#phil has an unhealthy attachment to paperwork

[doctortreklock]

AU-gust 30 - Magic AU

For this. Based on this. On AO3.

The hallway outside the SHIELD copy room was empty.

Clint narrowed his eyes and hunkered down, watching the hallway carefully for any sign of movement. His job was to have Phil’s six, no matter what. He’d promised - for better, for worse, in sickness, in health, in end of year audits, in piles of paperwork, while turned into cats.

Yes, cats. Because apparently Loki had a sense of humor and decided that after killing Phil and enslaving Clint, a reasonable next step was to turn into a moderately irritating B villain in a children’s cartoon serial.

A flicker of movement caught his eye and Clint turned his head sharply. He studied it for a moment before dismissing it as a buzzing fly. The cat part of his brain insisted that he go hunt it down, but Clint flicked his ears and banished the thought. Phil was counting on him.

Behind him, he heard the printer start up, its electronic whine much more irritating to feline ears than human ones. The drone of printing paper started. One sheet. Two.

Clint knew Phil was keeping a careful eye on the printer, so he tried to ignore the abrasive humming and the scent of toner in the air. A shadow crossed the wall, and Clint stilled, his entire body a coiled weapon waiting for the right moment to strike. The shadow passed with a burst of laughter as the gaggle of junior agents at the end of the hall walked past on their way to the elevator.

Amateurs.

The printer finished its last page, lapsing into silence once more. Clint’s ears swiveled behind him to catch the rasping sound of pages dragged over each other as Phil sorted through the print outs on the counter next to the copy machine.

Clint could hear distant birdsong, but decided it was too far away to be a threat.

A sharp ka-thunk made him turn his head to see what Phil was up to now. He had apparently gotten all the pages collated appropriately and was working on stapling them together into identical packets for Fury, Hill, and himself.

This seemed to involve gathering a sheaf of papers between his teeth and gently nudging it into the stapler before shuffling the edges straight and stepping on the head of the stapler with his delicate paws.

Ka-thunk!

Clint glanced down the hall again before returning his attention to Phil, because he had to admit that his husband cut a fine figure, no matter his species. Evidently his superhuman senses extended past his human body, because Phil seemed to notice Clint’s eyes on him.

Phil looked supremely unimpressed by Clint’s current lack of situational awareness, if the sharp way his tail lashed the air was any indication. Though his blue eyes were half-shut in amusement and affection, so Clint figured he was in the clear.

The squeak of dress shoes brought Clint’s attention abruptly back to the hallway. Instead of continuing past toward the elevators the way the junior agents had, this set of footsteps turned the corner and started toward the copy room. Unfortunately, that was the blind end of the hallway. He wouldn't be able to see who was coming unless he left the room itself and ventured into the hallway, leaving Phil unguarded.

Clint arched his back and whipped his tail back and forth in agitation. He heard Phil staple the last packet of papers in a rush.

The footsteps neared. Clint tensed.

A figured appeared in the doorway. Clint hissed angrily and leapt.

“Ow!” Jasper Sitwell said as Clint dug sharp claws into his thigh. “Cut it out, Barton!”

He gently swatted at Clint’s head with a sheaf of papers in his hand. Clint hissed again. Phil yowled disapprovingly from the copy machine.

Jasper gave Phil a suspicious look that he had probably learned from Phil in the first place. “What are you guys still doing here, Coulson? Didn’t Fury send you home two hours ago?”

Clint snarled and dug his claws in harder on principle before letting go and padding over to the base of the copy machine. He sat down and decided to go with the best “fuck you” in the cat phrase book, which was to pretend that you were doing everything of your own free will anyway.

He started using his barbed tongue to clean his paw, being careful to show Jasper every millimeter of claw he could dig back into his soft, squishy, human flesh if he even thought about threatening Phil. He’d only let go in the first place because Jasper was a friend. Couldn’t let him think Clint was going soft just because he’d spontaneously grown fur.

From Phil’s silence, Clint assumed that meant he’d answered Jasper’s question with the cat equivalent of a raised eyebrow and a cool smile. Which was probably a level stare and unrelenting gaze. Knowing Phil, he was acing it the whole way.

Jasper sighed. “Are those the South American ammunition requisition audit reports, Phil?”

The soft crinkle of paper that Clint could barely hear must have meant that Phil was guiltily shifting his weight.

“The ones that Fury said could wait until you had opposable thumbs again because he knew you’d need human vocal chords to defend the number of grenades we used in Argentina last year?”

It sounded like Jasper didn’t even need to ask the question. It was nice of him to spell it out though, because Clint sure didn’t know that. He looked up at the copier and made an angry interrogatory sound.

Phil peeked over the edge of the counter. His eyes were wide and blue and looked apologetic. Clint narrowed his eyes. He had been under the impression that the report Phil had insisted on printing was urgent, that lives hung in the balance. Or at least the agency’s third quarter fiscal solvency.

Clint had been all in favor of curling up with Phil on their couch in a sunbeam and finding out if sleeping for 16 hours a day was as glorious as it sounded. But no, they had to come into the office and print out a report, because Phil was such a workaholic that even whiskers wouldn’t slow him down. Clint’s tail thrashed back and forth in agitation.

Jasper seemed to have realized he had inadvertently stumbled in the middle of a domestic. “Okay,” he said slowly. “I’m going to let you guys figure this out. Phil, if you promise not to maim me, I’ll grab those reports and run them up to your office. Then I can have a junior agent drive you both home.”

Phil considered this for a moment before calmly leaping down from the counter to land on light feet next to Clint.

“I swear, you’ll be the death of me,” Jasper muttered, snatching the reports off the counter before stalking out of the room.

Clint didn’t need to watch him go. Jasper was intolerably loud for a senior agent and tracking him by sound was simple. Instead, he kept his eyes on Phil.

His husband approached hesitantly, unsure of his reception, which was ridiculous. In no universe would Clint ever reject Phil, least of all this one, no matter what he’d done. Bringing them into work on their day off was so far down the list of problems it didn’t even register.

When Phil leaned in, Clint met him halfway. Phil nuzzled him softly for a minute and then switched to gentle, apologetic licks over the top of his head, carefully grooming the hair between his ears. It was weirdly nice, like Phil was giving him a scalp massage.

Clint felt his eyes half-close of their own volition and a warm rumble started in his chest. He wasn’t even surprised to find out that apparently Phil could make him purr with little effort. The matching purr emanating from Phil’s chest caught him off guard, though, but in a good way. It was nice to have confirmation every now and then that he meant as much to Phil as Phil did to him.

Clint gave into the urge to close his eyes entirely and lean into Phil’s warmth, no less solid for being so much smaller than usual. He nuzzled his face into the fur of Phil’s shoulder and relaxed.

They probably weren’t going to be cats for long, so they might as well enjoy it while it lasted. Phil was fine, Clint was fine, the world was fine, and even Tony Stark couldn’t ruin the moment.

(Which isn’t to say he didn’t try. Because Jasper was apparently a lying liar who lied, so Stark was the one who rolled up to drag them back to the Tower. Clint knew the team had been concerned about them, so he let most of the running commentary wash over him, but if Tony made one more crack about hairballs, he knew where he was going to stick one.

So it wasn’t perfect, and it wasn’t peaceful. But it was damn close.)