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Entry tags:
doesn't matter if i bleed, avengers, clint/coulson, explicit, 1/3
Title: doesn't matter if i bleed
Fandom: The Avengers (movie-verse)
Pairing: Clint Barton/Phil Coulson
Rating: Explicit
Length: ~19,300 words
Notes/Warnings: Post-movie fix-it--spoilers for everything, plus trigger warnings for the events of the movie and PTSD related to those events. Thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
clarkward for reading in flight; withdiamonds for the medical consults; and without_me for cleaning everything up and poking my run-ons into readable shape.
Summary: Clint's never pretended to be deep. He's just the guy who sits back and watches, the guy who makes the shot when he needs to. He's seen a lot of crap in his time, sat through a lot of fucked-up scenes to get to where he needs to be, but this, now--he can't stand another second of it.
Also posted to AO3, here
There's nothing like being loaned out to the CIA to make Clint appreciate how far he's come since his nameless, faceless sniper days. He still has a tendency to fade into the background (it's damn easy when Stark's out in front of the PR blitz and Cap is standing right beside him--it'll take a lot longer than a year for the media outlets to get past those two, which Clint is pretty okay with), but he has a name and a place on a team now. Truth be told, he'd never just been "the asset" with SHIELD. Clint knows he owes that entirely to Phil Coulson and how he'd run his ops, but even without Coulson somewhere in the background, the attitude still persists. Treating your people as people: it's not bad as a legacy even if it goes without saying that nobody wanted it to actually be a legacy so fucking soon.
Still, as much as Clint hates getting sent out on a Company job, it's ten times worse for Natasha. Clint knows she's fighting against every single second of her early conditioning just to stay calm and cool on the surface. It's Natasha, so nobody else has a clue, but Clint knows all the signs. Having to debrief at Langley, which makes Clint want to claw his face off, has to have Nat close to choking. He can't let on that he knows how much it costs her to be here--he likes his balls attached to his body and functional--which makes having her back a little more challenging than usual, but it's what they do for each other. Even now, being a part of a team--truly a part, not just out on the fringes--there are times when the only thing keeping each of them whole and functioning (Clint isn't going to say sane, because he knows goddamn well how close to that edge they skate sometimes) is the other.
Yeah, so: Langley. CIA headquarters, and a complete clusterfuck of an assignment to debrief, complicated enough that they're locked up in a room full of Company spooks for the better part of a day and night. Clint's gone through every biofeedback trick he knows three fucking times, and Nat is agitated enough that she's flipping pens like she does her knives before they finally get turned loose, but finally they're done. They might be a little punchy from sheer relief (not to mention getting about five hours of sleep over the previous three days) but it's nothing fifteen hours in a bed and a couple of pounds of ribeye won't cure, or at least that's what Clint thinks until they're halfway back to the front lobby and he sees Coulson coming through security.
It's not the first time Clint's looked at a random guy in a dark suit and seen Phil. Hell, for the first couple of months after it all went down, Clint saw him every fucking day. PTSD, the docs said. Guilt, Clint's brain said (when it wasn't saying dereliction of duty or collusion or traitor or the all-time favorite, murderer.) Breathe through it, Natasha would say. Just breathe. It'd taken a couple of months but his brain started calming down, and lately he's only seen the faces of the ones he'd killed (the ones *Loki* killed, the Natasha-voice in his brain says automatically, and maybe one day Clint will believe her) in his dreams. Since he's dead on his feet (when a Company op goes south, it generally goes nuclear with fall-out lasting for days and this last one hadn't been any different), it's possible he's just hallucinating, but it doesn't feel like the other times. Coulson looks older; almost... well, not frail, because Clint doesn’t care what shit is going on in his head, he’s never going to see Coulson as that diminished. Thinner, maybe. Refined down to the bone, maybe. It’s too damn weird, but the real thing that’s fucking with Clint’s head is that no matter how many times he glances away and back, it's still Phil he’s seeing. Normally, on the second, or maybe the third look, Clint sees the real person. On the plus side, at least this vision isn’t bleeding out or glaring accusations at him.
"Clint," Natasha says sharply, and Clint realizes it's the third time she's said his name. He shrugs off her concerned look and starts walking again, so they can get the hell out of this place before he completely loses it. He can't help looking back, though, and fuck, it's still Coulson he's seeing.
"Nat," he manages to say, and he doesn't mean to sound like he's going down any second, but that's how it comes out. She spins around like she's expecting an all-out assault and just then, the guy Clint's staring at looks up and sees them both, and--
"Fuck me," Natasha hisses in Russian, right before Fury's there and they're all swept down the hall and out of public view.
* * *
There's a helicopter waiting for them, and a jet from Andrews to LaGuardia, and another helicopter from there to the Tower. Clint spends the entire trip clamping down the seething mass of emotions masquerading as higher thought processes, alternating between raging fury, a sort of unbelieving relief, and the deep, familiar sear of exclusion. Natasha stays with him, sitting between him and the world, and though he can tell she wants to go up to the front and confront them, raise hell with Fury, with Phil, Clint can't bring himself to send her off.
He never said he wasn't a selfish bastard.
By the time they get to the Tower, the rest of the team's there and when they walk into the conference room, Natasha and Clint first, Fury and Coulson right behind, there's a split-second of utter silence before all hell breaks loose. Clint grabs a seat in the corner and lets it all play out, the initial relief giving way to the ugly realization of just how neatly everyone had been played. Banner and Thor are the calmest of the lot, which isn't saying much, as Cap is quietly livid, Nat is still spitting curses in Russian, and Stark looks close to rupturing something.
"People," Coulson says in that quiet tone that's talked Clint through more fucked-up ops than he can remember--but none of them, not the shitstorm in Chechnya or the hit they had put out on them in Kyiv or even the fifteen days they spent in bamboo cages in Southeast Asia (Clint never has figured out exactly where they were) were anywhere close to as FUBARed as this. "People," Coulson repeats, and the room falls silent for a few seconds.
"Someone," Stark spits out, his eyes flashing back and forth between Fury and Coulson. "Someone has some serious fucking explaining to do, because you," he pokes at Coulson, "we fucking buried you." He turns and glares at Fury. "You know what? Never mind. This has your fingerprints all over it, doesn't it, Nick? Dramatic speech, rally the troops, save the fucking world. The end justifies the means, right, Direct--"
"It was my call," Coulson interrupts in that same calm voice. Every eye in the room is on him. "It was my decision, Stark. Something needed to happen, and I just happened to be it." He looks at each one of them in turn, saving Clint for last. "I'd do it again in a heartbeat."
And that--that's it for Clint. He holds Coulson's eyes as he stands and walks to the front of the room. Natasha has to know what he's going to do--hell, Coulson, too. Clint's never pretended to be deep. He's just the guy who sits back and watches, the guy who makes the shot when he needs to. He's seen a lot of crap in his time, sat through a lot of fucked-up scenes to get to where he needs to be, but this, now--he can't stand another second of it.
"Fuck this shit," he says, and the punch he's had coiled up in his shoulder ever since he realized the Technicolor pictures of Phil down, bleeding out because Clint brought Loki to kill him, the ones he's had playing out in his head in excruciating detail every day for a year aren't true, have never been true--that punch sings out and Phil doesn't do a thing to block it, just lets his head snap back and wipes the blood off his mouth as Clint walks out the door.
* * *
Natasha comes after him, of course, and so, too, does Thor, following Clint without a word to the shithole bar he found months ago.
“I would not intrude, my friends,” Thor says when Natasha gives him the what-the-fuck-do-you-think-you’re-doing look. If Clint weren’t so furious he could barely think, he’d be mildly impressed at Thor’s smile. “I am here merely to guarantee your safe return.”
"Fan-fucking-tastic," Clint says, and motions for the bartender to hand over the entire bottle of cheap whiskey. Natasha has her own bottle of vodka, and Thor alternates between the two. It probably could be uglier, but with the two of them still running on fumes from the last op it's all over embarrassingly quickly, Thor half-carrying them back out in less than two hours. Clint ends up on his hands and knees in the alley, puking hard enough that he's not sure he hasn't lost an internal organ or two, but between that and the quart of water he downs before he passes out, he's in surprisingly decent shape when he gets the call to Fury's office the next day.
"No, sir," Clint says, when Fury's done with his song and dance. "With all due respect, I will be goddamned before I go talk to one of your shrinks about how I feel about being lied to for a year." He's so far over the line of insubordination he can't believe there isn't a security team in to escort him to the brig, but Fury just puts his hands flat on his desk and watches him. Clint keeps his eyes on a point just over the director's left shoulder and lets the silence draw out. If Fury wants to try to wait him out, Clint is fucking up for the challenge.
"If I could, I'd tell you to pick a shrink that doesn't work for SHIELD," Fury says finally, quiet and somber. "But that's not feasible, not right now." Clint wants to snort at that, because yeah, there's a surprise, but he sets his jaw and keeps quiet. "It was a call made in the heat of battle, Agent. You know how those go. It is one I'd make again, but it wasn't without consequences. You know how that goes, as well." Clint does, but that doesn't mean he's in any kind of mood to engage. Fury takes the hint and leaves it, saying only, "What I need to know, Agent, is whether you feel yourself capable of completing a mission without endangering yourself or your team."
"That depends on whether or not Coulson's running the op," Clint says, still staring at the wall. "Sir," he adds, after just enough time to make it the insult he intends it to be.
"Phil Coulson died on the helicarrier during the first wave of the Chitauri invasion," Fury says, right on the edge of a snarl, and Clint knows a moment of satisfaction at having gotten to the son of a bitch. "The only people who know differently were in that conference room last night, and that’s how it’s going to stay. Agent Hill will be running this operation. You can report to her now."
"Sir." Clint spins on his heel and makes for the door. He doesn't know whether he's hoping for something that needs explosives or something where he and Nat can slide in and out with no one ever knowing for sure they were there, but he'll take anything to get the fuck out of New York and away from the Tower.
"Barton," Fury says, still with that underlying snarl. "I cut you some slack here, but if you ever bring that attitude into my office again, you'd best be prepared to have it walk you right out of this initiative."
"With pleasure, sir," Clint answers, and lets the door slam shut behind him. Hill briefs him and sends him off to where Natasha is waiting for him at the jets; she looks him over with a critical eye but doesn’t say anything other than the coordinates they're aiming for. Clint punches them into the nav system and loses himself in the familiar adrenaline rush of infil-surveil-acquisition-exfil.
Once he and Natasha are back, Clint automatically reverts to keeping his distance from everyone but Natasha--because even as fucked up as he is about all this, he knows she wouldn’t let that fly--but it turns out it doesn't matter. The team lets him do his thing, but when he looks up after a month he realizes it doesn’t matter if half of SHIELD is back to avoiding him, the team has closed ranks around him. There's a clear and unmistakable line and he's on the Avengers side of it.
"Of course," Cap says, sounding faintly offended that Clint might think otherwise.
"One for all, and all that shit," Stark adds, barely looking up from the prototype he's been working on 24/7 the last few weeks.
"Or possibly 'You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave,'" Banner quotes, with one of his rare smiles.
"Where else might we have sent you?" Thor asks, honestly mystified.
"Yay, team." Natasha rolls her eyes, as if acknowledging the ridiculousness of either of them being a part of anything, but she's right there beside Clint, inside the line, too.
It takes Clint another week or so to process that, but when Stark walks up and taps his phone against Clint's, Clint knows that whatever he decides to do with the file that just got transferred--a set of coordinates, with a picture of a small, neat house--his team trusts him to do what's right, and they've got his back.
* * *
In the end, Clint goes with what he does best: watch and wait. The coordinates resolve to a small neighborhood off the river in Alexandria, Virginia; the townhouses all meticulously restored Colonials; his target in particular looking to be a former gatehouse or possibly a restored barn. Clint settles into a perch behind the ridgeline of a neighboring roof, the chimney at his back shielding him from all but the most determined of viewers, and waits. There's someone moving around in the house--okay, fine, Clint can think his name: Coulson's moving around in the house--but it's otherwise quiet and peaceful. Clint lets himself drop into the zone where he's almost resting except for the part of his brain that correlates everything he sees and throws up a flag for anomalies. There aren't any of those, at least not until Coulson stops in front of the big bay window and leaves a tiny flash of color on the glass. Clint deliberates for a while, but finally pulls out one of his smaller scopes and looks through it. It's a Post-It note, with handwriting Clint knows as well as his own reading, If you think I don't know when you're out there watching, you're losing your edge.
Clint's down off the roof and halfway back to the airport before he stops to think about why he's running, but it doesn't stop him from catching the next flight back to New York.
* * *
"Agent Barton," Fury says as they break from a debriefing two weeks later. Nat gives the eyebrow arch that means she'll be right outside and for Clint not to do anything stupid; the rest of the team follows her lead. Fury waits for the door to close behind them before he says, "It took eighteen hours of surgery to repair the damage to his heart, and they kept him sedated for another week, but the first thing he asked when he was conscious was whether we'd gotten you back."
"Sir," Clint says, but that's apparently all Fury wanted to say, so Clint leaves and catches up with his team.
* * *
Coulson doesn't bother waiting the next time; Clint has barely gotten himself settled before another note goes up. This one reads, It's going to storm like a bitch here soon; don't be an idiot and sit out in it. Clint still waits until the first few drops fall, but instead of the airport, he finds himself on Coulson's small front porch right as the door opens.
"It wouldn't be the first time I've held tight through a storm," Clint says.
"Doesn't mean it wouldn't be idiotic," Coulson answers. He's wearing a coat and carrying a leather briefcase, clearly on his way out, but he stands and watches Clint watch him as though he has all the time in the world. "I have a seminar," he says finally. "You're welcome to come along."
"Sure thing," Clint says, telling himself he's going only because it'd been pretty clear Coulson hadn't expected his offer to be accepted. It doesn't explain the baseline feeling of right that slides in on the heels of his decision, or the way the fine lines around Coulson's eyes relax at Clint's words. They make it to the car right as the sky opens up and the rain comes down in sheets, and yeah, Clint's sat out in worse, but he has to admit he's just as happy to be inside listening to it pound the roof rather than out getting soaked to the skin.
It's not a long drive; their silence doesn't have quite enough time to go from screamingly awkward to unbearable, but it's still a relief to pull up outside a small strip of shops and restaurants and be moving on to the next part of whatever the hell is going on. Clint follows Coulson into what turns out to be a small, brick-walled bar.
"A seminar, huh?" Clint slants a look at Coulson, who answers with a familiar half-smirk that kicks Clint in the head with how long it's been since he's seen it.
"They're grad students; they're entirely capable of holding a round-table discussion in the presence of alcohol," Coulson says before turning away to greet the bartender and drop his briefcase on a table in the far corner. Clint just stands there and tries to figure out what the hell is going on. He's not gotten anywhere when Coulson circles back and says, "We'll be discussing the battle strategies of pre-Augustinian Roman legions and how they reflected the political and socio-economic realities of the republic-cum-empire. Feel free to join in, or I can introduce you to Kate at the bar?"
As far as Clint knows, Rome--before or after Augustus--wasn't big on archers, so he says, "Lady with the booze," and tries to ignore the way his body wants to lean into the light touch on his shoulder Coulson uses to guide him over to the long, copper-topped bar.
"Kate, Clint." Coulson introduces him easily, as though there's nothing but a simple friendship between them, no death or betrayal. "Add him to my tab--" He gives Clint that Do not start with me arched eyebrow when he tries to object, and finishes smoothly, "And if he's throwing darts against you, he's left-handed--so make sure he's throwing with his right."
"Sure thing, doc," Kate says with a smile, and just like that, Clint is established in the hierarchy of the place. Kate keeps his drinks fresh, snorting once when he tries to pay for a beer. "How about I let you fight it out with him," she says, waving the receipt in Coulson's general direction. She does lean over and ask if Clint's really good enough to have to throw off-handed to make it a game, and when Clint nods, she jerks her head toward a group in the front and says, "You’d make my week if you could take them down a notch or two."
Since she's been taking care of him all night, Clint smiles back at her and says, "No problem," and lets himself be drawn into their game. It definitely doesn't have anything to do with the satisfied smile he catches on Coulson's face after he wipes the floor with Kate's group of disfavor in every variation they can think of.
"You can bring this one back any time," she says to Coulson as he's settling up. "See you next week, Doc."
"Doc?" Clint says when they’re alone in the car.
"The Ph.D. kind," Coulson says. "Classics and archeology."
"Is that for real, or Nat's kind of deal?" Clint asks. He'd like to say he hadn't thought through how insulting it'd sound, but that'd be a lie.
"For real," Coulson says mildly. "I'd show you the actual diploma but it says Phil Coulson on it, not Carl Phillips, so it’s in a vault somewhere. I do teach, though."
"And Langley?"
"I consult on an as-needed basis. No names exchanged, that sort of thing.” They're back in the short driveway in front of his house, but Coulson shows no sign of going inside. Clint could leave, but he doesn’t, and he isn’t thinking too closely about why he’s not even considering it.
"I didn't think I'd make it when I told the director to spin the story however he needed," Coulson says into the darkness, and Clint makes himself breathe through the sudden change in subject. "I remember that all pretty clearly--it's the later part, after I woke up, that's sketchy." Clint's seen the video of Loki and Coulson, the footage that was shot while Clint himself had been on a tear, blasting his way through the ship without a second thought, at least until Nat had caught up with him. He knows it’s pretty much a miracle Coulson did make it. "Even then, though--I was good with the decision. Having to walk away hasn't been… easy, but it happened and that's where we are."
"Teaching," Clint says, and he doesn't bother to keep his disbelief out of his voice.
"There have been some irregularities centered on research funded here," Coulson says. "So, not only teaching, but I have to admit I'm enjoying my tenure."
Clint doesn't have the first idea what to say. Coulson seems okay with this life, but Clint’s been on the receiving end of him managing ops that spanned the fucking globe; he can’t quite reconcile that expertise--not to mention the dry humor that always, always had time to match Clint snark for snark--with lectures and seminars. Then Coulson adds, in a low, rough voice, “I'll never pass a field physical, not with the shape my heart's in now. I'm lucky to just--” and Clint stops listening, has to, because that, that’s all on Clint, and the only reason he doesn’t flinch away and throw himself out of the car is because the brutally calm assessment has pitched him headfirst back into all the shit he’s managed to wall off.
It gets quiet again, Clint trying to get his act together, get Loki shoved back down far enough that he won't start screaming when he opens his mouth, and Coulson... Clint honest-to-fuck doesn’t know what might be going on there. They used to work together so closely, him and Nat and Coulson, that they were halfway to reading each others minds; Clint hopes like hell it hasn't carried over into the post-Loki world. Slowly, Clint finds a space in his head that's not a little corner of hell, a place that feels like life used to, because it doesn't matter what name Phil's going by, or how he got there, he’s sitting next to Clint and that's something Clint never thought he’d have again.
"This,” Phil’s saying, "is something new. A challenge."
He says it as though he’s braced for Clint’s pity, and that’s enough to kick Clint the rest of the way out of his backslide. This really fucking isn’t about him, and for everything he owes Phil, so much he'll never be able to repay, he can at least get this part right.
"I should have sat in on your seminar," he says, and if it’s not his most infuriating tone, he knows he’s found enough of the right attitude when he can feel Phil relaxing next to him. "Checked out your style so I could give the rest of them the dirt. You know they’re going to want all the details."
"The Romans liked javelins more than arrows; you'd have zoned out in two minutes," Phil says dryly. "That's hardly a fair assessment of my ability."
"You know how you used to give me that unimpressed look and tell me excuses were nothing but a waste of everyone's time?" Clint says. "Payback’s a bitch, man."
"Next month is the Welsh archers--Llewelyn ap Iowerth through to Agincourt. Definitely more your area," Phil says as he opens his door.
“Sounds like trying to stack the deck before an eval,” Clint says, following Phil’s lead and not needing any light to know he’s getting the long-suffering look to go along with the sigh. It’s an easy way to end the day, more of an even keel than they’ve been on since, well, before Loki took Clint and changed the world. Clint’s so relieved to be there it doesn't click that the part about the archers was an invitation until he's back at the Tower and Nat is rolling her eyes at him.
Part One | Part Two | Part Three
Fandom: The Avengers (movie-verse)
Pairing: Clint Barton/Phil Coulson
Rating: Explicit
Length: ~19,300 words
Notes/Warnings: Post-movie fix-it--spoilers for everything, plus trigger warnings for the events of the movie and PTSD related to those events. Thanks to
clarkward for reading in flight; withdiamonds for the medical consults; and without_me for cleaning everything up and poking my run-ons into readable shape.Summary: Clint's never pretended to be deep. He's just the guy who sits back and watches, the guy who makes the shot when he needs to. He's seen a lot of crap in his time, sat through a lot of fucked-up scenes to get to where he needs to be, but this, now--he can't stand another second of it.
Also posted to AO3, here
There's nothing like being loaned out to the CIA to make Clint appreciate how far he's come since his nameless, faceless sniper days. He still has a tendency to fade into the background (it's damn easy when Stark's out in front of the PR blitz and Cap is standing right beside him--it'll take a lot longer than a year for the media outlets to get past those two, which Clint is pretty okay with), but he has a name and a place on a team now. Truth be told, he'd never just been "the asset" with SHIELD. Clint knows he owes that entirely to Phil Coulson and how he'd run his ops, but even without Coulson somewhere in the background, the attitude still persists. Treating your people as people: it's not bad as a legacy even if it goes without saying that nobody wanted it to actually be a legacy so fucking soon.
Still, as much as Clint hates getting sent out on a Company job, it's ten times worse for Natasha. Clint knows she's fighting against every single second of her early conditioning just to stay calm and cool on the surface. It's Natasha, so nobody else has a clue, but Clint knows all the signs. Having to debrief at Langley, which makes Clint want to claw his face off, has to have Nat close to choking. He can't let on that he knows how much it costs her to be here--he likes his balls attached to his body and functional--which makes having her back a little more challenging than usual, but it's what they do for each other. Even now, being a part of a team--truly a part, not just out on the fringes--there are times when the only thing keeping each of them whole and functioning (Clint isn't going to say sane, because he knows goddamn well how close to that edge they skate sometimes) is the other.
Yeah, so: Langley. CIA headquarters, and a complete clusterfuck of an assignment to debrief, complicated enough that they're locked up in a room full of Company spooks for the better part of a day and night. Clint's gone through every biofeedback trick he knows three fucking times, and Nat is agitated enough that she's flipping pens like she does her knives before they finally get turned loose, but finally they're done. They might be a little punchy from sheer relief (not to mention getting about five hours of sleep over the previous three days) but it's nothing fifteen hours in a bed and a couple of pounds of ribeye won't cure, or at least that's what Clint thinks until they're halfway back to the front lobby and he sees Coulson coming through security.
It's not the first time Clint's looked at a random guy in a dark suit and seen Phil. Hell, for the first couple of months after it all went down, Clint saw him every fucking day. PTSD, the docs said. Guilt, Clint's brain said (when it wasn't saying dereliction of duty or collusion or traitor or the all-time favorite, murderer.) Breathe through it, Natasha would say. Just breathe. It'd taken a couple of months but his brain started calming down, and lately he's only seen the faces of the ones he'd killed (the ones *Loki* killed, the Natasha-voice in his brain says automatically, and maybe one day Clint will believe her) in his dreams. Since he's dead on his feet (when a Company op goes south, it generally goes nuclear with fall-out lasting for days and this last one hadn't been any different), it's possible he's just hallucinating, but it doesn't feel like the other times. Coulson looks older; almost... well, not frail, because Clint doesn’t care what shit is going on in his head, he’s never going to see Coulson as that diminished. Thinner, maybe. Refined down to the bone, maybe. It’s too damn weird, but the real thing that’s fucking with Clint’s head is that no matter how many times he glances away and back, it's still Phil he’s seeing. Normally, on the second, or maybe the third look, Clint sees the real person. On the plus side, at least this vision isn’t bleeding out or glaring accusations at him.
"Clint," Natasha says sharply, and Clint realizes it's the third time she's said his name. He shrugs off her concerned look and starts walking again, so they can get the hell out of this place before he completely loses it. He can't help looking back, though, and fuck, it's still Coulson he's seeing.
"Nat," he manages to say, and he doesn't mean to sound like he's going down any second, but that's how it comes out. She spins around like she's expecting an all-out assault and just then, the guy Clint's staring at looks up and sees them both, and--
"Fuck me," Natasha hisses in Russian, right before Fury's there and they're all swept down the hall and out of public view.
There's a helicopter waiting for them, and a jet from Andrews to LaGuardia, and another helicopter from there to the Tower. Clint spends the entire trip clamping down the seething mass of emotions masquerading as higher thought processes, alternating between raging fury, a sort of unbelieving relief, and the deep, familiar sear of exclusion. Natasha stays with him, sitting between him and the world, and though he can tell she wants to go up to the front and confront them, raise hell with Fury, with Phil, Clint can't bring himself to send her off.
He never said he wasn't a selfish bastard.
By the time they get to the Tower, the rest of the team's there and when they walk into the conference room, Natasha and Clint first, Fury and Coulson right behind, there's a split-second of utter silence before all hell breaks loose. Clint grabs a seat in the corner and lets it all play out, the initial relief giving way to the ugly realization of just how neatly everyone had been played. Banner and Thor are the calmest of the lot, which isn't saying much, as Cap is quietly livid, Nat is still spitting curses in Russian, and Stark looks close to rupturing something.
"People," Coulson says in that quiet tone that's talked Clint through more fucked-up ops than he can remember--but none of them, not the shitstorm in Chechnya or the hit they had put out on them in Kyiv or even the fifteen days they spent in bamboo cages in Southeast Asia (Clint never has figured out exactly where they were) were anywhere close to as FUBARed as this. "People," Coulson repeats, and the room falls silent for a few seconds.
"Someone," Stark spits out, his eyes flashing back and forth between Fury and Coulson. "Someone has some serious fucking explaining to do, because you," he pokes at Coulson, "we fucking buried you." He turns and glares at Fury. "You know what? Never mind. This has your fingerprints all over it, doesn't it, Nick? Dramatic speech, rally the troops, save the fucking world. The end justifies the means, right, Direct--"
"It was my call," Coulson interrupts in that same calm voice. Every eye in the room is on him. "It was my decision, Stark. Something needed to happen, and I just happened to be it." He looks at each one of them in turn, saving Clint for last. "I'd do it again in a heartbeat."
And that--that's it for Clint. He holds Coulson's eyes as he stands and walks to the front of the room. Natasha has to know what he's going to do--hell, Coulson, too. Clint's never pretended to be deep. He's just the guy who sits back and watches, the guy who makes the shot when he needs to. He's seen a lot of crap in his time, sat through a lot of fucked-up scenes to get to where he needs to be, but this, now--he can't stand another second of it.
"Fuck this shit," he says, and the punch he's had coiled up in his shoulder ever since he realized the Technicolor pictures of Phil down, bleeding out because Clint brought Loki to kill him, the ones he's had playing out in his head in excruciating detail every day for a year aren't true, have never been true--that punch sings out and Phil doesn't do a thing to block it, just lets his head snap back and wipes the blood off his mouth as Clint walks out the door.
Natasha comes after him, of course, and so, too, does Thor, following Clint without a word to the shithole bar he found months ago.
“I would not intrude, my friends,” Thor says when Natasha gives him the what-the-fuck-do-you-think-you’re-doing look. If Clint weren’t so furious he could barely think, he’d be mildly impressed at Thor’s smile. “I am here merely to guarantee your safe return.”
"Fan-fucking-tastic," Clint says, and motions for the bartender to hand over the entire bottle of cheap whiskey. Natasha has her own bottle of vodka, and Thor alternates between the two. It probably could be uglier, but with the two of them still running on fumes from the last op it's all over embarrassingly quickly, Thor half-carrying them back out in less than two hours. Clint ends up on his hands and knees in the alley, puking hard enough that he's not sure he hasn't lost an internal organ or two, but between that and the quart of water he downs before he passes out, he's in surprisingly decent shape when he gets the call to Fury's office the next day.
"No, sir," Clint says, when Fury's done with his song and dance. "With all due respect, I will be goddamned before I go talk to one of your shrinks about how I feel about being lied to for a year." He's so far over the line of insubordination he can't believe there isn't a security team in to escort him to the brig, but Fury just puts his hands flat on his desk and watches him. Clint keeps his eyes on a point just over the director's left shoulder and lets the silence draw out. If Fury wants to try to wait him out, Clint is fucking up for the challenge.
"If I could, I'd tell you to pick a shrink that doesn't work for SHIELD," Fury says finally, quiet and somber. "But that's not feasible, not right now." Clint wants to snort at that, because yeah, there's a surprise, but he sets his jaw and keeps quiet. "It was a call made in the heat of battle, Agent. You know how those go. It is one I'd make again, but it wasn't without consequences. You know how that goes, as well." Clint does, but that doesn't mean he's in any kind of mood to engage. Fury takes the hint and leaves it, saying only, "What I need to know, Agent, is whether you feel yourself capable of completing a mission without endangering yourself or your team."
"That depends on whether or not Coulson's running the op," Clint says, still staring at the wall. "Sir," he adds, after just enough time to make it the insult he intends it to be.
"Phil Coulson died on the helicarrier during the first wave of the Chitauri invasion," Fury says, right on the edge of a snarl, and Clint knows a moment of satisfaction at having gotten to the son of a bitch. "The only people who know differently were in that conference room last night, and that’s how it’s going to stay. Agent Hill will be running this operation. You can report to her now."
"Sir." Clint spins on his heel and makes for the door. He doesn't know whether he's hoping for something that needs explosives or something where he and Nat can slide in and out with no one ever knowing for sure they were there, but he'll take anything to get the fuck out of New York and away from the Tower.
"Barton," Fury says, still with that underlying snarl. "I cut you some slack here, but if you ever bring that attitude into my office again, you'd best be prepared to have it walk you right out of this initiative."
"With pleasure, sir," Clint answers, and lets the door slam shut behind him. Hill briefs him and sends him off to where Natasha is waiting for him at the jets; she looks him over with a critical eye but doesn’t say anything other than the coordinates they're aiming for. Clint punches them into the nav system and loses himself in the familiar adrenaline rush of infil-surveil-acquisition-exfil.
Once he and Natasha are back, Clint automatically reverts to keeping his distance from everyone but Natasha--because even as fucked up as he is about all this, he knows she wouldn’t let that fly--but it turns out it doesn't matter. The team lets him do his thing, but when he looks up after a month he realizes it doesn’t matter if half of SHIELD is back to avoiding him, the team has closed ranks around him. There's a clear and unmistakable line and he's on the Avengers side of it.
"Of course," Cap says, sounding faintly offended that Clint might think otherwise.
"One for all, and all that shit," Stark adds, barely looking up from the prototype he's been working on 24/7 the last few weeks.
"Or possibly 'You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave,'" Banner quotes, with one of his rare smiles.
"Where else might we have sent you?" Thor asks, honestly mystified.
"Yay, team." Natasha rolls her eyes, as if acknowledging the ridiculousness of either of them being a part of anything, but she's right there beside Clint, inside the line, too.
It takes Clint another week or so to process that, but when Stark walks up and taps his phone against Clint's, Clint knows that whatever he decides to do with the file that just got transferred--a set of coordinates, with a picture of a small, neat house--his team trusts him to do what's right, and they've got his back.
In the end, Clint goes with what he does best: watch and wait. The coordinates resolve to a small neighborhood off the river in Alexandria, Virginia; the townhouses all meticulously restored Colonials; his target in particular looking to be a former gatehouse or possibly a restored barn. Clint settles into a perch behind the ridgeline of a neighboring roof, the chimney at his back shielding him from all but the most determined of viewers, and waits. There's someone moving around in the house--okay, fine, Clint can think his name: Coulson's moving around in the house--but it's otherwise quiet and peaceful. Clint lets himself drop into the zone where he's almost resting except for the part of his brain that correlates everything he sees and throws up a flag for anomalies. There aren't any of those, at least not until Coulson stops in front of the big bay window and leaves a tiny flash of color on the glass. Clint deliberates for a while, but finally pulls out one of his smaller scopes and looks through it. It's a Post-It note, with handwriting Clint knows as well as his own reading, If you think I don't know when you're out there watching, you're losing your edge.
Clint's down off the roof and halfway back to the airport before he stops to think about why he's running, but it doesn't stop him from catching the next flight back to New York.
* * *
"Agent Barton," Fury says as they break from a debriefing two weeks later. Nat gives the eyebrow arch that means she'll be right outside and for Clint not to do anything stupid; the rest of the team follows her lead. Fury waits for the door to close behind them before he says, "It took eighteen hours of surgery to repair the damage to his heart, and they kept him sedated for another week, but the first thing he asked when he was conscious was whether we'd gotten you back."
"Sir," Clint says, but that's apparently all Fury wanted to say, so Clint leaves and catches up with his team.
* * *
Coulson doesn't bother waiting the next time; Clint has barely gotten himself settled before another note goes up. This one reads, It's going to storm like a bitch here soon; don't be an idiot and sit out in it. Clint still waits until the first few drops fall, but instead of the airport, he finds himself on Coulson's small front porch right as the door opens.
"It wouldn't be the first time I've held tight through a storm," Clint says.
"Doesn't mean it wouldn't be idiotic," Coulson answers. He's wearing a coat and carrying a leather briefcase, clearly on his way out, but he stands and watches Clint watch him as though he has all the time in the world. "I have a seminar," he says finally. "You're welcome to come along."
"Sure thing," Clint says, telling himself he's going only because it'd been pretty clear Coulson hadn't expected his offer to be accepted. It doesn't explain the baseline feeling of right that slides in on the heels of his decision, or the way the fine lines around Coulson's eyes relax at Clint's words. They make it to the car right as the sky opens up and the rain comes down in sheets, and yeah, Clint's sat out in worse, but he has to admit he's just as happy to be inside listening to it pound the roof rather than out getting soaked to the skin.
It's not a long drive; their silence doesn't have quite enough time to go from screamingly awkward to unbearable, but it's still a relief to pull up outside a small strip of shops and restaurants and be moving on to the next part of whatever the hell is going on. Clint follows Coulson into what turns out to be a small, brick-walled bar.
"A seminar, huh?" Clint slants a look at Coulson, who answers with a familiar half-smirk that kicks Clint in the head with how long it's been since he's seen it.
"They're grad students; they're entirely capable of holding a round-table discussion in the presence of alcohol," Coulson says before turning away to greet the bartender and drop his briefcase on a table in the far corner. Clint just stands there and tries to figure out what the hell is going on. He's not gotten anywhere when Coulson circles back and says, "We'll be discussing the battle strategies of pre-Augustinian Roman legions and how they reflected the political and socio-economic realities of the republic-cum-empire. Feel free to join in, or I can introduce you to Kate at the bar?"
As far as Clint knows, Rome--before or after Augustus--wasn't big on archers, so he says, "Lady with the booze," and tries to ignore the way his body wants to lean into the light touch on his shoulder Coulson uses to guide him over to the long, copper-topped bar.
"Kate, Clint." Coulson introduces him easily, as though there's nothing but a simple friendship between them, no death or betrayal. "Add him to my tab--" He gives Clint that Do not start with me arched eyebrow when he tries to object, and finishes smoothly, "And if he's throwing darts against you, he's left-handed--so make sure he's throwing with his right."
"Sure thing, doc," Kate says with a smile, and just like that, Clint is established in the hierarchy of the place. Kate keeps his drinks fresh, snorting once when he tries to pay for a beer. "How about I let you fight it out with him," she says, waving the receipt in Coulson's general direction. She does lean over and ask if Clint's really good enough to have to throw off-handed to make it a game, and when Clint nods, she jerks her head toward a group in the front and says, "You’d make my week if you could take them down a notch or two."
Since she's been taking care of him all night, Clint smiles back at her and says, "No problem," and lets himself be drawn into their game. It definitely doesn't have anything to do with the satisfied smile he catches on Coulson's face after he wipes the floor with Kate's group of disfavor in every variation they can think of.
"You can bring this one back any time," she says to Coulson as he's settling up. "See you next week, Doc."
"Doc?" Clint says when they’re alone in the car.
"The Ph.D. kind," Coulson says. "Classics and archeology."
"Is that for real, or Nat's kind of deal?" Clint asks. He'd like to say he hadn't thought through how insulting it'd sound, but that'd be a lie.
"For real," Coulson says mildly. "I'd show you the actual diploma but it says Phil Coulson on it, not Carl Phillips, so it’s in a vault somewhere. I do teach, though."
"And Langley?"
"I consult on an as-needed basis. No names exchanged, that sort of thing.” They're back in the short driveway in front of his house, but Coulson shows no sign of going inside. Clint could leave, but he doesn’t, and he isn’t thinking too closely about why he’s not even considering it.
"I didn't think I'd make it when I told the director to spin the story however he needed," Coulson says into the darkness, and Clint makes himself breathe through the sudden change in subject. "I remember that all pretty clearly--it's the later part, after I woke up, that's sketchy." Clint's seen the video of Loki and Coulson, the footage that was shot while Clint himself had been on a tear, blasting his way through the ship without a second thought, at least until Nat had caught up with him. He knows it’s pretty much a miracle Coulson did make it. "Even then, though--I was good with the decision. Having to walk away hasn't been… easy, but it happened and that's where we are."
"Teaching," Clint says, and he doesn't bother to keep his disbelief out of his voice.
"There have been some irregularities centered on research funded here," Coulson says. "So, not only teaching, but I have to admit I'm enjoying my tenure."
Clint doesn't have the first idea what to say. Coulson seems okay with this life, but Clint’s been on the receiving end of him managing ops that spanned the fucking globe; he can’t quite reconcile that expertise--not to mention the dry humor that always, always had time to match Clint snark for snark--with lectures and seminars. Then Coulson adds, in a low, rough voice, “I'll never pass a field physical, not with the shape my heart's in now. I'm lucky to just--” and Clint stops listening, has to, because that, that’s all on Clint, and the only reason he doesn’t flinch away and throw himself out of the car is because the brutally calm assessment has pitched him headfirst back into all the shit he’s managed to wall off.
It gets quiet again, Clint trying to get his act together, get Loki shoved back down far enough that he won't start screaming when he opens his mouth, and Coulson... Clint honest-to-fuck doesn’t know what might be going on there. They used to work together so closely, him and Nat and Coulson, that they were halfway to reading each others minds; Clint hopes like hell it hasn't carried over into the post-Loki world. Slowly, Clint finds a space in his head that's not a little corner of hell, a place that feels like life used to, because it doesn't matter what name Phil's going by, or how he got there, he’s sitting next to Clint and that's something Clint never thought he’d have again.
"This,” Phil’s saying, "is something new. A challenge."
He says it as though he’s braced for Clint’s pity, and that’s enough to kick Clint the rest of the way out of his backslide. This really fucking isn’t about him, and for everything he owes Phil, so much he'll never be able to repay, he can at least get this part right.
"I should have sat in on your seminar," he says, and if it’s not his most infuriating tone, he knows he’s found enough of the right attitude when he can feel Phil relaxing next to him. "Checked out your style so I could give the rest of them the dirt. You know they’re going to want all the details."
"The Romans liked javelins more than arrows; you'd have zoned out in two minutes," Phil says dryly. "That's hardly a fair assessment of my ability."
"You know how you used to give me that unimpressed look and tell me excuses were nothing but a waste of everyone's time?" Clint says. "Payback’s a bitch, man."
"Next month is the Welsh archers--Llewelyn ap Iowerth through to Agincourt. Definitely more your area," Phil says as he opens his door.
“Sounds like trying to stack the deck before an eval,” Clint says, following Phil’s lead and not needing any light to know he’s getting the long-suffering look to go along with the sigh. It’s an easy way to end the day, more of an even keel than they’ve been on since, well, before Loki took Clint and changed the world. Clint’s so relieved to be there it doesn't click that the part about the archers was an invitation until he's back at the Tower and Nat is rolling her eyes at him.