i've got your blood under my fingernails
Series Metadata
Listing Series
-
Tags
Summary
In the future, they won’t remember the date, only that it is July in Moscow and they are handcuffed together. It’s bad luck that Phil’s dominant hand (his right) is cuffed to Clint’s dominant hand (his left) and they’re sort of holding hands to avoid getting in each other’s ways. They’ve already had one argument about who drives and getting the fuck out of Moscow in a Lada is one of those things that’s going to be heavily edited in the future.
Series
- Part 1 of i've got your blood under my fingernails
-
Tags
Summary
“Can we keep it?”
Series
- Part 2 of i've got your blood under my fingernails
-
Tags
Summary
“Go to sleep, Barton,” murmurs Coulson.
“Shut up, sir,” replies Barton. “You’re not the boss of me.”
Coulson chuckles sleepily. “’s no time to bring up your problems with authority.” He sighs softly and Barton feels inexplicably warm.
“Maybe I’ll just rest my eyes, sir.”
Series
- Part 3 of i've got your blood under my fingernails
-
Tags
Summary
“If you take all your clothes off, I’m not even going to try to stop you.”
“Coulson, you old dog.”
Series
- Part 4 of i've got your blood under my fingernails
-
Tags
Summary
Coulson bows his head and picks at the hem on the inside of his trouser leg. “People talk, you know.”
Barton is honestly, legitimately and entirely confused.
Coulson looks up at him, a strange smile on his face. “About you and me, Barton.” He nods at the foamy water. “And they don’t even know about how you run baths for me after a long day at the office.”
Series
- Part 5 of i've got your blood under my fingernails
-
Tags
Summary
“Director Fury-“
“This is an unacceptable risk, Coulson.”
Coulson pinches the bridge of his nose.
“I let you call the shots here but-“
“-failing to outline the parameters of the mission was a mistake on my part.”
Series
- Part 6 of i've got your blood under my fingernails
-
Tags
Summary
“I just mean that, you know – it’s always you and me, sir. We’re always the ones who end up handcuffed to each other at the end of a mission.”
Coulson’s features soften with amusement. “That was once, Agent Barton.”
Series
- Part 7 of i've got your blood under my fingernails
-
Tags
Summary
“Don’t get me wrong – I totally get that you guys have the bromance of the century but it’s a bit freaky when you finish each other’s sentences.”
“I’m not sure whether to be flattered or horrified that you think I have any insight into the workings of Barton’s brain.”
Series
- Part 8 of i've got your blood under my fingernails
-
Tags
Summary
Now Coulson’s not sure what this is. It could be a fact-finding mission but Natasha’s usually much more subtle when it comes to intelligence ops. He’s rather unsettled as he wonders if it’s some sort of warning about treating Barton right or she’ll hurt him.
Series
- Part 9 of i've got your blood under my fingernails
-
and no one else can haunt me the way that you can haunt me by lanyon
The Avengers (2012)
12 Feb 2012
Tags
Summary
And then it is Valentine’s Day and Barton’s dragged out of a corner in a storage closet by his ankle at Darcy Lewis’ request. It is unfair that she is allowed to use puppy dog eyes to manipulate both Steve and Thor. There is a plan. A team-building plan. It involves a lot of pink and a lot of singing. Barton dies a little on the inside.
Series
- Part 10 of i've got your blood under my fingernails
-
Tags
Summary
Barton shrugs and he knows Coulson probably gets it. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that he’s only human, especially when he’s flanked by Thor and Steve, and by Tony in that goddamned suit. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that he has a finite supply of blood and that he is not invulnerable but every close call sets him closer to a sort of immortality (though some might call it borrowed time). There are so many days on which he should have died but he was saved, by the Avengers, and by the wonders of modern medicine, and, mostly, by Phil Coulson’s voice in his ear, guiding him home over crackly comm links, with threats and with endless patience.
Series
- Part 11 of i've got your blood under my fingernails
-
Tags
Summary
It is unchartered territory. Every book he’s ever read, every film he’s ever seen, always ends the same way. There is the climax (and how, and often, and Coulson’s been spending too much time with Barton) and then there is the ending. The lovers are united and they disappear into the sunset and it’s all reader, I married him and every other cliché from all the trashy airport novels he certainly doesn’t read. The back cover is closed and that’s it. The end. The characters are safe within the pages and they have no future.
The end is the beginning. Books never get that right.
Series
- Part 12 of i've got your blood under my fingernails
-
Tags
Summary
Barton sometimes worries that he’ll come to take Coulson for granted, the way that most of SHIELD takes Coulson for granted.
Series
- Part 13 of i've got your blood under my fingernails
-
rattle the one whose shadows you're standing in by lanyon for Tigs (Huzzah), surlelac, FlatlandDan
The Avengers (2012)
19 Feb 2012
Tags
Summary
The honeymoon period ends. It’s abrupt and it’s brutal and, suddenly, Coulson’s at home in his apartment, on his own, and he’s wondering when Barton’s clothes began to outnumber his in the laundry basket. He’s not going to complain about it, though, given that Barton’s clothes usually end up in strange places; under the bed or hanging on the back of a kitchen chair or dangling off a light fixture.
It has been a far-from-hostile takeover.
Series
- Part 14 of i've got your blood under my fingernails
-
Tags
Summary
Coulson’s apartment looks strange. All of his personal effects are in boxes by the door and, even though he doesn’t have that many belongings, there are faded squares on the walls and the mattress on his bed sags in the middle.
He’s standing in the middle of his living room, hands on hips, when Barton comes out of the bathroom, carrying the last box of shampoos and cleaning products. Tony Stark himself has offered to help coordinate the move but Barton suspects it’s so he can satisfy his curiosity and confirm that Coulson doesn’t actually sleep upside down or in a coffin or something.
Series
- Part 15 of i've got your blood under my fingernails
-
Tags
Summary
Coulson has said that Barton scares him, with his scant regard for self-preservation and the way he has taken goading the bad guy to an art form. Between Stark and Barton vying for the last word, it is a wonder that Cap hasn’t banged their heads together. They’d deserve it, Coulson says, darkly, and he’s not going to scrape Barton off the sidewalk when he finally says the wrong thing at the wrong time.
Series
- Part 16 of i've got your blood under my fingernails
-
this time they hold their gaze for too long by lanyon for sirona
The Avengers (2012), Marvel Avengers Movies Universe
2 Mar 2012
Tags
Summary
Barton and Stark barge into Coulson’s office, laughing like maniacs and wielding miniature versions of themselves. Here’s Hawkeye with fully functional bow (not suitable for children under 36 months of age due to choking hazard) and here’s Iron Man with an LED for an arc reactor for a heart.
They ask if he wants them and he waves them away, get out of my office. Barton looks sad and Stark says they’re the best toys ever and Coulson says why would he want toys when he can play with the full-size version any day of the week?
Series
- Part 17 of i've got your blood under my fingernails
-
Tags
Summary
A series of voice messages between Coulson and Barton during a particularly long mission
T+3; 0000 GMT+3
[Message erased]T+3; 0003 GMT+3
[Message erased]T+3; 0108 GMT+3
[Message erased]T+2; 1732 EST
Do you want me to explain how it’s done, Barton?Series
- Part 18 of i've got your blood under my fingernails
-
Tags
Summary
Barton is capable of great optimism. Even shackled to a stone wall that bleeds icy-cold water, he knows that there will be an end. It may even be on his own terms. He’s always figured that, when he goes, it’ll be an arrow to the heart. It is a useful sort of eternity, knowing that there is less than a handful of people on the planet who can give him the death he deserves.
Series
- Part 19 of i've got your blood under my fingernails
-
Tags
Summary
And here, today, Rogers is blue and red and Stark is red and yellow and Barton and Banner fill the spaces between. The Avengers are a kaleidoscope and a cacophony and if Coulson could change his winding path, with its missteps and small avalanches, he wouldn’t.
Series
- Part 20 of i've got your blood under my fingernails