clint gets on with reading again. A few minutes later, he thinks to say, “You’re not so bad, either.”

Coulson looks up long enough to smile at him. Clint smiles back, comfortable, easy, and goes back to his book. It’s . . . nice. Peaceful. And if he feels a little warm inside when Coulson comes back from a meeting later with an extra brownie just for him, well. That’s his business.

+

After the not-Fury dick, there’s Battering Ram dick, Roto-Rooter dick, Pencil-Dick dick, Melanoma Man dick—Clint grabs one of Stark’s green sharpies and circles some suspicious-looking shit on it along with a note: CALL DR!!!—Fat Boy dick, Charlie Brown dick—“Jesus Christ,” he says to Coulson. “You got to fix this, Coulson. I can’t even go to the bathroom because I feel like a fucking pedophile. These balls haven’t even dropped. Is my voice higher?”—and then, worst of all, Pepperoni Pizza dick.

That one’s disgusting.

“At least it’s a grown-up model,” he says sullenly to Coulson’s ‘look on the bright side of everything’ bullshit, while Medical takes skin scrapings and cluck their tongues over the eczema and little bubbles of fluid under the skin. 

“Good job keeping your chin up, soldier,” Coulson says.

“Speaking of, how has your morning wood been, Agent Barton?” asks wee Dr. Wakiyama, popping up between his legs with a caffeine high and calipers. It’s all kind of awkward because Wakiyama is about 200 years old and terrifies the shit out of Clint with her rosy-cheeked, bright-eyed vampire china doll thing.

Clint buries his face in his hands. Coulson pats him on the shoulder.

Through it all, Coulson’s a goddamn rock. He’s politely impressed by the Battering Ram, doesn’t mock Roto-Rooter, draws a comforting smiley-face under Clint’s note on Mr. Melanoma, and obligingly dons latex gloves to aim and shake Charlie Brown when Clint’s bladder can’t take it any longer. Nothing embarrasses Coulson. Nothing rocks his zen. Coulson is the fucking Master Oogway to Clint’s Kung Fu Penis.

Clint, on the other hand, Clint’s starting to get a little rocky. By day sixteen, he’s starting to lose his mind a bit. Clint might not have the sex drive he had when he was a teenager, but sixteen days without walking the lizard is almost a record for him. The last time he went this long without a little self-loving, he was recovering from torture.

Things are starting to feel, well. Backed up. The fact that he can’t keep the same set of balls for more than forty-eight hours doesn’t seem to make a difference at all.

He almost kinda wishing whoever had his equipment would take them for a walk.

“Did your lunch do something to offend you?” Coulson asks, when he comes to find Clint in the cafeteria, stabbing a burrito with a Ka-Bar.

Clint, who’s been debating whether jacking off with someone else’s dick would have a tension-relieving effect, blinks and refocuses on Coulson. “I really need to get laid,” he says.

He can see Coulson thinking about, and discarding, all kinds of comments about Clint’s sexual drought and lunch choices. “I’ve put in another call to Asgard. Still no reply,” Coulson says instead.

“Maybe if we find the person who has my dick, we can get him laid.”

The look Coulson gives him is sympathetic and utterly understanding.

The look Dr. Larris gives him a little while later is nowhere near as sympathetic or understanding. “Maybe you should see Psych,” he says.

What Clint says in response would get him arrested in Singapore.

“I understand you’re a cold, cool Man in Black,” Larris says impatiently—Clint sniggers, because has Larris ever met him?—“but losing a body part is traumatizing at best. The recommended course of action—“

“We have a ‘recommended course of action’ for misplaced dicks?” Clint asks Coulson, curious.

“We do now,” Coulson says. To Larris, he says simply, “If Clint doesn’t want to see Psych, he doesn’t need to see Psych.”

Clint is one of six active SHIELD agents that Psych has filed formal complaints against, apparently. He still doesn’t know what for. Normally Psych is the one who talks to people who have complaints filed against them, and that makes things complicated for obvious reasons.

Larris is unimpressed. “He hacked the cafeteria systems to schedule a week-long tribute to the Vienna sausage.”

“A daring culinary choice,” Coulson congratulates.

“Thank you,” Clint says.

“The man has obvious separation and inferiority issues,” Larris says.

Coulson turns an expectant look to Clint, who sighs.

“I really miss my sausage,” he says. When Coulson raises a judgmental eyebrow, he adds defensively, “It would’ve been a tribute to kielbasa, but Vienna’s all they have in cold storage.”

That day Coulson’s out on the field for once. Some op where he has to con Homeland Defense into commandeering something for the purposes of something else, eh. The usual. Clint’s latest op was cancelled on account of NSA infestation, so he’s stuck twiddling his thumbs while other people get to have fun. No biggie. He parks himself in Coulson’s empty office, where he catches up on paperwork, finally gets through the sensitivity training he’s two years overdue on, and reads Melinda’s post-op reports for shits and giggles. That takes care of three hours. Afterwards, all that’s left is to sprawl on the sofa and think idle thoughts of what Coulson would be like in bed. It’s an inspiring daydream.

Unfortunately, ten minutes into it, someone kicks him in the nuts.

Wherever they are.

It’s not the first time Clint’s been nailed in the jewels. There’s apparently just something about him that makes people’s knees twitch: he sympathizes. Anyway, they’re a popular target, and that’s even before you bring his job and his smart mouth into it. The difference between now and previous occasions is that usually, he sees it coming. He has time to prepare for the pain: he can anticipate it, accept it, section out the part of his brain that will absorb it and then just shake it off, because he’s a goddamn professional. It’s different when he’s just lying there on a sofa, minding his own damn business. Whoever’s in temporary possession of his dick has pissed someone off.

He’s curled up in a ball on the floor, hissing through his teeth, when he becomes dimly aware of a warm hand pressing against his back. It’s something to focus on outside of the fucking agony. His conscious brain catches up to unconscious cues a few seconds later. It’s Coulson. The hand rubs steady, calming circles over his spine while Clint shoves the pain down into its bucket and concentrates on breathing.

“Well, shit,” he manages between his teeth, when he feels up to uncurling a little bit. He blinks back wetness. “That wasn’t fun.”

“Talk to me,” Coulson says.

It occurs to Clint that he likes how Coulson asks for sit-reps. The way he words it is nice, somehow—like he’s trusting the guy on the ground to know what’s important to pass on, and what isn’t. Even with how pissed off Clint is right now, it makes him warm. “Whoever’s got the best part of me just got nailed between the legs, sir.”

“It’s not the best part of you, Barton,” Coulson says. He’s crouched next to Clint on the ground, still in his overcoat. “Do you need Medical? I’m not sure what they could do, but there might be a way to anesthetize—“

Whatever Coulson was going to say gets lost in Clint’s explosive, “Fuck—!” as white-hot pain folds him over again.

Jesus fucking Christ! What is this asshole doing? He whimpers a bit, banging his head on the floor while he thinks about throwing up a little. Coulson’s hand is on his back again, gently rubbing; his voice is a calming, comforting stream of sanity nearby.

If Clint ever gets a hold of the fucker who currently has his dick, he will end the guy. He bangs his head a couple more times. The sharpness of a new source of pain helps. Coulson’s hand wraps around the back of his neck, touching bare skin—that helps even more. Clint doesn’t go in much for casual touching. Coulson’s hand on his neck is electric and distracting.

But not so distracting that it does any good when his nuts get nailed again.

“That’s it!” Clint wheezes, when he gets enough breath back to uncurl. He is pissed. Pissed. “This fucker is doing this on purpose!”

Coulson’s grip is firm. Supporting. “Do you know that for sure?”

“I can feel it,” Clint says, panting. He’s managed to uncurl a bit—the punching has gotten progressively harder. “He’s excited. Showing off.”

“Hm,” Coulson says. “In that case, I apologize in advance for this.”

“What—” Clint begins. A split-second later he’s flat on his back, staring up at Coulson. There’s one blazing moment when he realizes that Coulson is—Jesus Christ—fucking hot.

And then Coulson punches him in the dick.

Clint’s immediately kicking up and rolling, faster than thought. Coulson’s not a front-line field agent anymore, but his reflexes are good enough to knock Clint’s foot away from doing real damage to his face. Clint’s on one knee and a fist, ready to spring, when Coulson throws up open hands to show he’s done swinging.

Clint’s brain catches up enough for his feelings to be hurt. He thought Coulson liked him. Punching another guy in the dick isn’t a sign of liking. He should probably be worried that punching him in the dick actually makes Coulson even hotter. There’s something seriously wrong with him. Then he stops and takes stock.

Coulson hadn’t pulled his punch, and he might not be STRIKE, but he’s a trained agent and still keeps up his hand-to-hand skills. Somewhere out there in the world, there’s a guy with the wrong dick who’s is puking up his guts. Clint can sense it, like an nauseated voiceover from a neighboring room.

It’s probably petty that Clint feels such savage satisfaction in that. So he’s petty. He can live with it. “You’re a fucking genius,” Clint says admiringly. “Do that again.”

“Twice more?”

“Seems only fair.”

Clint can’t tell just how much force Coulson is putting into his punches, but he’s not going easy on them. Good. There’s enough space between them that Clint can feel the guy on the other end just start to recover before Coulson lands the next one. He can dimly sense the fucker’s pained horror and sense of frantic apology through whatever mystical bullshit connects them. On the theory that if he can feel this asshole, the asshole can feel him, he concentrates on rage and murderous vengeance—all the carefully cultivated homicidal hostility he keeps on standby in case Loki ever swings into town again—and sends it straight at his dick.

He feels the asshole cringe, thoroughly cowed.

“Good?” Coulson asks, watching Clint carefully.

“Good,” Clint says. When he gets his own bits back, he decides, the first person he gets his leg over will be Coulson.

Blissfully ignorant of that, Coulson just nods. “What are your plans for the next twenty-four?”

“Dinner, TV, some range time. Why?”

“We’re going to Medical. The fact that you’re starting to sense what the current holder is feeling concerns me.”

Clint can connect two dots if they’re right in front of him. If he can accidentally learn shit about the other guy, the other guy could learn shit about him. He scrubs at his face. “Great. A National Security risk shaped like my dick.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Coulson says mildly, which. Isn’t wrong, but really? Clint darts him a reproachful look and gets a twitch of lips in return. “Can you tell where he is?”

Clint concentrates for a moment, then shakes his head. “Nah. Nothing like that. Just impressions, mainly. He’s around a lot of people and he’s throwing up.”

Coulson almost emotes for a second. It could be worry, maybe. “We need to be more aggressive in resolving this.”

“You got a plan?”

“I have a plan.”

They march down to Medical, who instantly clear a private room for him. There’s a lot of excitement about Clint’s newfound ability to sense the current lien-holder on his dick. Clint would’ve been more excited if it had led to him being able to figure out where the fucker is. Once the docs are caught up though, Coulson unpacks his plan on How to Get Clint’s Dick Back.

“I’m having no ethical problems with this, astonishing though that may be,” says Dr. Larris. “The problem is, all our homing tags are larger, and meant for injection into less nerve-heavy areas than a human penis. I don’t think we have access to anything that wouldn’t permanently damage the member. Do we?”

“Not that I know of,” Dr. Wakiyama says. She doesn’t look at all discouraged by that.

“Fortunately, I do. Or to be precise about it, Tony Stark does. Barton, you don’t need to raise your hand if you want to talk,” Coulson says kindly. “It’s your penis. You can offer your opinion anytime you like.”

“You want to inject a radioactive tracer into my dick?” Clint asks, putting down his hand.

“It isn’t your penis. It’s someone else’s. Adding tracing chemicals into it and then scanning for it after the transfer should let us isolate the new owner.”

Wakiyama says, “We’re currently lacking enough data on the exchange logic to create a viable theory of transfer. At this point, we need as much information as we can get.”

“Can’t we just scribble a bigger phone number on it?” asks Clint a bit hopelessly.

“We’ve put phone numbers on every specimen. We have received precisely this many phone calls as a result.” She holds up her thumb and forefinger and makes a zero out of them. She stares through the hole at his crotch. “It’s like a bathroom stall door. You can see the phone number, and it promises a good time, but you don’t call it.”

Clint bites back an entirely unnecessary, speak for yourself. He’s really not proud.

“You should go with the option that requires large-bore needles,” Wakiyama encourages, her beady eyes gleaming.

“Radioactive tracer!”

“Barely radioactive. Only a small bit. Tiny.” Wakiyama pinches her fingers together again. “This small.”

“Maybe if you focus less on the ‘radioactive’ part and more on the ‘tracer?’” suggests Coulson.

Clint looks at Coulson’s encouraging face and feels himself folding like a redneck napkin.

Larris throws up his hands. “We’ll do some additional tests today,” he says. “If it looks feasible, and the tracer looks safe, we can try this tonight.”

So that’s what they do. The docs gather around and burn brain cells at Clint’s borrowed dick, while Coulson sails off to do some recreational breaking and entering over at the Tower. Clint would rather go with him than hang around Medical, but apparently he’s not invited, and Medical really needs access to his current dick. Too bad it’s not detachable.

When Coulson comes back with an ominously glowing vial, Medical bears it off in triumph. A few hours later, Wakiyama gently rubs Pizza dick (ugh) to a chub with the very tips of her latex-covered forefinger and thumb, then injects the tracer into it. The needle’s kind of hilariously big. Clint would feel worse about it if the real owner of his dick hadn’t been such a, well, dick. As it is, he figures the pained panic he can feel through their psychic dick news network serves the bastard right.

Joke’s on Clint though. Because the next morning, after he’s rolled out of bed, checked his messages, admired the gratifyingly gorgeous morning wood of the new penis, and sent on the corresponding pictures to SHIELD, he gets a video call from Coulson.

“Hey,” Clint greets, feeling an immediate hum of—something under his skin, at seeing Coulson’s face. He feels himself relax. “Guess what.”

“Yes, I know. Come on in,” Coulson says, composed and immaculate as usual in his suit and tie. “I’ve found your missing bits.”

Clint brightens. “Really? Where are they?”

“In my pants.”

Which is where Clint wanted them to be, admittedly, but he’d hoped to be attached to them at the time.

Chapter Text

The next four hours are spent with Coulson in Medical, letting the bastards in white coats get way too intimate with both their dicks. It’s the first time in two weeks Clint has had a glimpse of his own, and it’s exactly like finding your long lost penis and wanting to hug it but not being able to because it’s currently hanging out between the thighs of a coworker, okay, like, awkward. There’s the distant regret that Coulson isn’t getting to see it at its best—Clint had sort of hoped there’d be less audience and more lube the first time they got to play show and tell—but life’s never been fair, and it’s certainly never made an exception for his love life, all things considered. He’s resigned to disappointment.

In the meantime, Clint can’t stop himself from hovering like a helicopter parent around Coulson. Because of his dick, obviously, and not because of anything he might be feeling about Coulson himself. Really. It’s just that now he’s within handling distance of his own tackle, he’s abruptly hit with all sorts of anxiety and guilt. This, he figures, is where he definitely gets sent to Psych, because abandonment issues about shitty parents and criminal brothers are one thing, but abandonment issues about your own penis are probably something else. Still, Coulson doesn’t say anything about his obsessive-compulsive hovering, so Clint keeps his mouth shut on the off chance he hasn’t noticed.

And for the most part, Coulson acts like he hasn’t. He doesn’t say anything when Clint sneaks into the exam room to watch the testing. He doesn’t say anything when Clint trails him from Medical to the weekly Ops meeting. He doesn’t say anything when Clint hugs his shadow to the coffee shop for a sandwich and latte. He doesn’t even say anything when Clint creeps after him into the men’s bathroom and gnaws on his own fist, cross-eyed, while Coulson does his business. Clint has the sick feeling that Coulson must be pissed off at him for somehow stealing his dick, but he can’t not follow Coulson around the Hub like a guilty shadow, even if Coulson’s gone straight past ‘hard to read’ into ‘elective mutism.’

It isn’t until they’re back in Coulson’s office with the door closed that Coulson says anything to him at all. And even then, it’s a completely unexpected, “I’m sorry, Barton.”

Clint, who’s been increasingly distracted all day by emotions and the feeling of his dick in Coulson’s pants, blinks back into focus. “What?”

“I’m sorry for this situation,” Coulson says patiently, sitting down behind his desk to study Clint over the steeple he’s made of his hands. Clint immediately zeroes in on them. Coulson has great hands. They looked even better around his dick. “Obviously I don’t know what triggered this, but if I did something that caused it, I apologize.”

“Huh?”

Eyebrows rising, Coulson gestures vaguely down in his crotch area. Oh.

“Okay,” Clint says, bewildered. “You’re stupid.”

Coulson’s mouth twitches down.

“That was rude. I was rude,” Clint realizes. “Sorry. You don’t have anything to apologize for. That’s what I meant to say.”

“Graceful,” Coulson says.

“I can’t help it. Tact isn’t my thing. You wear silk boxers? Really?”

“You can feel that?” Clint gives Coulson a harassed look. Coulson blinks quickly at a flash of embarrassment. “I didn’t want you to be uncomfortable. I can find some cotton if you prefer.”

“No, fuck me. That’s not the problem,” Clint says, collapsing face-down onto the sofa to bury his face in a pillow. Coulson’s got his dick. Coulson has seen his dick. It is within his reach. Coulson could reach down and hold Clint’s dick. Clint wrestles with that image. Coulson’s hands are good. Well. They’re really nice hands, is all. With access to Clint’s dick. His body has all sorts of opinions about that. Even—especially—the parts of his body that aren’t currently attached to him. Clint’s hair rises in horror.

Coulson clears his throat. Clint’s ears burn.

Awkward.

There’s a moment’s silence. He hears the desk chair creak. Then Coulson says carefully, “Maybe briefs would be a better idea.”

“I haven’t milked the beef in over two weeks,” Clint says, turning his head just enough to free his mouth. “It’s doing this against my will, just in case you’re wondering.”

“I assumed.”

“It’s your hands.”

Coulson blinks at him.

“Your hands are a turn-on,” Clint tells the sofa, sullenly.

“My hands?” It’s the first time Coulson has been surprised.

In the interests of complete honesty, Clint adds, “And your voice.”

Coulson hums interrogatively.

“And your eyes and your smile and your neck and your shoulders and.” Clint waves an aimless hand in the air.

“Everything above the chest, then.” And now Coulson is amused.

“And your ass, what I can tell through the pants.” Clint glances down at himself. “Definitely your dick. If you take your clothes off, I can make an informed decision about the rest,” he adds hopefully.

“Not at this time, thank you.”

“I like your mouth, too.”

Coulson’s mouth obligingly twitches. He has sexy lips. Clint says as much, since he’s still doing all his thinking with the body parts that aren’t actually attached at the moment.

Coulson’s mouth twitches again. “It has been a long time for you, hasn’t it?”

“I need to get laid.”

Another hum. Then Coulson says carefully, “Are you just wanting to relieve the pressure? Or are you looking for something more?”

This seems like a trick question. Clint eyes Coulson suspiciously, even while his heart beats a little faster in hope.

“If it’s purely physical, I can deal with that for you quite easily,” Coulson says.

Oh shit. Clint’s eyes glaze over. Coulson looks down and then shifts in his seat. “Sorry!” Clint yelps, hastily forcing himself to think about Thunderbolt Ross, naked.

“It could have been worse,” Coulson says with resignation. “You could have been thinking about—whatever it is you were thinking about a moment ago—during meetings.”

Clint mumbles something into the sofa and is heartily grateful he doesn’t have a blush reflex. Although a blush reflex is probably a moot point, considering he’s currently giving Coulson an unwanted stiffy. Or rather, his dick in Coulson’s pants is. Giving Coulson a. Hm. Anyway, it’s. Odd. Things are somehow getting weirder in his life, which is something he didn’t think he’d have said given the last couple of weeks.

“If it would help to masturbate you,” Coulson begins.

Clint’s hips jerk against the sofa, entirely involuntary. Coulson breaks off mid-sentence with a sharp intake of sound.

Oops.

“Sorry! Sorry!” Clint says, while a distant part of his brain notes how Coulson’s eyes have darkened. His hips jerk again. “Shit. Wait.” He rolls over to flop onto his back instead. Coulson’s dick has started to get hard. Awfully fast. Clint’s impressed at Coulson’s blood circulation and absolutely is not looking down to admire the tent in his pants. He groans, covering his eyes with his forearm. “And here I thought things couldn’t get more awkward.”

“Well, we can’t have that,” Coulson says, dry. Clint laughs, scrubbing at his face. “I think we’ve both seen enough of each other that adding some cathartic orgasms won’t make much of a difference. It is your penis, however.”

“Cathartic orgasms,” Clint repeats, longing thrumming through every inch of him. Oooh.

Coulson pushes back from his desk, looking determined. “Your hand? Or mine?”

The next two hours are pretty fucking spectacular from Clint’s perspective. It’s weird at first—his dick isn’t here but it is (but it isn’t). His eyes, brain, and body all feel out of sync with each other, watching Coulson’s hands so far away from him and yet so terribly, wonderfully close. It’s like mainlining vertigo, cut with a blue balls. “Hold on,” Clint says at last, anguished and fretful. “This isn’t working. This isn’t—“ to which Coulson gives him one comprehensive look and orders, “Close your eyes,” and that’s it, Clint’s done.

With vision out of the equation, everything is perfect. Coulson’s hands deserve all the admiration Clint was directing at them before, and then some. The only thing that would’ve made it better is if Coulson would accept a little quid pro quo, but apparently that crosses some sort of professional line in the sand Clint doesn’t have the manual for. Clint’s not too proud to beg. He does a lot of it. Not that it does any good. Thank God Coulson’s office is soundproof. And has a lock. It’s a nice office.

Although as a purely objective criticism, the carpet could be softer. After he falls off the couch, Clint spends a lot of time writhing on it.

“Can we do this again tomorrow?” Clint gasps, when he’s a spent and sweaty rag on the floor. “If you still have my dick, that is.”

Coulson, who’s still neat as a pin except for a little glassiness in his eyes, almost smiles. Clint is warmed by abrupt, possessive pride. “If I still have your equipment,” Coulson agrees.

+

The next morning, Clint wakes up and still has Coulson’s dick.

He grins straight through the next four days.

It freaks the rest of SHIELD out. Coulson just smiles his little smile and doesn’t say a word.

+

“Speak to me, Barton,” Coulson says. “What’s going through your head right now?”

Clint blinks at him. He’s still holding the coffee he was bringing Coulson in his office, and a packet of chocolate donuts from the vending machine. On Wednesdays, Coulson prefers the chocolate ones because they won’t leave powdered sugar on his suit right before the Oversight Committee meeting.

Clint’s pretty sure Coulson just said something important. He wasn’t listening. Mostly because he was wondering if he could persuade Coulson to exchange some oral today, and that was super distracting.

“Not much,” Clint admits. And then he amends, “Not much that was relevant to— Say what again?”

“Wakiyama thinks she knows what’s causing it,” Coulson repeats patiently, his ears oddly pink, and then goes on to elaborate, “It took longer than I’d hoped. The DNA took a while to match up because of database upgrades.“ Even vague yet menacing government agencies have bad IT days. “The owner of your last penis, once we found him. He kept moving around—it turns out, surprisingly, that he was a restaurant deliveryman by night and a bike messenger by day.”

That makes Clint pause. “Pepperoni Pizza Dick was actually delivering pepperoni pizzas?”

“Chinese food, mostly.” Coulson actually sounds apologetic about it. “Apparently, his wandering appendages returned to him after visiting you for the day, and haven’t left since. He hasn’t been informed whose equipment he had. The cover story is that there was some stray Chitauri weaponry recovered nearby that we think caused it.” He slides a photograph of a man across his desk. Clint stares blankly at it. Pepperoni Pizza’s face lives up to his dick. “He delivered to the Tower six days ago. He claims to have met you briefly when he did the drop-off. You gave him a big tip and an autograph when he asked.”

“Okay?”

“You don’t remember?”

Clint shrugs. “I eat a lot of Chinese.”

With a small twitch of lips, Coulson brings out a few more photographs for inspection. There are five other people represented, all of them wildly different enough to never be selected for a single lineup.

“This guy,” Clint realizes, pointing. “I’ve met him. He was one of the cops in Des Moines. He got hit. I did first aid on him until the medics got there. He got air-lifted out. His name’s Chen, Chieng— something.”

“You had gloves on?”

“I was wearing these.“ Clint tosses the doughnuts at Coulson, and holds up his left hand. He’s still got his archery glove on since he’s fresh from the range; little finger and thumb bare, the other three covered.

“So you made skin contact.”

“I guess? He was bleeding out, made everything slippery for a while. The bullet got through the armhole of his vest. I wasn’t paying too much attention to whether or not I—” His brain connects some dots. “He was one of the other penises?” He pauses to consider. “Penii? What’s the plural of penis?”

“Penises. Or penes,” says Coulson, who apparently knows everything. He taps a finger on the photo. “One of his nurses found it odd when his penis spontaneously generated tattoos while he was under care. The incident was escalated to the CDC—“ Clint snickers at the thought of a contagion that adds ornate cherry blossom and koi tattoos to people’s dicks, “—which landed on the desk of an old Army friend of mine there. He passed it on to me, thinking it sounded like something likely to interest SHIELD.”

“Spontaneous dick tats interest SHIELD?”

“We have a wide mandate.”

“It was a nice tattoo,” Clint says nostalgically. Not for the first time, he considers one for his own. He’s got a high pain threshold.

Coulson looks at him, then hums. “I think your equipment looks fine the way Nature intended.”

It’s said so offhandedly, it takes a moment for Clint to register the compliment and blink. Coulson’s ears flush a little as he clears his throat. Clint’s heart thumps warmly. He flicks another picture with his fingernail to bridge the moment. “I know this other guy, too. I’ve seen him around.”

“Agent Towser.” Coulson pillows his cheek in his palm and studies it. “He reported his missing penis out of Omaha last Thursday, before we even got the DNA match. Because some people,” he adds without so much as a change of expression, “think it’s worth acting immediately when bits of themselves disappear without explanation.”

That’s probably some kind of point Coulson’s trying to make there. Clint says blankly, “We have a report form for missing genitalia?”

“We do now. He came through on the way to a Treasury assignment. The other agents are stationed all over. You’ve run into them here on their way through.”

Clint considers, then shrugs. It’s not impossible. “So what does Medical think is happening?”

Wakiyama’s theory, it turns out, is that Clint’s dick is the metaphysical equivalent of an STD, transmitted through skin contact with the last man Clint touches during the day. Just like pubic lice, she says. Except with fewer legs. She probably thinks she’s being funny.

“Come again?” Clint says.

“You touch, you give penis,” Wakiyama says. “Big party in your pants. Everybody happy! Except penises.”

Behind her, Coulson closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Why do you suddenly sound like a fortune cookie?” Clint demands, suspicious.

Wakiyama’s eyes glitter. “Time to test hypothesis!” She grabs Clint by the arm and drags him off, Coulson a blandly resigned caboose. She’s 4’8” and maybe 80 pounds. Clint could totally take her—except apparently he can’t, because five minutes later, he finds himself in quarantine, dressed in clean scrubs. Wakiyama is fucking terrifying. She peers at him through the quarantine door window, Coulson’s face a half-moon sliver behind her head. “Two day alone! No touching!” she yells through the intercom, before dumping a box of porn mags through the food tray slot.

He stands in the middle of the room and stares at the stack of glossy mags for a few minutes.

“What the actual fuck,” he says at last.

+

It goes without saying that Clint’s not really good at solitary.

He’s solitary by habit, it’s true, but that’s a personal choice rather than a dictate. Having the option to leave his own private rooms is what keeps him in them; by that same regard, not having the option immediately turns him all kinds of crazed: shades of captivity and control that Loki did nothing to improve.

And quarantine means he doesn’t get Coulson catharsis time.

Objectively speaking, Clint is a smart guy. He knows this because SHIELD regularly tests the shit out of him—but that just means he’s smart enough to know he can be pretty dumb. This is why he tries to keep himself occupied at all times. Left alone with nothing to chew on but itself, his brain tends to go all kinds of self-destructive. He starts going through ops that went bad; wrong choices he’s made; might have beens and could have hads. With nothing but porn and dull grey walls to stare at, Clint’s mind starts relentlessly cataloging all the horrible shit he’d done since he joined SHIELD, all the horrible shit he’d done before he joined SHIELD, all the myriad and innumerable reasons why Coulson would never date him—

—Wait. Wait wait wait. Stop. Back up. What?

He stares blankly into space, resets, and warily lets his brain do its thing again. Horrible shit since joining SHIELD.  Yes. Horrible shit before joining SHIELD. Alright. Horrible shit equals no can haz snuggle time with Coulson.

Stop. Hold the fucking horses, brain. Snuggle-time with Coulson? What the fuck?

His brain tells him he can’t date Coulson, because of reasons.

“Did I even want to?” he says aloud, baffled.

Of course he didn’t, because he couldn’t have anyway, his brain informs. Because he’s a horrible person, who’s done horrible shit. Horrible, horrible shit. And Coulson is, well. Not horrible.

His heart chimes in at this point, and does a hopeful ka-bump-a-bump.

Shut up, heart, says his brain.

Make me, says his heart.

“Holy shit,” says Clint. “I’m falling for Coulson.” He sits down hard.

Getting a leg over Coulson, that much he knew he wanted. Relationship, though? (His heart waves pom-poms.) Clint forces his mind close to that thought a few times, only to have it scream and shy away at the last minute like a nervous dog meeting a bath. Coulson. Clint and Coulson. Coulson and Clint. Wait a minute.

“I don’t even know his first name,” Clint realizes, dismayed. Wow. He’s a terrible not-boyfriend. “Does he even have a first name? I feel like I should know this.”

Clint makes a personal resolution to ask next time they have sex.

Next time. Ah, shit. He buries his face in his hands. If he gets his dick back, there won’t be a next time. His gut twists at the thought of not being with Coulson anymore. Well, again. ‘Anymore’ implies that there was a previous ‘with Coulson,’ which there wasn’t exactly, except maybe there was? He’s not sure. Does it count if hands are kept strictly below the waist? And only one of you got off? Without having possession of his own dick?

Everything is confusing (no it’s not! shrills his heart) so Clint decides not to think about it anymore. It’s not like he can do anything anyway, in his 10 x 10 room with porn mags and—oh, bag of licorice!—so he’ll just not think about it until it’s worth thinking about. Wakiyama said No touching. Goddammit. Not that Clint had permission to do anything with Coulson’s dick anyway, so that was off the table anyway. And Coulson’d never do anything with Clint’s dick if Clint wasn’t there to consent and supervise.

Looks like two days of celibacy for him. Oh well. No problem. He just came off a sixteen day dry streak, followed by four days of intense orgasms. He’s set. He can do this. He’s not addicted to having sex in his life again or anything. Nope. He’s good.

He idly chews on the end of a Red Vine. Then he takes it out and looks at it. Shit. This is yet another penis joke in the making, isn’t it?

Well, fuck.

+

Two mornings later, he wakes up with his own dick.

He’s a little surprised how torn he feels about that. Because his dick. On the other hand, Coulson.

Damn. He really needs to figure out Coulson’s first name.

Chapter Text

The next few hours are kind of anticlimactic. Medical does a bunch of tests on him once they get around to checking on him. Of Coulson, there’s no evidence. Clint’s a little grateful? Maybe? He’s not too sure. He’s feeling a bit numb, somehow.

“So now what?” he asks Dr. Larris, who’s doing the exam.

“Now you go home,” Larris says, his face sour. “Damn it. I was sure she was wrong.”

“I get to go home?” Clint echoes, baffled. He eyes Larris suspiciously. “With my own dick?”

Larris gives him a funny look, like he wasn’t actually considering chopping Clint’s dick off to study it at his leisure. How often does a SHIELD doc get to study a penis that can teleport, anyway. “You’re still on twenty-four hour leave, but yes, you get to go home. With your penis. And the caveat that you inform us if your penis disappears again,” he adds.

“Is that going to happen?”

Larris shrugs.

With that overwhelming bit of medical confidence, Clint slinks on back to the Tower.

He spends the first eight hours imagining sex with Coulson and giving himself friction burns because. Well. Duh. He spends most of the day half-naked, just so he can look down periodically and make sure things that should be attached are still attached. Jarvis is nice about it and doesn’t comment beyond the occasional, wistful remark about hand-washing and laundry services.

Finding his own dick still attached the next morning is cause for celebration. He cracks open a new bottle of lube. It takes him almost twenty-four hours beyond that before he’s willing to risk human contact. That is, human contact that’s not his own right hand. Given, none of the people in the Tower are overly touchy-feely—Tony practically gets hives whenever he touches anything that isn’t butter soft leather, cashmere, or metal—but Clint’s not willing to risk it. He takes precautions. People might look at him funny if he loafs around in long sleeves and gloves in the middle of August, but Tony’s air conditioning will be up to the challenge.

All in all, Clint figures he’s set. All he has to do is make sure no guy (except Coulson? Maybe?) ever touches him again, no problem. It’s a plan. It’s maybe not a good plan, but it’s a plan. And like all his plans, it goes balls up almost immediately. Because two days after he’s regained his dick, he walks into the Tower’s rec room and gets punched in the face.

Of course.

“Buck! No!” someone shouts as Clint goes down. He stares up from his dazed sprawl just in time to catch a whirl of dark hair and glaring eyes, which immediately makes way for big, blue, and— “Steve?”

“Clint. Sorry,” Steve says, offering a hand. “You surprised Bucky.”

“Who?”

Steve’s face lights up. “Bucky. My friend Bucky. Bucky Barnes. I’ve told you about him. Funny story, it turns out he’s alive. Crazy, right?”

Clint stares past him at the fucking giant of a man who’s brooding in the far corner of the room. Clint may not know much about Bucky, but he recognizes that metal arm and red star. Also the general aura of Breathe Funny and I Will Fuck You Up. “That’s the Winter Soldier,” he remarks distantly. His hands twitch for the gun he’s not carrying. “He’s killed more people than cholera.”

“I don’t do that anymore,” says the Winter Soldier, who is apparently named Bucky. Who is apparently Bucky Barnes. What the fuck. Clint’s stare trails down to the ungloved, non-metal fist flexing by the Winter Soldier’s side. The one that just punched him in the face. There’s blood on the knuckles. Clint absent-mindedly dabs at his lip, which has split.

“Sorry,” Bucky Barnes says grudgingly, at Steve’s prompting head jerk.

Clint’s gaze wanders to Barnes’s crotch. He wonders what’ll happen to him when he ends up with the Winter Soldier’s dick.

Barnes’s eyes narrow.

“Not as sorry as I’m going to be,” Clint says frankly.

+

So, yeah. Okay. This is gonna be a thing.

Clint retreats to his room and does some thinking.

If Clint was a normal guy he’d probably be bitter right now about how his month is turning out. Really, at this point he’s pretty much resigned. He could’ve done without the speed bump in his love life, though. He was actually starting to formulate a plan for dating Coulson. Really! First he was going to figure out what Coulson’s first name was. Then he was going to woo him. Or, you know, wow him. One of those two. He was gonna play it by ear. He can’t really play it by ear anymore, because he figures he has—he checks the clock—okay, he has about fourteen hours before he’s a dead man.

Admittedly, that assumes the Winter Soldier figures out whose dick he’s swapped with so he can assign blame. Then again, the Winter Soldier’s reputation suggests he would happily stab the visiting dick just to metaphorically piss on the newly dickless grave of the person it belongs to, so Clint stands by that fourteen hour estimate. Would Clint die of blood loss if the Winter Soldier severed Clint’s dick off his, the Winter Soldier’s, body? He pauses to give it some thought.

Thirteen hours and fifty-six minutes left. Focus, Clint. Right.

It’s too bad it wasn’t Coulson who punched him. Given Clint’s track record, it was only going to be a matter of time before he gave Coulson cause, after all. Swapping with Coulson would’ve just been same old, same— hold on, there’s a thought. Find Coulson, feel him up, and get Coulson’s dick. Then when they switch back, woo. Wow. Whatever. Worst case scenario, he goes and hi-5s Dr. Larris. Let him study this whole thing up close and personal, with the understanding that whatever Larris does to Clint’s dick, Clint will do to Larris’s.

Is that a plan? It sounds like a plan. Step one: find Coulson.

Two hours later, he’s still at Step One.

“What do you mean, you can’t reach him,” he grits out.

“He’s unreachable,” Rand, who’s running Ops at the moment, says. He doesn’t add, to you, but Clint can hear him loud and clear. Rand hates Clint a little bit. Clint doesn’t take it personally. Rand hates him for perfectly valid reasons. He sympathizes. If he were Rand, he’d hate him too. It’s just inconvenient at moments like this.

“What about Tasha?” he asks.

“Is it professional or personal?” Rand asks, just as he had when he asked about Coulson.

This time he lies. “Professional.”

Rand nods and disbelieves him with every fiber of his being. “I can’t reach her,” he says.

Bullshit. Bullshit. “What do you mean you can’t— never mind.”

There are legitimate reasons why Tasha might be under radio silence, but they’ve worked together long enough that they always, always have two or twelve ways of bypassing lockdown. Just in case. Complacency is a four letter word. Clint extracts himself from the hate-filled clutches of Ops and finds himself an empty guest office. He logs in as himself, and requests an appointment with Psych. Reason for appointment: I seriously need help. Then he logs out, kicks his feet up onto the desk, and waits.

Come to think of it, using Psych’s scheduling system to pass messages to field agents might be part of the reason Psych loathes him. Has he ever canceled any of those bogus appointments? Huh.

Fourteen minutes later, his cell rings. It’s Tasha.

“What,” she says flatly.

“I need to find Coulson,” Clint says.

Wherever Tasha is, there’s gunfire in the background. This is not entirely unusual. “Are you going to ask him out?”

“I was planning on it, but something happened. If I want to keep my tackle, I have to get in touch with him.”

“Sexually?”

“I have a plan,” Clint lies.

Tasha sighs. There’s the familiar thwip of her bites firing, and then a not-so-distant scream.

“I’ll tell you all about it later?” Clint tries.

“Fine,” she says, sounding aggrieved, and then hangs up.

A few minutes later, his email pings. He gets a grand total of ten seconds to read and memorize the message before his entire inbox goes up in smoke. Tasha is the gift that keeps on giving.

+

The address Tasha gave him leads to a bizarrely normal suburb in Jersey, which makes him cackle purely on principle. Because of course Coulson would be hiding out in the suburbs. Where else would a guy like Coulson go to lay low? Clint's almost disappointed he hadn't thought to look there first.

The house is aggressively normal. Two stories, beige siding, a front yard that looks like it was installed by the same guy who does the landscaping at cemeteries. There's a minivan in the driveway with a COEXIST bumper sticker.

Clint sits in his motorcycle for a full minute, just staring.

"This has got to be the wrong address," he mutters, double-checking Tasha's coordinates on his phone. Nope. This is it. Maybe Coulson's undercover. Maybe this is some kind of safe house. Maybe—

The front door opens and Nick Fury walks out, wearing jeans and a polo shirt, carrying what appears to be a bag of trash.

Clint's brain shorts out completely.

Fury's wearing jeans. And not tactical jeans, or cargo pants that happen to be denim-colored. Actual, honest-to-god, weekend-dad jeans. With a polo shirt. That has a little logo on it. Clint's pretty sure it's a tiny sailboat.

Fury dumps the trash in a bin by the garage, then notices Clint sitting there like a deer in headlights. They stare at each other. Fury's expression shifts through several emotions—surprise, rage, and then a grim sort of resignation.

"Barton," Fury barks, with the particular brand of hate reserved for people who show up uninvited to family barbecues. "What the hell are you doing here?"

Clint gets off his bike, still trying to process the sight of Nick Fury in casual wear. "I'm looking for Coulson, sir."

"Why?"

Good question. Excellent question. Clint's totally prepared for this. "Urgent dick situation, sir." Shit. No. Wait. “Uh.”

Fury closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. His right hand twitches for a gun that isn’t there. "Christ. Get inside before the neighbors see you."

The inside of the house is even more aggressively normal than the outside. There are throw pillows. Coordinating throw pillows. And what appears to be a decorative bowl full of potpourri. Clint's starting to wonder if he's having some kind of psychotic break when he hears a familiar voice from the back of the house.

"Nick-kun, was that the—oh." Dr. Wakiyama appears in the doorway, wearing overalls and covered in what looks like paint. She beams at Clint like he's a favorite grandchild. "Agent Barton! What nice surprise!"

"What," Clint says weakly.

"This is kaa-san," Fury says, in the tone of a man who's given up on life making sense. "Keiko, this is Agent Barton. The one with the—"

"Yes yes, I remember. Very interesting. You want tea?"

Clint's brain is making dial-up modem noises. Psssssssssht, da-boing, da-boing. "You're related?" He stares at big, black, and badass. Then at tiny, twee, and terrifying. "You?"

"She's married to my mother," Fury explains, like this is a perfectly normal thing to say. “Keiko, you’re going to have to move now that someone's found you.”

“No no, no move. Too much paranoid, Nick-kun. So unhealthy. Is why you go bald,” Wakiyama says cheerfully. “You here for your friend, yes, Agent Barton? Bedroom. Building furniture. Swedish furniture. Many tiny screws and much swearing."

As if summoned by their thoughts, Coulson appears, also paint-splattered and looking harassed. He's got what appears to be an Allen wrench in one hand and IKEA instructions in the other. When he sees Clint, his face goes through a complicated series of expressions before settling on blandly pleasant.

"Barton," he says. "This is unexpected."

Clint stares at him. At all of them. Fury in his polo shirt. Wakiyama in paint-covered overalls. Coulson holding Swedish furniture assembly tools.

“Is this some sort of test?” he asks uncertainly.

"We're painting the guest room," Coulson says, like this explains anything at all. "And assembling a dresser. Keiko needed help with some home improvement projects."

"And you just... volunteered?"

"I was voluntold," Fury growls.

Wakiyama pats him on the arm fondly. “Very good with paint roller. Nice technique. Very proud.”

Clint feels like he's fallen through the looking glass. They're obviously all mad here.

"So," he says, before Wakiyama can do any further reality-destroying, "Coulson, could I talk to you for a minute? Privately?"

"Of course." Coulson sets down his Allen wrench. "What's—"

"Ooh, Agent Barton!" Wakiyama interrupts, clapping her hands together. "You help with dresser! Many hands, faster work!"

"Actually, I really need to—"

"Nick-kun very bad at Swedish instructions," she confides, steering Clint toward the bedroom. "Old brain. You have better spatial reasoning, yes? Young eyes!"

He shoots a desperate look at Coulson, who just shrugs helplessly and follows them down the hall.

The guest bedroom looks like a paint bomb went off in it. There are drop cloths everywhere, rollers and brushes scattered around, and one wall that's been painted a cheerful yellow. In the middle of the room sits what appears to be the disemboweled remains of an IKEA dresser, with small wooden pieces and tiny screws spread out like the aftermath of a furniture massacre.

"Swedish engineering," Fury says grimly from where he's crouched over the paint tray. "It's a goddamn conspiracy."

Clint tries again. "Coulson, about that thing we discussed earlier—"

"What thing?" Coulson asks, genuinely confused.

Shit. Right. They hadn't discussed anything earlier, because Clint had been too busy panicking. "The, uh. The work thing. The classified work thing."

Wakiyama immediately perks up with interest. “Spy secrets!"

"No," Clint says quickly. "Not spy secrets. Just. Regular work stuff."

"Boring work stuff," Coulson adds, catching on. "Very boring."

"So boring we should probably discuss it outside," Clint says hopefully.

"If it's boring, why not discuss it here?" Fury asks, not looking up from the instruction manual. "We could use the entertainment."

Clint opens his mouth, closes it, then grabs a wooden panel and pretends to study it intensely. "This goes... here?"

"No, that's upside down," Coulson says, moving closer to help him. "Here, let me—"

Their hands almost brush as Coulson reaches for the panel. Clint jerks back like he's been electrocuted. Coulson eyes him.

"Careful!" Wakiyama scolds. "No dropping Swedish wood! Is very expensive!"

“It’s particle board,” Fury mutters.

"No waste! Bad for environment!"

For the next hour, Clint tries every subtle approach he can think of. He suggests they need more paint from the hardware store. Wakiyama cheerfully volunteers to drive them. He mentions that his motorcycle is making weird noises and maybe Coulson could take a look. Wakiyama immediately offers Fury to examine it, because apparently in addition to running a secret government agency, he also knows about motorcycles.

He even tries faking a phone call, hoping Coulson will follow him outside. Instead, Wakiyama hands him a paint roller and puts him to work on the far wall.

She is evil. So evil. It explain so much about Fury.

"I don't understand this piece," Coulson says, holding up what looks like a wooden dowel with holes in it.

"That's the cam lock," Clint says automatically, then realizes he's just demonstrated furniture assembly knowledge and now they're definitely never letting him leave.

"Excellent!" Wakiyama beams. "You know Swedish furniture! Very helpful!"

Clint catches Coulson's eye and tries to communicate 'urgent dick emergency' through meaningful stares. Coulson just looks concerned and asks if he needs some water.

By the time they've gotten the dresser mostly assembled—only three pieces left over, which Wakiyama declares a victory—Clint is starting to seriously consider just blurting out the whole story. Except he's pretty sure that discussing his magical dick situation in front of Fury would result in him being subjected to even more medical testing. Medical testing involving Wakiyama and her enthusiasm for large-bore needles.

"Coffee break!" Wakiyama announces. "We have sandwiches!"

She bustles out toward the kitchen, leaving the three men standing around the dresser, eyeing each other.

"Coulson," Clint tries desperately, "I really need to—"

"Did you know," Fury interrupts, "that Swedish furniture comes with its own Allen wrench, but the screws are always slightly the wrong size?"

"No sir," Coulson says politely.

"It's a conspiracy," Fury continues. "Big Furniture wants you to buy their overpriced tools."

Clint stares at him. "Are you seriously talking about a furniture conspiracy right now?"

"You got a problem with my conversation topics, Barton?"

"No sir. It's just—"

"Sandwiches! Big strong men come help!" Wakiyama calls from the kitchen.

Coulson starts toward the door. Clint panics.

"I need you to lend me your dick!” he blurts out.

Everyone freezes. Coulson stops mid-step. Fury's eyebrows climb toward his hairline. From the kitchen comes the distinct sound of Wakiyama cackling.

"I mean," Clint says quickly, "I need you to touch me or the Winter Soldier is going to cut off my dick."

The silence stretches out until Fury clears his throat.

"Well," he says. "That's new."

Five minutes later, Clint finds himself standing in Wakiyama's backyard, facing Coulson across a patch of aggressively maintained lawn. Behind them, through the kitchen window, two silhouettes are pressed against the glass in a way that's about as subtle as a .45 to the face.

"They're not even pretending not to eavesdrop," Clint mutters.

"No," Coulson agrees. "So. The Winter Soldier is going to cut off your dick."

"Yeah. Maybe. Probably." Clint scrubs a hand through his hair. "Look, it's complicated."

"I'm listening."

Clint takes a breath. "Remember how Wakiyama figured out the dick thing was spreading through skin contact?"

"Yes."

"Well. Steve's got a friend staying at the Tower now. Bucky Barnes. The Winter Soldier. He punched me yesterday."

Coulson's expression shifts immediately to something excited—“I know! The Bucky Barnes. I need to ask him if he’d sign his—”—before he visibly refocuses into sharp and assessing. Clint's dick twitches at that face. "Are you injured?"

"Just a split lip. Not the point." Clint shrugs uncomfortably. "Point is, we made skin contact. And you know what that means."

"Ah." Coulson's face goes carefully neutral. "And you think when he discovers what's happened, he'll retaliate."

"I think when a guy who's killed more people than the plague wakes up tomorrow morning with a stranger's dick, he's going to want to have a conversation with the owner. Possibly involving knives."

"So your plan is what, exactly?" Coulson asks.

This is where it gets tricky. Clint looks down at his hands, then back up at Coulson's face. "I touch you. We swap tonight. I get your dick instead of his." He pauses to think. "Probably. Hopefully.”

“We haven’t established that it’s the last person you touch during the day that exchanges with you.”

He winces. “Right. Um. Fuck. Well, if Barnes gets your dick instead of mine, maybe he doesn't immediately go on a murder spree?"

"Because he's less likely to want to kill me than you?"

"Because you're competent and professional and you'll handle it better than I would." The words come out in a rush. "And because I trust you not to let him hurt you. And I’ll stop him. Because—" Clint stops, swallows hard. "Because I'm pretty sure I'm falling for you and I'd rather face the Winter Soldier myself than watch him come after you."

Coulson goes still. "Clint."

"I know, I know. It's stupid. I don't even know your first name, for Christ's sake. But I can't stop thinking about you, and not just because you had my dick for a few days, though that was pretty great, and I keep wanting to—" He gestures helplessly, just barely smart enough not to wave at his own dick. Or Coulson's. Because it's not just Coulson's dick he wants. "I want to take you on dates. Real ones. With dinner and conversation and all that normal stuff I've never actually done before. I want to figure out what makes you laugh when you're not at work. I want to know if you drink coffee in the morning or tea, and whether you read the paper or watch the news, and if you've got some secret hobby like model trains or something equally dorky that you'd be embarrassed to tell people about."

Coulson is staring at him. Clint can't read his expression at all, which is terrifying.

"And I want to wake up next to you," Clint continues, because apparently he's committed to this humiliation now. "Which is probably the most fucked up thing about this whole situation, because I've gone and developed actual feelings for you in the middle of a magical dick crisis, and now I'm standing in your mother-in-law's backyard—"

"She's not my mother-in-law," Coulson interrupts.

"What?"

"Dr. Wakiyama. She's Fury's step-mother, not mine."

Clint blinks. "Oh. Right. Obviously. You're not married to Fury."

"No, I'm not."

"Good. That would be weird."

"Yes, it would."

They stand there for a moment. From the kitchen comes the distinct sound of Fury snorting with laughter.

"So," Clint says finally, "I'm going to take your continued existence as a sign that you're not completely horrified by my feelings dump."

"I'm not horrified," Coulson says carefully.

"But?"

"But nothing." Coulson steps closer. "My first name is Phil."

"Phil," Clint repeats, testing it out. "Phil Coulson. That's... normal."

"Were you expecting something exotic?"

"I don't know. Maybe. You're pretty exotic for a government agent."

Phil smiles, small and pleased. "You think I'm exotic?"

"I think you're a lot of things." Clint's heart is doing something complicated in his chest. "Most of them involving words I don't usually apply to people I work with."

"Such as?"

Clint looks at him—really looks at him. Phil in his paint-splattered shirt and jeans, holding an Allen wrench earlier like it was a weapon he didn't quite trust. Phil who calls Fury on his bullshit and holds Clint's hand during medical procedures and somehow makes even the most insane situations feel manageable.

"Gorgeous," Clint says honestly. "Funny. Kind. Patient, definitely patient, probably too patient for your own good. Sexy as hell, even when you're covered in Swedish furniture debris."

Phil's ears go pink. "Clint."

"And I really, really want to kiss you right now, but I can't, because that would involve touching you, and I need your permission before I go around trading body parts with you."

"You have it," Phil says immediately.

"You sure? Because once I touch you, you might wake up tomorrow with Bucky Barnes' dick, and I'm told it's—"

Phil steps forward and kisses him.

It's soft and brief and tastes a little like paint fumes. It's absolutely perfect. When they break apart, Clint is grinning like an idiot.

"FINALLY, YOU STUPID FUCKS!" Fury bellows from the kitchen window. When Clint glances over, Wakiyama is thumping Fury on the head with a spatula, scolding him about his language. 

Phil laughs quietly. "Ignore it. It happens all the time."

"Ignore it? I want to record it," Clint says frankly. And then he remembers. "Oh. Right. I'm a little worried that if the Winter Soldier ends up with someone else's dick, he'll just cut it off without trying to figure out what's going on first." 

Silence. He blinks back at Phil, who's just. Staring at him. "I should've mentioned that earlier," he realizes.

"Hm," says Phil.

+

The following morning, everybody's dicks are exactly where they should be.

Clint has no regrets.

Chapter Text

Four months later, Clint’s hiding behind a tipped over Korean food cart in front of Columbia University’s main gates. There are murder drones everywhere. They’re fucking stupid, but he’s got a full quiver of electroshock arrows that knock them out of the sky, no problem. It’s practically a carnival game, barring the screaming and running—no, never mind, that’s just like a carnival too—so he’s feeling pretty fucking relaxed when he overhears a familiar argument.

“—I can’t be cheating on you if we’re not exclusive!”

“We’ve been dating eight months!”

“Dating, Kelly! Dating! That’s not the same thing as being your boyfriend!”

Clint pauses mid-draw and glances over to discover two college kids somehow having a relationship crisis in the middle of a drone attack. Squinting at them, he taps his com.

“Leaving position. Civilians at two o’clock. They’re in the open, ignoring all the— everything. Getting them to safety. What the hell.”

“Copy that, Hawkeye.” Phil’s voice is warm in his ear. “Martinez, cover?”

He dimly hears Martinez’s confirmation through the explosion of one of his arrows, then sprints across the courtyard at the two idiots. “Hey! You two! Move!”

Their startled Pikachu faces aren’t flattering to their intelligence. Then again, neither is standing around in the middle of a drone attack. He snags each of them by an arm and drags them behind real cover, just in time. A laser scorches a large black starburst where the two were standing a split second ago, and chases them with increasing intensity as they run.

“What the hell—?” the not-a-boyfriend starts.

“Shut up and stay down,” Clint snaps, shoving them down before firing at the drone. It clangs as it drops, which just reinforces the carnival atmosphere of the whole thing. “There’s a killer drone situation happening, if you can spare a sec to pay attention.”

“We’re in the middle of something important here,” Kelly says indignantly.

Clint spares a glance for her, incredulous. “Are you fucking with me right now?”

“Kelly thinks I’m cheating on her,” the not-a-boyfriend explains, like casually attempted homicide is just background noise. “But we never agreed to be exclusive since she’s not ready for a real relationship, so technically—”

"Oh, don't give me that technicality bullshit!" Kelly explodes. "You said what we have is special!"

“We do, but you said you weren’t ready to commit! And that’s fine, like, no pressure, but I’m not going to wait around! And it’s not like I’m sleeping around with women, it doesn’t count!”

“Are you fucking kidding me?!”

“That’s what I just said,” Clint mutters, peeking around a corner to fire off another arrow.

"If having dick is so important to you, you can just go ahead and have them!" Kelly shouts, and slaps Not-a-boyfriend across the face.

There’s a dull flash of white light. When the afterimages fade away, Kelly looks horrified.

Not-a-boyfriend pauses, looks down at himself, then rolls his eyes. “Again? Seriously?”

“Oh shit. Oh shit! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to— I’m sorry, baby! We can go back to my place and do a full cleanse, it’ll be fine. Probably. I’m so sorry! I love you and your dick, I don’t want anyone else’s in me—”

"You!" Clint interrupts, whirling to stare at Kelly. Recognition slaps like a fish to the face. “I remember you!”

Both kids freeze and actually look at him for the first time. Their eyes grow huge.

"Oh fuck,” Kelly whispers. "That's Hawkeye."

“Oh fuck,” Not-a-boyfriend echoes. “That’s the guy who was there after that one Organic Chemistry study group, with the grammar drones.” He turns on Clint almost accusingly. “Did anything happen to your dick?”

Clint takes a split-second to internalize this. Then he shoots another drone without looking and points at Kelly with his bow, outraged. “You! It was your fault!”

“Babe! Didn’t you contact him? Tell him what happened?”

“I tried!” Kelly wails. “I sent him a thank you card at the Avengers Fan Club contact address with an explanation and everything! Just in case! But I never heard back!”

Clint thinks about the thousands of pieces of fan mail that get filtered through SHIELD's mail screening. There are some serious crazies in those letters. “You couldn’t have just told one of the agents on site?”

"I didn’t want to get taken away for accidental treason!"

Despite himself, Clint snorts. He ducks automatically as a laser whines by, too high up to hit him, then pops up to put an arrow through an optical array. It shrieks and crashes into a Tesla. “Let me guess. You’ve got some kind of emotion-triggered magic that starts swapping people’s dicks when you touch them?”

“It’s not just dicks!” Kelly protests. “I’m not obsessed with dicks! Sometimes it’s other body parts. One time it was Tyler’s left foot.” She shrinks a little at Clint’s raised eyebrow. “It was weird.”

“I had to wear flip-flops for two weeks in the middle of December because none of my left shoes fit,” Not-a-boyfriend, apparently called Tyler, confirms.

“And you have no control over this?”

Kelly puffs up, flushing. “It’s not like I don’t try! I meditate, and do yoga, and— do you have any idea how stressful medical school is? It’s so stressful! Super stressful! It’s disruptive to my emotional equilibrium!”

“I’m sure the first guy you swap internal organs with will be super sympathetic,” Clint says dryly, making both kids flinch. “How long does it usually last?”

"Couple weeks. Sometimes a month,” Kelly says reluctantly. “Unless you have a magical cleanse.”

“Bathe in salt water and rub yourself all over with silver. All over,” Tyler provides. “Because salt and silver are purifying agents, I guess? We found the recipe off the internet. We use one of her mom’s good spoons.”

Clint gives the pair the judgmental look Kelly’s mother probably would if she knew where her daughter was sticking her good silverware.

Kelly promptly looks guilty. Tyler fidgets awkwardly. “We always wash them before we return them?”

For fuck’s sake.

"Hawkeye, status report," Phil's voice comes through his comm.

"Civilians are secure," Clint reports. "Also, I found our magic dick thief."

There's a pause. "Come again?"

"Long story. I'll explain later." Clint huffs a laugh. He can practically hear Phil's resigned sigh. "Kelly," he says, turning back to the kid, "you need training. Real training."

"Where am I supposed to get magical training?"

"177A Bleecker Street. Ask for the Sorcerer Supreme. Tell him Hawkeye sent you." Clint considers. "Actually, maybe don't say that. Don’t even mention me. Absolutely don’t mention you swapped out my dick. Just tell him you need help with emotional magic control."

“And he’ll help?”

"He's into that whole 'protecting reality from magical disasters' thing. Untrained emotional magic definitely qualifies. And you two. Sort out your relationship. Today.” Another drone dive-bombs their position. Clint puts an arrow through it without looking. “For the sake of national security.”

Kelly and Tyler nod obediently, huddling into each other. At least there’s no more arguing.

Clint shakes his head and goes back to shooting drones, ignoring the whispers of the pair behind him. At least some good came out of his magical dick adventure. He's pretty sure Phil's going to find this whole story hilarious.

"Phil," he says into his comm, "you're never going to believe how this all started."

"Try me," Phil's voice comes back, warm with amusement.

"Relationship drama and untrained magic."

"Of course it was. Only you, Clint."

Clint grins and puts another arrow through a drone's central processor. "Only me."