"I can do that," Coulson said with a faint smile. "They will listen to me, and Fury will agree with me. I'll make sure Stark and Rogers know to keep an eye on you two as well."

"That's a low blow, sir," Clint said. "Way below the belt."

"That's what you two need," Coulson said with a faint smirk. "For now, anyway."

"What we need is for you to come back again," Clint argued. "That's what we need."

"No," Coulson said firmly. "I have another op I'm running, and I get to do it my way. You two work well with me, but you have a whole team now."

A flicker of hurt crossed Clint's face. That just smacked of them being replaced.

"Another op?" he asked. "You took on a different set of agents?"

"I had a choice between making my team and taking care of ops, or continue recovering in Tahiti, go in for psych evals every other week, and not do anything worth doing until I agreed to a team." Coulson shrugged. "You two were on the list of people I couldn't request."

"Who made the list?" Clint asked, a smidge too pleasantly.

Coulson smiled faintly. "I believe it was a composite from a few people," he said, his tone light enough to tell them that was all they'd get. "Now, are you two going to stop being petulant children, or do you need a time out first?" That was aimed more at Clint, since Coulson didn't usually have to threaten Natasha with time out.

But he had, on occasion.

"I don't know, do I have to beat up some baby agents to get my spot back?" Clint asked, raising an eyebrow. He wasn't being entirely serious.

"No, FitzSimmons still aren't authorized for field work, you could tip them over with a finger," Coulson said with a faint smirk. "Although Mae might give you some trouble."

Clint paused and blinked.

"Melinda Mae?" he asked, a bit plaintively. He glanced at Natasha, who seemed to relax a bit at the name. Everyone knew that Mae and Natasha were SHIELD sparring partners.

Coulson nodded. "She's driving the Bus," he said. He paused. "I wouldn't mind too terribly if you knocked Ward down a peg, but he's improved a lot already."

"And they gave you FitzSimmons?" Clint added. "Jesus, sir, you get all the luck sometimes." Because yes, he still kind of dreamed of letting that particular pair design him some arrows. He smirked. "Imagine letting Stark loose on them."

"No." Coulson's voice was flat. "They're a pair of hyperactive puppies most of the time. They look up to his designs and his genius. They'd never want to leave and Stark would have actual minions. That is never happening."

Clint cackled.

"Oh this is so happening now, sir, you have no idea how much this is happening," he said, grinning. Even Natasha cracked a bit of a smile.

Coulson shook his head. "We don't have another op at the moment," he said. "We're staying in New York for at least the next twenty-four hours, unless something comes up." Which was as close as he was going to get to permission, as well as a warning because he was going to keep an eye on them.

"Fantastic," Clint said, already heading towards Tony's workshop. He had a pair of minions to set the genius on.

Coulson rolled his eyes and went into the kitchen to get some paperwork done.

Kerry looked at him and finished her cup of tea, putting her mug in the sink before returning to her own paperwork.

Natasha watched Coulson go and then went to go supervise Clint and Tony. They didn't need anyone scaring FitzSimmons away, they were the best team SHIELD had to offer.

Coulson kept track of them remotely but didn't interfere for now, letting them work things out for themselves.

Avery settled in to work on some of her own paperwork. For now, she was alright with letting Clint and Natasha work things out on their own.

Dinner that night was boisterous and loud with extra people around. Ward and Mae had been dragged in for dinner, Tony had ordered enough pizzas to feed everyone, and Kerry was really hoping there wasn't any paperwork to fill out for this chaos.

Avery was hoping the same thing, even as she did what she could to minimize the chaos. She really didn't want any extra paperwork for letting Stark loose on a pair of SHIELD scientists.

"This is cruel and unusual punishment, sir," Kerry said as she watched FitzSimmons and Stark Sciencing. "What did we do? I don't remember doing anything to deserve this."