crack_van | C2H5OH + 1 by casspeach

Fandom: Avengers 2012
Pairing: background Clint/Coulson
Length: ~10k
Author on LJ:

casspeach
Author Website: AO3 dash
Why this must be read:

Partially because you really should read everything Cass has ever written, ever.

But more because this fic has a fantastic Steve POV on his developing friendship with Clint, and, at times, with the others on the team. Cass does a really good job of fleshing out what the movies have given us, and writing a very quiet fic about a team leader learning to understand one of the men under his command, someone who is becoming more than just another soldier.

Silence follows, heavy and expectant, and Steve realizes Clint is waiting for reassurance from him.

"Neither of you has anything to fear from me on that score," he says. "I can't believe you need me to say that."

Clint shrugs. "If you were anyone else...." he says. "But you're not."

"Honestly, I'm far more perturbed by the idea that it's acceptable to joke about oral sex in mixed company now," Steve says, and then, because he knows how to play to his advantages. "That's what that was, right?"

"That is what that was. Although I wouldn't recommend using Tony as your barometer for acceptable behavior." Clint leans in close. "I also wouldn't recommend bullshitting a bullshitter," he says. "I've used the 'aw shucks, I'm just a clean cut country boy' routine too often myself to be taken in by it. Uneducated hick, in my case, but the principle's the same."

Steve's about to respond, he just can't think of a way to say how grateful he is that Clint isn't taken in by his naif schtick because the rest of the world seems only too eager to swallow it wholesale, when the elevator light starts climbing again.

C2H5OH + 1