#also-dragons

*rubs hands together and blows on my finger tips* Here we go, thanks for kicking it off...

“Don’t be fucking rude.” 

Phil looked up from the data pad he was reviewing mission reports on. 

He knew that voice. More importantly, he knew that tone of voice. That tone meant bodily harm was imminent for whoever had caused it. 

Phil warily put down his data pad and pulled down his feet from where they were propped on another chair. His gaze searched the gym, seeking out his agent. Clint wasn’t easy to rile these days. His temper hadn’t quite mellowed in the years since he’d come to SHIELD, but he had become an expert at controlling and hiding the emotion tied to it. 

So drawing an actual reaction from him wasn’t so easy anymore. It was a welcome change from the angry 18 year old who had picked a fight with anybody willing to hit back. 

But...Clint’s temper had an exception.

One thing that, if brought up in any sort of negative light, sparked a reaction every. single. time. 

Natasha. 

The two of them were standing shoulder to shoulder now. Nat had one hip cocked and her hand propped on it in a deceptively casual stance. Phil couldn’t see her face, but he’d bet dollars to donuts that she had one brow arched and murder in her eyes. 

Clint, similarly, didn’t immediately appear to be in any sort of aggressive combat stance. But then, he never did. Even neck deep in a fight for his life, Clint was just as likely to be standing casually and cracking wise as he was to look like his life was on the line. 

It was his voice. That was the real indicator. Clint wasn’t a shouter. He wasn’t exactly soft spoken, per se, but neither was he a loudmouth. But his voice had different levels of lethal. It dropped lower when he was truly pissed.

Like now. 

Phil stood, eyeing the situation warily. The rising tension was practically a palpable thing. The handful of men his two agents were facing off with didn’t appear all that concerned. They were a visiting team, Phil realized absently, from the London base. They likely only knew Clint and Natasha by reputation, and like most people that didn’t actually know them probably thought that the rumors and stories were exaggerations. 

Clint always took particular pleasure in ‘explaining’ how true all the stories were. 

An eerie quiet fell over the gym. Several other agents had stopped what they were doing to nervously watch the developing situation. 

Then, without any warning, Clint was throwing a punch. 

It all kind of went downhill from there. 

Phil moved toward the brawl while the rest of the agents backed away. Nobody who knew them would wade into a brawl with the Hawk and the Widow unless they had a personal interest. 

By the time Phil got there, it was all over. 

Clint was shaking out his left hand and grinning at Natasha like it was just another day at the office. Natasha was in the middle of saying something in Russian that drew a chuckle from Clint and a response in the same language. 

As much as it frustrated Phil not to know what they were saying sometimes, plausible deniability had its merits. 

“I see you’re really making strides with cross-base relations,” Phil observed with crossed arms. 

“You know me, Phil,” Clint replied with a sarcastic smirk. “I’m a regular social butterfly.” 

Phil hummed a sarcastic response and eyed the four unconscious agents on the floor. 

“Anything I need to know about?” he asked with an arched brow. 

The two agents exchanged a silent look. Clint eventually just shrugged and waved Natasha on, clearly telling her it was up to her whether they told Phil what had gone down. 

She turned to Phil and smirked. 

“You know how it is dealing with foreign teams. I think something got lost in translation and we cleared up the confusion.” 

Clint chuckled and Phil took a slow breath, barely holding back an eye roll. 

“They’re British.” 

Natasha blinked blankly at him. 

“They spoke English,” Phil went on. “There’s not much translation to get lost in.”

When his two agents just stared innocently at him, Phil held up a hand in surrender. 

“Nevermind,” he said. “I don’t want to know.” 

There was a rather unpleasant incident when he was ten. Okumura had just died and started following Endeavor around, and Shouto was frightened but curious enough to try to talk to him. Unfortunately Okumura was severely unstable, his memories were slipping, and he was half-convinced he was still in the middle of the conflict that killed him. The possession was entirely accidental because neither of them were aware that it was possible, and Okumura’s hold on his mind was weak enough for Shouto force him out through sheer panic.