lease note that this is the mish-moshiest of all Marvel universes. And silliness. Also, there's only a little bit of Clint/Nat. Consider yourself warned.

----

Phil came striding out of his office and almost ran directly into one of his best teachers.

"Melinda, I'm glad you're here. I have a thing I need to talk to you about."

"If it's about the cheerleaders newest fundraising scheme, I've already talked to Cassie and Kamala about it. They're willing to tone down the politicizing a little bit."

Phil shot her a confused look. What was going on with the cheerleaders? On the other hand, the less he knew about whatever was going on, the better. Plausible deniability and all that.

He shook his head.

"No. I wanted to talk to you about Barton."

"Oh?"

"Listen, I know he's been having a hard time of it lately, what with breaking up with Bobbi, but we can't have him fighting with our new languages teacher. We need a languages expert too much. Can you talk to him?"

"I can try, but you should probably know that Barton's recent irritability isn't because of Bobbi," Melinda said.

"It's not?"

She shook her head.

"He got a dog."

"A dog?" Coulson repeated. "I don't understand. Did the dog somehow steal all his coffee?"

The smallest of smiles appeared on Melinda's face.

"Apparently the mutt is as poorly trained as Barton himself. He said he's been keeping him up all night. Hence, not a lot of sleep, not enough coffee, yada yada...."

Coulson sighed. "Ok. Got it. Get to class. I'll talk to Barton myself this afternoon about our languages teacher. But Melinda?"

"Yes?"

"If there's anything -- and I do mean anything -- you can do to put in a good word about Ms. Romanoff with him? I'd really appreciate it."

Melinda nodded.

(This turned out much longer - for me! - than anticipated at about 2500 words, so the rest is over on Ao3 (http://archiveofourown.org/works/9795446))

<3, <3, <3

I left a comment on AO3 but wanted to leave one here, too. Loved this! <3

You are the sweetest ever, you know that?

I commented on AO3, but I also want to say here that I adore this fic!