The pairing of Clint Barton and Phil Coulson, all variations are welcome - 616, MCU, and AU.
Wednesday Weekly Discussion
How do you think Clint discovered Phil's Cap obsession? How do you think he handled it? Did he ever contribute something to the collection?



I think Phil's Cap obsession was a running joke at SHIELD. I think he was a little jealous, but started contributing things and came to enjoy it. ::head canon::
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Of course, the problem with giving Phil the cheesiest, tackiest Cap merchandise as a joke is that he seriously LOVES ALL OF IT. Like. He'll nerd out at you. He'll give you the history of the piece. It might be a horrible-looking Cap coffee mug, but now you've got to sit and listen to at least 10 minutes of Cap History 101, the first time they put Cap's face on a mug in 1976, his attempts to score originals on ebay, their fair market value, etc etc etc.
He half does it out of spite to the person who thought giving him crappy Cap merch would be funny.... but the other half is 100% he can't help himself.
I have a long-running (albeit not particularly comics compliant) headcanon that it was Phil who brought Clint in initially. Okay, yes, I AU'd the back story and ran with it. Unless there's an iteration I don't know of which wouldn't surprise me one bit, as I'm rotten at keeping up with the comics.
Anyway, my headcanon Clint is Roman alphabet dyslexic (no problem in Cyrillic or Arabic whatsoever, though) and an adult not-fully-literate until Phil gets to him (basing the latter on circus life and little formal schooling, and the former on apparently it not being enough to just be a deaf BAMF). So the first time he spots something, and thinks nothing of it, it's Phil's absolute favourite Cap merchandise rollerball pen with the little enameled shield design on the lid. People have been (very mildly, jokingly) hurt for attempting to steal that pen.
As time goes on and they get closer, he eventually ends up going to Phil's apartment and gets an eyeful of all the geek merchandise - a scale model starship collection, Dune first editions, classy framed posters including all the best quotes from Andromeda in cool typeform and of course all the Cap stuff. And then he kind of puts two and two together with those vague whispers he's heard around the office about Coulson being a total fan boy, and suddenly it all makes sense.
At first it's all a bit of a joke, and Phil's used to that and takes it all in good humour, of course. But it still means more than the appearance would suggest when Clint gets him Cap-related gift that Christmas. Nothing expensive, but something he's been looking for for a while, whose scarcity doesn't make it a million dollar eBay kind of job, but more the sort of thing he hasn't quite gotten around to tracking down yet. Which he mentioned to Clint all of about once. In passing. In an unrelated and unimportant conversation.
Clint still treats it as a joke though, even if he does secretly find it unnerving and endearing in just about equal parts. Until he gets to meet Iron Man in the flesh, and Phil gets to turn it all around on him with a good natured but savage humour. 😛
Oh gosh I can just imagine Phil ribbing Clint with something like "at least my hero hasn't made the society pages for scandalous behavior." and Clint just being like "not in this half century, but I know you have the newspaper clippings about Cap and I know what binder they're in."