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Title: Brand New Day
Rating/Warning: PG
Wordcount: 8,900
Spoilers: None
Fandom: Avengers | Thor
Category: Clint/Coulson, Amnesia!Fic
Summary: Today is one thousand, six hundred and forty. Just get through it
Disclaimer: Written for entertainment purposes only. No money, no sue.
AO3
Phil Coulson's life has become that of routine.
He wakes up, pisses, brushes his teeth, has a shower and puts on his suit. He reads the paper, drinks his coffee too fast and has to put up with that burnt tongue feeling all the way through morning meetings.
Then he checks his email, shoots off replies to anyone that has panicked overnight about various things that obviously weren't that important because he wasn't actually called at two in the morning.
Before he leaves the house, he looks at himself in the mirror by the door and says, "Today is one thousand, six hundred and forty. Just get through it."
Considering the count is how long Clint Barton has been missing, presumed dead, a little voice always pipes up in the back of his brain, on an unassuming Thursday Phil isn't expecting to have this routine broken by finding Clint standing on his doorstep when he opens his door with his hand raised to knock.
"Jesus-" Phil starts as Clint says, "Hey, this is going to sound weird but..."
*
The last time Clint was sitting at his kitchen table, he'd been shoving Froot Loops into his mouth with his hand curled around his spoon in a fist like a kid. It was strange how Clint was so delicate and graceful in all other things but degenerated into barbarian child when presented with food.
Phil had said, "I'm never more reminded of the fact that you were raised by circus folk than when I watch your table manners."
Clint had rolled his eyes, offered a multi-colored toothy grin and had said, "Bitch please, we could'a been doing silver service every night for all you know. Don't try and stereotype my people."
Now he's pulling at his nails, head ducked down. His wasted, scarecrow arms are sticking out of the sleeves of his too-big t-shirt and when Phil approaches, he curls sideways, opposite hand stealing over to cradle his vulnerable ribs like he's expecting a blow.
It doesn't look like he even realizes he's done it.
Phil feels impotent rage, horrible and all-encompassing sweep through him. It surges up his throat and settles on his tongue with the taste of blood and bile.
After Clint's initial boldness of approaching the door, he seems to have run out. Clint's pulled into himself, offering nothing, looking all the world like a kicked dog.
Clint's hair is flat. It might seem an odd thing to notice but Clint had always been hilariously vain about it, his final check before leaving for a mission his hair and his bow with equal seriousness and reverence. He'd been not so secretly chuffed that it looked like he was going to have a full head of hair well into his later years. Just that small, obvious lack of care makes Phil's heart ache all the more.
Phil calls the office, retreating from Clint after he's set a mug down in front of him that Clint eyes with suspicion and definitely doesn't touch. Darcy answers his personal line with a "'Sup, boss," that Phil would usually grouse at her about because it's unprofessional, but right now it's nice to have a constant to cling to.
"I'm going to be late," Phil says. He often questions his own sanity in thinking Darcy would make a good PA for him, but at times like these when she hears whatever is in his tone that tells her not to ask questions and doesn't, he's grateful he took a leap of faith.
"I'm rescheduling as we speak," she says crisply and Phil feels his mouth tug sideways a little.
He knows he's going to have to take Clint in, knows there'll be debriefing and medical checks and probably isolation like Steve had to endure when he first miraculously appeared. Clint's aged, he hasn't been stuck somewhere frozen in time but to Phil he has, the perpetual, mouthy, infuriating total of him, suspended just as he was on that last day.
This shadow of Clint isn't the real thing he lost, not yet anyway.
*
Phil remembers that he had tried to resist Clint Barton at first.
It was ridiculous to think about it afterwards. He'd watched Clint work at something he wanted to achieve until he was bleeding, exhausted, way past when anyone else would have given up. He had a single minded focus when he was fixed on a target, it was daunting to behold. Phil should have known he didn't stand a chance considering the guy had held his own against people who were not exactly normal through practice, hard work and just plain wanting it.
When he decided he wanted Phil, it had been the same thing.
So, Phil resisted because he thought he should rather than because of any other reason. He wasn't made of stone however, despite what Stark tried to prove by taking blood samples. Clint was just the kind of guy he would've gone for on the outside but Clint was on the inside, part of a team Phil was tasked to babysit for lack of a better term. He needed to be able to make a tough call, send Clint directly into danger and he worried that if he knew how Clint sounded right before he came, he might just hesitate.
Clint hadn't cared about Phil's objections, had just steamrolled right over them like he did when anyone tried to tell him no. Phil had admired that quality in Clint initially, knew it was important to have someone on the team that went above and beyond what common sense should allow but he hadn't really thought about the affect it would have if it were aimed in his direction.
The first time Clint backed him up against a wall, Phil wasn't exactly surprised that it was happening, he was surprised that Clint had dodged all his reasons why not and had Phil panting into his mouth with seemingly no effort at all.
The phone rings, jolting Phil out of his reverie and making Clint flinch. The rapidly cooling coffee by his hand is still untouched and Phil is trying to wait Clint out, get him to talk first, see what he knows. There was no relief, no recognition on his face when he'd been standing at Phil's open door. He'd asked, look, I know this sounds crazy, but do you know me, chewing at his lower lip in a gesture so familiar Phil had almost felt it like physical pain.
He picks the phone up, sees Clint's watching him out of the corner of his eye, trying not to be obvious about it.
It's Fury, of course it's Fury.
"Darcy should have-"
"She thinks something's up," Fury interjects, impatience and a careful wariness in his tone. "She thinks you're being held hostage."
"We should probably work out a code for that," Phil remarks wryly and he hears Fury snort. The guy's mellowed over the last few years, loss softening his edges rather than hardening them.
"You should," Fury says. "You're going tell me what's going on." It's not a question.
"Can you trust that I will?" Phil asks. "Just... I will as soon as I can."
"Alright," Fury says after a pause. "Call with a sit rep in six hours, whatever the hell it is."
"I will," Phil promises. He clicks the phone off, looks up at the kitchen table. He's barely looked away but that was obviously enough time.
Clint's gone.
*
Phil panics for the two minutes it takes him to make a circuit of the house, check out the front and then check behind. He hasn't been out in his backyard since Clint disappeared, couldn't bear it and it's gone wild, grass almost hip-height and god knows what living in it.
Clint is standing in the middle with facing away from the house, looking at the large tree that overhangs the roof and that he's sure will topple over in a storm one day and destroy everything.
He can't bring himself to lop it down though because Clint had loved scaling it like a monkey, shooting at Phil with a Nerf bow and arrow Stark had given him while Phil mowed the lawn and hung their mingled washing.
Phil has a laundry service now.
"I thought you..." Phil doesn't finish the thought, can't bring himself to say disappeared again.
Clint turns his head enough that Phil can see his profile, dear and strange at the same time. "I don't really have anywhere to go, so," he says, a wry tilt to his lips.
"What do you remember?" Phil asks gently. Clint's got his hands held out to the sides, is drifting his palms over the heads of the tall grass.
"Not a lot," Clint says.
"Do you know your name?"
Clint turns around fully, movement halting like he's even forgotten how to be graceful. "I... no, no I don't."
"It's Clint Barton," Phil says and Clint's expression doesn't change. Instead he kind of huffs.
"Really? I felt more like an Andrew or something."
"No, you're... it's Clint," Phil repeats and Clint nods.
"Okay, I guess I can get used to it."
*
Phil coaxes Clint back inside, actually gets him to drink a glass of water after Clint watches him take the glass out of the cabinet and the water straight from the faucet. Clint's intent on Phil's hands, probably watching for Phil to slip him something. The paranoia is new, Phil had always worried that Clint was a little too trusting, but he has no idea what Clint's gone through and he's probably been left wary with good reason.
Clint takes a seat at the kitchen counter, perching on one of the bar stools that's wedged underneath instead of at the dining table again. He watches Phil put together two sandwiches, ingredients mixed together in bags, nothing he puts on the sandwich for himself that doesn't go on Clint's. Phil's eying Clint's skinny arms and wasted muscle when he slides the sandwich over on the plain dark blue plate that's part of the set Clint had bought after he'd used Phil's original dishes as clay pigeons.
Clint hesitates, before he picks up a neatly cut half and basically inhales it. Phil fights the smile that wants to break free watching Clint eat like he always did, a little too fast and messy. Phil takes a bite of his own sandwich, more to reassure Clint than because he's hungry. It doesn't taste like anything to him, hard to swallow like a lump of soggy cardboard but he does it because he'll spook Clint if he spits it out.
Clint's looking at the untouched other half of Phil's sandwich when he's done and Phil passes it over without comment, watches Clint nibble at a corner more slowly this time.
He's got six hours to figure out just what the hell is happening before Fury expects a call, will expect him to bring Clint in right after that.
"You're Agent Clint Barton, member of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division," Phil offers as an opening.
"That's a mouthful," Clint says and Phil does smile this time, can't help it.
"We're known as SHIELD." Clint nods. "What do you remember, if anything?"
"Just... weird stuff," Clint says, looking thoughtful. "Mundane stuff. I can tie my shoes, I can read, the lyrics to Freebird."
"How'd you find me?" Phil asks, one of the things that's been puzzling him about Clint turning up on his doorstep.
Clint slides off his stool, puts hands on the hem of his shirt and hesitates. Phil doesn't know what he's waiting for, but whatever he sees in Phil's face seems to satisfy him, because he grips the bottom of his shirt and tugs it up until it's bunched under his armpits. He turns a little until Phil can see the cut of ribs he was protecting before.
Phil feels his mouth unhinge, something low down and sharply unpleasant curling in his belly. Inscribed in the almost too delicate skin stretched over Clint's side is the address, crude like maybe the makeshift tattoo was done with the tip of a knife or a pin. It's faded, mostly healed but still evident.
"I don't know if I... or someone else..." Clint makes a helpless noise, lowers his shirt and hugs his arms around himself again. "I just figured it must have been important."
"Jesus," Phil breathes, just aches to gather up the bag of bones Clint has become and hold him, never let go.
*
Clint's swaying on his feet when Phil leads him back into the living room. Phil isn't sure how far Clint had to travel to get there and he hasn't been forthcoming about it, hesitant to trust even now. Phil herds him onto the couch they used to curl up on and watch television, Phil now preferring the recliner chair pushed off to the side of the room unless he has company.
Clint props his head on one hand, looks at Phil with his face smooshed sideways. It's such a bare look, nothing in it at all of the Clint that disappeared that Phil despairs for a moment. He feels like he's really never going to see his Clint again, a closer truth now than the entire five years he was gone.
"I know you," Clint says, but before Phil can properly enjoy the hope that swells at those words he adds, "I mean... I must... right?"
"You did," Phil says, wary to reveal the nature of their previous relationship, unwilling to unsettle Clint and knowing that kind of information probably will. Clint's sitting on the couch most likely thinking Phil is a colleague or maybe at the most a friend, someone to come to when he was desperate. The address he's scratched into himself tells Phil that maybe he was the last memory Clint clung to, but it doesn't tell Clint anything.
"I wish I could..." Clint curls his hands into fists, lets them relax slowly. "I get the feeling it's all right there, like that guy in hell that was immersed in water and dying of thirst at the same time."
"I've got... there are people we can see, that can explain more," Phil says and when Clint's gaze darts up and then away, skipping over windows and doors, looking for exits in a way Phil's seen him do hundreds if not thousands of times on missions, Phil holds his hands up. "Not yet, not if you don't want," he's quick to reassure.
"Can we just... I just want to stop moving. Just for a little while," Clint says. He sounds so painfully tired that again Phil has to fight the urge to gather him up, try to protect him from the world and retroactively the last five years.
"You look pretty done in," Phil agrees. "Think you could sleep here for a bit?" He gestures at the couch Clint's sitting on, doesn't want to try to put him in another room, somewhere that Clint might feel boxed in.
Clint looks pensive, chewing at his lip. "I think so, yeah," Clint finally says, hesitates a second before he slips sideways. Phil stands and Clint immediately tenses, makes to swing upright but Phil gives him his most reassuring smile, reaches for the blanket hooked over the back of the couch with careful, overly exaggerated movements. Clint lays back down, muscles still bunched for flight, watching as Phil drags the blanket over him.
"I'll be in the kitchen. Yell out of you need anything," Phil says.
*
Phil doesn't look in on Clint although the temptation is almost too much. He knows Clint would wake and from the way Clint had been unsteady on his feet, the dark smudges under his eyes, he needs the rest more than Phil needs the reassurance.
Phil wouldn't take it personally. Clint had taken three months when they'd first started sharing a bed to stop blinking awake like a cat whenever Phil had moved or made a noise. After that first three months though it'd almost taken Phil a marching band and a bucket of water to get Clint to rouse.
He hadn't begrudged Clint the time it took to actually get him moving when he'd finally grown comfortable enough. Phil had been secretly pleased that Clint had been able to crash that hard, exposing a vulnerable underbelly that Phil was pretty sure no one else had gotten to see.
Now he sits at the kitchen counter with his laptop open, trying to get some work done but reading the same sentence on the same report over and over again. He glares at the screen, attempting to will himself to concentrate but it's not working. Phil finally gives in, gets up and opens the fridge, hovers in front of it indecisively like he'd always griped at Clint for doing.
His phone, switched to vibrate, rattles across the counter and Phil snags it before it can jitter its way off. Fury's not due to check in with him for another three hours but Phil's sure it's him anyway, doesn't like what it means that Fury's calling him early.
"Are you shitting me?" Fury demands as soon as Phil answers.
He knows. Of course he knows.
"Sir-"
"Please tell me you do not have Agent Barton in your living room right at this moment."
"It appears the rumors about his death were greatly exagerrated," Phil says dryly.
"I would have trusted you of all people to report something like this," Fury growls, unimpressed.
"I was going to," Phil says, trying to be reasonable. "I needed a little time to assess the situation."
"Assess... Coulson, this isn't something you sit on your hands about."
"I thought you were going to trust me."
"I didn't know what we were talking about," Fury snaps.
"May I ask how you knew he was here?" Phil asks, curious.
"We switched the surveillance equipment in your home on," Fury says.
"There's surveillance equipment in my home?" Phil asks, frowning. "I do sweeps." Even as he says it, he knows how naive it actually is. SHIELD is surveilling him so of course the equipment, also provided by SHIELD... dammit.
"Agent Coulson," Fury says, sounding weary. "The circumstances surrounding Barton's disappearance were suspicious at best. We had to guard against the possibility that he'd gone rogue."
"So you bugged my house?"
"Given the nature of your relationship, even if you weren't complicit initially, we thought perhaps Barton might contact you."
"He was taken," Phil grits out, feeling sick. "Wait, is this why the S&R team was stood down so quickly after it happened? Did you think he just wandered off?"
"We thought he'd been compromised. There was some unusual chatter, a few rumors through back channels. We couldn't rule it out as a possibility. With Barton's history-"
"He has an exemplary record," Phil says slowly, gripping his phone so hard that his hand goes a little numb.
"His brother-"
"Has nothing to do with this, jesus," Phil says, tries to fight the urge to yell because he doesn't want to wake Clint. He hasn't felt so furious in a long time, didn't think he was able anymore as if Clint's disappearance had wiped the capability for strong emotion out of him.
"Phil," Fury says, tone more gentle than he's ever heard. "We still don't know where he's been all this time."
"He's been starved and beaten and probably terrified," Phil says.
"It could all be-"
"I swear if you finish that sentence-" Phil snarls, letting the threat hang in the air.
"You're not in a position to be objective. You'd be thinking the same thing if our positions were reversed. If he was taken by Hydra agents then there's no telling what they've done to him. He could be a ticking timebomb."
Phil hates Fury at that moment because he knows he's right. If any other agent had turned up after a lengthy disappearance, his first instinct would be suspicion. He would hustle that agent back into headquarters for debrief and lock down so fast the guy's feet wouldn't touch the floor.
"Just give me a little more time, get him to come in willingly."
"Coulson, I can't do that," Fury says.
"Just-"
"I've already dispatched a team. Wake him, tell him what's going on, tell him not to fight."
Phil hangs up, drops the phone onto the counter in disgust. When he looks up, Clint's in the kitchen doorway, looking painfully vulnerable. Clint's not ready for SHIELD headquarters, to be questioned and treated like a criminal.
Phil's not ready to allow Clint to go through that.
"We're going on a little road trip," Phil says.
*
Phil only takes the time to strip out of his suit, replace it with jeans and a sweatshirt. He fishes his go-bag from under the bed and then hesitates right before he leaves his bedrooom. He hunkers down, pulls the bottom drawer out on his dresser, stares at the neat jumble of Clint's things that he hadn't been able to part with.
Phil digs down into it, comes up with a Ramones t-shirt he'd seen Clint wear whenever he had a rare day off and a pair of jeans, also snags the hoodie that he'd tried to throw out dozens of times and that kept magically reappearing. He remembers the way Clint would poke his thumbs through the holes in the cuffs, chew on the string in the hood because he knew Phil had a thing about people having material in their mouths.
Phil tucks these into his go-bag and then collects Clint on his way to the door, who follows silent and meek and totally unlike Clint, his Clint who would be asking a million questions and demanding they stop for powerade and red vines before he was even out the door.
Phil pushes his front door open, feels thick dismay wash through him when he spots the unmarked black SUV already idling at the curb. He curses inwardly, of course Fury would have sent people before he'd called, knowing he would have to, that Phil couldn't give Clint up, not now, not like this.
Phil's dismay is short lived however when the driver's side door pushes open and a pair of purple boots appear, followed by the rest of Darcy. She's got her fists pressed to her sternum and tears in her eyes. She doesn't run and tackle Clint like she so obviously wants to though because she notices the way he flinches at her arrival.
Darcy's frighteningly observant, it was one of the main reasons Phil snatched her up when Jane's research took her in a direction Darcy couldn't follow.
Darcy visibly reigns herself in, pulls it together. Phil doesn't know how much she knows but it's obviously enough. "I'm Darcy," she says, only the slightest wobble in her voice. "We were...are friends."
Clint hesitates, Phil trying not to feel pleased when Clint shifts closer to him before stepping forward, holding out a hand. "Nice to meet you... again I guess," he says and Darcy offers him a strained smile, half amused, half sad at his formality.
"Darcy, what are you doing here?" Phil gathers his wits and gets over his shock enough to demand.
"Beating the goon squad to you, boss man," Darcy says. She sweeps a hand towards the waiting SUV. "Hop to, time's a'wastin' and all that."
"Darcy, that's a SHIELD car," Phil says. "They're tracked."
"It's Natasha's," Darcy says. "Tony disabled the tracker thingy ages ago."
"Natasha let you take her car?" Phil asks, surprised.
"Not without me, of course," Natasha says, popping up over the roof of the SUV. Natasha is wearing a plain black t-shirt and has her hair in a loose ponytail. Out of the SHIELD uniform Phil hardly recognizes her. She seems to think the same thing about him out of a suit if her raised eyebrow is any indication. "Clint, it's good to see you."
"Um, hi," Clint says, shrinking back into Phil's side a little more.
"Look, thanks for the vehicle. You guys should get out of here though before-"
"We're coming with you," Darcy says, the duh obvious in her voice. Phil just blinks at her and then at Natasha who looks inscrutable as always. "I should have taken the packing of the go-bag more seriously though when you told me to. I'm going to be wearing a Pussycat Dolls t-shirt tomorrow."
"You can't-"
"The latest season of Project Runway is finished," Natasha interrupts. "You know how I get when I have nothing to do and that happens."
"Look," Phil says, holding his hands out, trying to be firm. "I'm not sure when or even if we can come back. I need to give..." Phil looks sideways at Clint who's staring at his feet. "We need some time to figure stuff out."
Darcy walks up to Phil, careful to stay on the side furthest away from Clint because again, scarily observant, and claps a hand on his shoulder. "Like the song says, we are family," she says. "We go where you do." She leans closer and Phil instinctively meets her halfway. "We love him too. We missed him too."
"Let's go," Natasha barks. "We have a little bit of a head start but we're wasting it."
*
Darcy drives like she does everything, a little scattered but she gets the job done. She's alternating drinking a coffee the size of her head, eating a blueberry muffin about as impressive in its dimensions and carrying on a mostly one-sided but still spirited conversation with Natasha.
Phil watches all of this a little bemused, relegated to the back seat with Clint while Natasha rides shotgun. Natasha has been a little cool with him and he doesn't blame her. He'd been the one to pull away when the Avengers first fell apart after Clint's disappearance.
Natasha notices his scrutiny, meets his eyes in the rear vision mirror and gives him a shrug without actually moving a muscle.
It's impressive.
Something about Darcy's rambling is relaxing and Clint seems to feel it too, sliding further down into the seat and eventually letting his head rest against the window on his side, eyes drooping. Phil has an urge so strong just to lift a hand and rest it on Clint's knee that he's almost done it before he catches himself, redirects and makes it look like he was reaching for the bottle of water in the center console cupholder.
A few minutes later, Clint lets out a wounded noise and jerks upright, panting hard and wild-eyed. Phil shifts into his line of sight, can recognize when someone has let themselves go and woken without knowing where they are. "Hey, it's okay," he says, voice level and calming.
Clint darts out a hand and Phil thinks he's going to get punched but instead Clint's hand tangles in Phil's t-shirt, material stretched taught over his knuckles. Darcy pulls over and Phil pushes the door open as soon as they've stopped, tows Clint out with him and lets Clint lean over, hands braced on his knees and tugging air in like it's hurting.
Phil glances at Darcy and Natasha hovering over Clint's bent back. Darcy's biting her lip and even though Natash's face is carefully neutral as always, she's let Darcy take her hand and Phil can see she's squeezing back.
Clint calms eventually, dashes a forearm over his eyes and grimaces. "Sorry, I didn't... for a moment I didn't..." he huffs a frustrated laugh at himself.
"You didn't know where you were," Phil finishes for him gently and Clint nods.
"Hey look, a motel," Darcy says brightly, waving an arm like a showroom model at the rundown but still fairly decent looking place behind them.
"We should keep moving," Natasha says, narrowing her eyes at the road like a line of SHIELD vehicles is about to appear over the horizon at any moment.
"We've been driving all day, I'm beat," Darcy says and even though Phil's itching to keep moving too, Clint has curled into himself, still looking exhausted.
"Just for a few hours," he relents and Darcy claps, jogs back to the SUV to snag her bag. Natasha nods stiffly, heads towards the motel office to get them rooms, brings back just the one key for Phil and Clint. "We can get you your own-" he starts to offer but Clint looks at him, mute and nervous and Phil nods.
"Dibs on the first shower," Clint says when Phil's gotten his own bag and they're headed for their room. Phil just stares at him for a moment, before he huffs.
"Dibs, really?"
Clint half-shrugs, smiling for the first time, unrepentant.
Phil tries to swallow down the hope he's feeling because they have a long way to go.
*
Phil wakes when the sky is only just starting to lighten but the bed on the other side of the single room is empty, sheets tossed back. He checks the bathroom but it's empty as well. He tries not to panic, if Clint keeps on disappearing on him he's going to eventually have a heart attack.
He does a circuit of the motel, finally finds Clint in the vacant lot behind it, Darcy perched on a dangerously leaning fence and Natasha standing with her eyes shaded by her hand in the morning sunlight.
Clint's standing, side-on with his favorite bow in hand. As Phil watches, Clint picks off a series of soda cans propped on a burnt out car opposite with precise, economical motions. Phil gapes a little, always loved watching Clint in action, how he was built for it. Clint's having trouble, his muscles not what they were but the skill is definitely still present and he compensates for the lack of strength smoothly.
Clint catches Phil lurking out of the corner of his eye, turns with a grin that Phil's missed so much. "Not just the lyrics to Freebird," Clint says, sounding adorably pleased with himself.
*
When they're back on the road, the screen in the middle of the dashboard Phil had assumed was a GPS flickers to life and Tony Stark's disembodied head appears. "Good morning angels!" he chirps.
"Good morning Charlie," both Natasha and Darcy sing out together. When Phil just raises an eyebrow at them, Darcy huffs and says, "Wow, pop culture just passes you by, right?"
Phil unsnaps his seat belt so he can lean forward through the middle of the front seats. "Stark, is whatever you're doing right now secure?"
"Phil, Phil, Phil," Tony says with an eye roll. "I might have become persona non grata to your friends but I'm still me."
"They're not my friends at the moment," Phil says and Tony's mouth screws sideways, an expression Phil can't read properly.
"Anyway, get your strangely narrow head out of the way so I can see our boy, eh?" Tony says and Phil blinks for a moment before he sits back. Clint looks at him but after Phil nods, he edges forward himself. "Barton, goddamn," Tony says, grinning and shaking his head. "Listen, I'm coming to you guys."
"I thought you said the tracker was disabled," Phil says, poking Darcy in the side.
"Ow, hey!" she protests as Tony says, "For anyone who isn't me, yes."
"Look, I don't know if that's a good idea," Phil argues. "It's risky enough having Darcy and Natasha with us."
"I'm not joining your road trip as fun as that might be," Tony dismisses. "I'm going to get you guys out of Dodge."
"Stark, that's-" Phil tries again to protest but Tony holds up a hand.
"Anyone else in the car with a private jet, raise their hands." He waits for a beat, grins and says, "No? Really, that's a shocker. How about you guys pull over somewhere with food and I'll see you soon."
"We're getting the band back together," Darcy enthuses as Tony gives them a little salute and the screen goes black.
Phil sits back, puts a hand over his face, takes it away carefully again when he feels someone grip the fingers on his other one. Clint is looking at him, concerned. Phil risks squeezing his fingers in return, heartened by just that small amount of contact.
*
"An island. You own an island?" Darcy is repeating, looking astounded. Phil is glad she can vocalize the amazement that they're all feeling.
They've been in the air for three hours, Tony being evasive about where they were going until Darcy had managed to wheedle it out of him.
Bless her.
"A company, that owns another corporation, that has shares in a smaller shell company owns..." Tony huffs when Darcy kicks him in the shin, rolls his shoulders and lowers the sunglasses that he's wearing at night inside an aircraft because he's ridiculous. "Yes, if someone were to take the fifteen or so years to sort out the tangle of paperwork about it they would find that I do indeed own an island."
"How are you even real?" Darcy asks, eyes gleaming.
"How are you not evil?" Natasha doesn't look up from the tablet she's procured from somewhere to add.
"It's the facial hair, right? Gives off more of a super villain vibe?"
Phil retreats from the others, finds Clint curled up in one of the chairs furthest from the group. He's got a blanket over his legs and the hoodie Phil had packed for him on, thumbs pushed through the sleeve holes like he always had. He looks rumpled, worn but safe for the first time in longer than Phil would like.
Clint smiles to see him, drops his legs off the seat opposite so Phil can slide into it. He's watching Phil with the calculating look he always got when he was about to do something Phil didn't like, something reckless. "So," he says. "Tell me about us."
"What do you want to know?" Phil asks, hoping Clint doesn't hear the hesitation in his voice. Clint cocks his head, looks at Phil in a c'mon, be serious way. "I was...your handler," Phil settles on and Clint snorts, sits back throwing his hands up.
"I might not remember much of my life but I get the very strong feeling that it's more than that," he says. "You've basically chucked in your career for me, because they wanted to take me in."
"They would've dumped you in a hole till they could figure out what happened to you, if they ever did."
"I know," Clint says, leans forward to lay a hand on Phil's knee like Phil had wanted to do back in the car. "You could've let them."
"No, I really couldn't have," Phil says.
*
"Of course your island has an airfield," Natasha says with a roll of her eyes. Tony merely shrugs, leading the way off the jet. There's an honest to god staff waiting for them and even though it makes Phil nervous, Tony just says, "Look, I pay enough for people to be discreet."
"Do you have a lair shaped like a skull, too?" Natasha asks dryly and Tony smirks at her.
"That would be much too cliche. It's shaped like my enormous-"
"Oh my god," Phil groans, Clint sticking close to him, brushing their shoulders together that makes warmth curl in the pit of Phil's stomach. "Can you just not be... you for two seconds?"
"Thank you Tony for taking me and my wayward amnesiac boyfriend to your island paradise to lay low," Tony says pointedly, waving an airy hand. Clint catches Phil's sleeve when the others are piling into a couple of golf carts, tugs him back a few steps.
"Handler, huh?" Clint says. It takes Phil a moment for it to really register what Tony had said.
"Um, oh, you mean the boyfriend thing-"
Clint uses the sleeve he's still holding to tug Phil forward, into his space. He's smiling and Phil groans, helpless not to. "You're... there's something about you that I..." Clint's so close that the warmth of his words dusts across Phil's cheeks. Phil holds very still, not wanting to break the moment. "There's something about you I remember," he finally says.
"Kids!" Tony calls and they shuffle apart, both chuckling at themselves. "I need a piss, a wifi connection and a wet bar. Move it or lose it."
*
They're given the option of separate rooms but for once Tony lets the opportunity for an uncomfortable comment pass him by as Clint trails Phil silently into his allocated one. There's only one bed instead of two unlike the motel but there's a large leather couch that's almost as deep as it's long so Phil figures he can take that.
He can take a lot to keep Clint feeling safe.
Clint's playing with the frayed cuffs of his hoodie as Phil puts the few belongings they have in their proper places, checks and is relieved to find the bathroom fully stocked with toiletries even though they look ridiculously expensive.
"This is mine, right?" Clint says when Phil reemerges after taking the time to splash some water on his face and brush his teeth. His tongue had felt like something was growing on it. Clint holds his sleeves out, as if Phil might not understand what he's referring to. "This was in your house but it's mine."
"I tried to throw that thing out, I lost count of how many times," Phil says with a fond smile. "I even bought you the exact same one new, took a lot of hunting around on Amazon to find it but you weren't interested."
"The address," Clint says, ghosts a hand over his side, the one with the inscription. "It wasn't just your home... it was mine too."
"Yes," Phil confirms. "Before you were living on the residential floor of SHIELD and I had an apartment in the city. We wanted something that was ours and you'd never..."
"I'd never had a house," Clint murmurs.
"We were talking about getting a dog before you.... before."
Clint drops onto the corner of the bed, head in his hands. He rubs over the top with his palms, a quick frustrated gesture. "It's all so close, I can practically feel it," Clint says.
"We have time," Phil tries to reassure him, puts his own hand to Clint's head, scratches through the messy short hairs when he doesn't shy away. "We've got nothing but time."
*
"So your idea of a go-bag is a pussycat dolls t-shirt and a swimsuit?" Phil asks, finding Darcy out by the kidney shaped pool that's behind Tony's idea of a little getaway cabin and looks more like a five star resort. Phil only left their room when Clint had crashed again, possibly catching up on five year's worth of sleep debt.
Darcy pushes her sunglasses up onto the top of her head and squints at Phil. "No, but this place has a gift shop. Insane, right?"
"I'll be surprised if it doesn't have a red light district," Phil says, lowering down into the lounger beside Darcy's with a grateful groan he wouldn't have let out as a younger man.
Darcy sits up so she's facing him, crosses one pale leg over the other. "How are you doing boss man?"
"I think since we're in hiding on an island owned by an eccentric billionaire and we're probably both fired, you can start calling me Phil."
"Meh, that would be weird," Darcy says, pulling a face.
"That's where you draw the line?" Phil asks, amused despite himself.
Tony appears, grinning and obviously brimming with news. He pauses to ogle Darcy for a second before his brain seems to come back online. "Oh hey, I found Steve," he says, bouncing like a kid.
"I draw the line at involving Captain Rogers," Phil snaps sharply. He already feels pretty much like the world's biggest asshole to have dragged Darcy and Natasha into his problems without muddying the only person to have escaped from the shit storm that was five years ago relatively unscathed.
"Boohoo for you, he insisted," Tony says with a dismissive wave of his hand.
"He wouldn't have been in a position to insist if you hadn't tracked him down," Phil grits, furious. He's been running on fumes and adrenalin for a few days now, needs a punching bag and Tony seems to be volunteering.
"It wrecked him, what happened," Tony says, his own good humor vanishing in an instant. "I know you were too involved in your own private hell to really understand that other people were affected-"
Phil punches him. He regrets doing it almost immediately when it doesn't feel as good as he'd always imagined. Darcy makes an abortive sound of dismay but Tony just seems to shake it off, smirks with bloodied teeth. "You get one for free considering the circumstances," he says.
"I'm sorry, I-"
"No, really. That one's on the house, no harm, no foul. Try it again though and we'll have a proper conversation."
"You just... you shouldn't have contacted him."
"I know you tried to hog all the blame yourself when it all went down," Tony says. "But he was taken right out from under our noses, not yours. We were too busy patting ourselves on the back after that goddamn..." Tony swallows, grimaces and Phil's discomfited to see Tony's bravado break, even if only for a moment. "It was all just a distraction. Steve was with him right before, don't you think that eats him up inside? He kept wondering if there was something he could've done different... if he'd maybe seen something-"
"That's ridiculous," Phil says.
"I know that, you know that but he doesn't."
*
They're waiting for Stark's jet on the airstrip when Natasha appears next to him. Phil glances around, sees Clint is occupied with Darcy a few feet back and leans into Natasha, says, "You had his bow in your van."
Natasha makes a small noise of confirmation but doesn't offer anything more.
"What I'm saying is, you didn't go and get it, there wasn't time for that. No, you already had it in your van."
Natasha glances at him out of the corner of her eye, says, "I'm getting the feeling you want me to say something specific here."
"I was angry at you for a long time," Phil admits and Natasha doesn't look surprised, just inclines her head slightly. She never really gives anything away but Phil often forgets that she's perfectly capable or reading other people. "You and Clint were close and I know it was unfair but I was relying on you to be as stubborn as I was about his disappearance, as miserable." Phil takes a beat, watches the distant speck in the sky resolve itself into Tony's jet. "You gave up."
"I knew he was dead," Natasha says flatly.
"But you had his bow in your van. I'm thinking that I've been really wrong here."
"No, you were right," Natasha says. "I knew he was dead. When Stark modified my SUV I had a compartment for the bow installed, but it wasn't because I had some crazy idea that Clint was still kicking around somewhere." Natasha's jaw tightens and Phil realizes belatedly that she's been angry at him, probably this whole time. "You wouldn't let us bury him."
"With good reason it turns out," Phil snaps, can't really help himself but he winces and says, "No, sorry, I'm... sorry." He's tired of being mad, he doesn't have any need to be anymore.
"How is he?" Natasha asks.
"A lot better than I was expecting," Phil says, grateful for Natasha's willingness to let his little outburst pass without comment.
"Really?" Natasha asks and Phil looks at her, tries to read what she's not saying on her face but it's like trying to grip an ice shelf.
"You don't sound convinced."
Natasha sighs, tucks a curl of hair behind her ear. "Clint's always been a chameleon, he's always been good at showing people what they're expecting to see."
Phil frowns, wants to say no, you're wrong, he's doing fine but when he risks a glance back at Clint and Darcy again, looking for it this time, he sees it, knows Natasha's right. Clint's smiling at Darcy as she chatters at him, but every time she looks away from his face the smile drops revealing another expression underneath, that of a kid lost in a crowd, abandoned by his parents, surrounded by strangers.
"I'm starting to think-" The rest of Natasha's words are lost as the jet lands, sound overwhelming everything else. Tony appears as if by magic, barely waits for the jet to taxi to stop before he's bounding forward. The door on the side pushes open and Steve appears out of the shadow of the cabin, looking as illogically handsome as always.
Phil watches Steve's face break into a grin when he spots Tony, lets the smaller man sweep him up in a hug that lifts him off his feet for a moment. It would look ridiculous if the affection wasn't so genuine. Phil feels his heart squeeze at the sight, hates that he let this happen, let everything fall apart on his watch.
There's a startled yelp from behind them and Phil turns to see Darcy hit the ground and Clint charge forward, blank faced and vacant eyed. It takes a few precious seconds for Phil to realize what he's seeing and by that time Clint's past him. Tony's just stepped away from Steve and Clint barrels into him and rides him to the ground, Steve taken by rare surprise.
A knife appears in Clint's hands and it's only Steve's reflexes that save him, means he gets the blade buried in the meat of his forearm and not his neck. Clint makes to yank the knife free, probably to have another try but Steve tucks in and rolls them, ends up with Clint pinned beneath him, thrashing and making a wounded noise that has the hair standing up on the back of Phil's neck.
Natasha reaches them first, even though Tony was closer and there's a flash of metal before Clint goes limp. Fear crawls up Phil's spine, relief replacing it when he sees Natasha tossing the single-use SHIELD issue tranq pen aside so she can ease Steve gently off Clint's prone form and look at the damage to his arm.
Phil's first instinct is to run to Clint but instead he turns, crosses to Darcy and helps to put her back on her feet. She's looking shocked and pale but otherwise unhurt. She grips Phil's hands before he can leave her, says, "It wasn't him. It just wasn't him."
*
"He doesn't remember it," Natasha says, dropping into the seat next to Phil. He shouldn't have been surprised to hear JARVIS' no-nonsense voice in this place, it certainly made monitoring Clint easier. They would be alerted the minute he moved from the room he was put in. "He remembers talking to Darcy, seeing Steve on the top of the jet's stairs and then nothing."
Phil's grateful that Natasha was the one to be there when Clint came to. Phil keeps hearing over and over in his head you're not objective in Fury's judgmental voice and feels sick.
"That's worse then him consciously attacking me, right?" Steve says, looking stricken. He's got bandaging over his forearm, they all know he'll heal in a matter of days but that isn't the point.
"I hate to be the one to say it-" Tony starts.
"Then don't," Phil interrupts, rubbing a hand over his forehead, the feeling of helplessness palpable.
"We should call them, call Fury," Steve says, reasonable.
"I can't..."
"Coulson, he needs medication, he needs therapy, he needs deprogramming," Tony says. "Who knows what other cute little directives are nestled in that scrambled brain of his."
"It was just the stress," Phil insists even though he knows that isn't it. The horrible thing is, he's seen this before, they all have.
Jessica Fellows was a cute little lab assistant with a security clearance so low it barely got her into the SHIELD offices. She'd come back to work after a month's holiday and she'd seemed fine, if a little quiet.
She'd killed four agents, four seasoned agents because no one had wanted to put a bullet in the woman who baked cupcakes for people's birthdays.
Phil himself had done it, two in the chest, quick and efficient.
"I'm thinking Hydra," Natasha says. "Fellows was probably a dry run for them, to see if they could do it."
"Fellows was only gone a month. Clint was gone five years," Phil points out.
"Hydra's patient and I can imagine Clint was a little harder to break than poor Fellows." Tony says, winces a little. "It's also probably harder to train someone for a specific target instead of just going berserk."
"She knew who she was." Phil doesn't know why he's still arguing, denial coating his tongue with a bitter taste.
"We don't know what they did to him, maybe the amnesia was his brain's last ditch effort to protect us from himself."
"They'll disappear him," Phil says.
"I have the resources and have spent the time cultivating the political connections-" at Phil's dubious look, Tony corrects himself, "Pepper's spent the time cultivating the political connections to make sure they can't do that."
"I don't want to give up on him," Phil says. He feels a small hand settle on his shoulder, looks up to see Darcy with a blanket hugged around her shoulders and a sad smile on her face. He puts his own hand over hers, squeezes, knows they were very lucky she wasn't badly hurt.
Clint never would have forgiven himself if she had been.
"Okay, make the call."
Epilogue
Fourteen months later, they're back on Tony's island, but under much better circumstances. Tony had grumbled about it, muttering something about how people find out you have one little island and suddenly they're always wanting to go.
Phil watches Clint horsing around by the pool with Darcy and Jane. Clint's put back on most of the weight he lost, still not quite fighting fit but he's getting there. Phil's gaze catches on the tattoo that curls over Clint's side, mostly hiding the scarring. It's a house, stretching upwards and stylized.
"It is good that we can relax amongst friends but your attire is far too formal," Thor says, from behind Phil before clapping him on the shoulder. Phil winces, Thor still doesn't really know his own strength sometimes.
Phil's happy that Jane and Thor could make it this time, but relieved that they hadn't exposed Clint to Thor until Clint had become more comfortable with people in his space. Thor had picked Clint up like a toy when they were reunited, squeezed him to within an inch of his life and gotten quite emotional about it all. Jane had tucked a hand into Thor's elbow when he'd finally set Clint back on his feet, patted his arm and had given Clint an apologetic but relieved grin.
"I came from work," Phil says. He'd only landed about twenty minutes ago, hadn't been able to take the time off the others had so was flying out on the weekends. He doesn't begrudge anyone else this time with Clint, he needs to reconnect with everyone and while Phil wants to be selfish, he refrains.
Thor's quiet for a beat, then his hand returns to Phil's shoulder, much more gently. "Your bond will grow strong again with time," Thor says. Phil glances at him, is touched to see the concern marring Thor's usually jovial features.
Clint's memories have started trickling back, but it's slow going. Phil is wary, conscious of Natasha's words, mindful that Clint may feel compelled to play a part, be the person they're all expecting him to be far too early. Phil's not pushing, wants Clint to come back to him in his own time, on his own terms.
He has to have faith that it'll happen.
"Remove the shackles of your office and come join us," Thor says, tugging at Phil's tie and he smiles, is helpless not to in the face of Thor's returned exuberance.
"In a minute," he promises.
Thor nods before he darts through the glass doors leading out onto the pool deck to join the others. He's in time to rescue Darcy as she's dangled over the water by Clint, squealing. Phil watches Jane sneak up behind Thor when he's distracted by his efforts to pluck Darcy out of Clint's hold and catches him off guard, her push sending both Thor and Darcy into the pool.
Phil laughs when Jane bombs in after them, almost on Thor's head.
Phil sees the moment Clint realizes he's being watched, he always had a knack for knowing. He turns, shields his eyes with a hand and spots Phil hovering. His grin turns bashful and sweet as he ducks his face.
Phil finds Clint to be softer now, still quick to laugh but also more somber. He fell in love with the reckless jackass with a surprisingly gentle side but he isn't exactly unhappy with the quieter, more reserved version of Clint.
Clint raises a hand, waggles his fingers. Phil puts his hand up in return, passes through the doors as he tugs his tie free and meets the future he thought he'd lost.
Rating/Warning: PG
Wordcount: 8,900
Spoilers: None
Fandom: Avengers | Thor
Category: Clint/Coulson, Amnesia!Fic
Summary: Today is one thousand, six hundred and forty. Just get through it
Disclaimer: Written for entertainment purposes only. No money, no sue.
AO3
Phil Coulson's life has become that of routine.
He wakes up, pisses, brushes his teeth, has a shower and puts on his suit. He reads the paper, drinks his coffee too fast and has to put up with that burnt tongue feeling all the way through morning meetings.
Then he checks his email, shoots off replies to anyone that has panicked overnight about various things that obviously weren't that important because he wasn't actually called at two in the morning.
Before he leaves the house, he looks at himself in the mirror by the door and says, "Today is one thousand, six hundred and forty. Just get through it."
Considering the count is how long Clint Barton has been missing, presumed dead, a little voice always pipes up in the back of his brain, on an unassuming Thursday Phil isn't expecting to have this routine broken by finding Clint standing on his doorstep when he opens his door with his hand raised to knock.
"Jesus-" Phil starts as Clint says, "Hey, this is going to sound weird but..."
The last time Clint was sitting at his kitchen table, he'd been shoving Froot Loops into his mouth with his hand curled around his spoon in a fist like a kid. It was strange how Clint was so delicate and graceful in all other things but degenerated into barbarian child when presented with food.
Phil had said, "I'm never more reminded of the fact that you were raised by circus folk than when I watch your table manners."
Clint had rolled his eyes, offered a multi-colored toothy grin and had said, "Bitch please, we could'a been doing silver service every night for all you know. Don't try and stereotype my people."
Now he's pulling at his nails, head ducked down. His wasted, scarecrow arms are sticking out of the sleeves of his too-big t-shirt and when Phil approaches, he curls sideways, opposite hand stealing over to cradle his vulnerable ribs like he's expecting a blow.
It doesn't look like he even realizes he's done it.
Phil feels impotent rage, horrible and all-encompassing sweep through him. It surges up his throat and settles on his tongue with the taste of blood and bile.
After Clint's initial boldness of approaching the door, he seems to have run out. Clint's pulled into himself, offering nothing, looking all the world like a kicked dog.
Clint's hair is flat. It might seem an odd thing to notice but Clint had always been hilariously vain about it, his final check before leaving for a mission his hair and his bow with equal seriousness and reverence. He'd been not so secretly chuffed that it looked like he was going to have a full head of hair well into his later years. Just that small, obvious lack of care makes Phil's heart ache all the more.
Phil calls the office, retreating from Clint after he's set a mug down in front of him that Clint eyes with suspicion and definitely doesn't touch. Darcy answers his personal line with a "'Sup, boss," that Phil would usually grouse at her about because it's unprofessional, but right now it's nice to have a constant to cling to.
"I'm going to be late," Phil says. He often questions his own sanity in thinking Darcy would make a good PA for him, but at times like these when she hears whatever is in his tone that tells her not to ask questions and doesn't, he's grateful he took a leap of faith.
"I'm rescheduling as we speak," she says crisply and Phil feels his mouth tug sideways a little.
He knows he's going to have to take Clint in, knows there'll be debriefing and medical checks and probably isolation like Steve had to endure when he first miraculously appeared. Clint's aged, he hasn't been stuck somewhere frozen in time but to Phil he has, the perpetual, mouthy, infuriating total of him, suspended just as he was on that last day.
This shadow of Clint isn't the real thing he lost, not yet anyway.
Phil remembers that he had tried to resist Clint Barton at first.
It was ridiculous to think about it afterwards. He'd watched Clint work at something he wanted to achieve until he was bleeding, exhausted, way past when anyone else would have given up. He had a single minded focus when he was fixed on a target, it was daunting to behold. Phil should have known he didn't stand a chance considering the guy had held his own against people who were not exactly normal through practice, hard work and just plain wanting it.
When he decided he wanted Phil, it had been the same thing.
So, Phil resisted because he thought he should rather than because of any other reason. He wasn't made of stone however, despite what Stark tried to prove by taking blood samples. Clint was just the kind of guy he would've gone for on the outside but Clint was on the inside, part of a team Phil was tasked to babysit for lack of a better term. He needed to be able to make a tough call, send Clint directly into danger and he worried that if he knew how Clint sounded right before he came, he might just hesitate.
Clint hadn't cared about Phil's objections, had just steamrolled right over them like he did when anyone tried to tell him no. Phil had admired that quality in Clint initially, knew it was important to have someone on the team that went above and beyond what common sense should allow but he hadn't really thought about the affect it would have if it were aimed in his direction.
The first time Clint backed him up against a wall, Phil wasn't exactly surprised that it was happening, he was surprised that Clint had dodged all his reasons why not and had Phil panting into his mouth with seemingly no effort at all.
The phone rings, jolting Phil out of his reverie and making Clint flinch. The rapidly cooling coffee by his hand is still untouched and Phil is trying to wait Clint out, get him to talk first, see what he knows. There was no relief, no recognition on his face when he'd been standing at Phil's open door. He'd asked, look, I know this sounds crazy, but do you know me, chewing at his lower lip in a gesture so familiar Phil had almost felt it like physical pain.
He picks the phone up, sees Clint's watching him out of the corner of his eye, trying not to be obvious about it.
It's Fury, of course it's Fury.
"Darcy should have-"
"She thinks something's up," Fury interjects, impatience and a careful wariness in his tone. "She thinks you're being held hostage."
"We should probably work out a code for that," Phil remarks wryly and he hears Fury snort. The guy's mellowed over the last few years, loss softening his edges rather than hardening them.
"You should," Fury says. "You're going tell me what's going on." It's not a question.
"Can you trust that I will?" Phil asks. "Just... I will as soon as I can."
"Alright," Fury says after a pause. "Call with a sit rep in six hours, whatever the hell it is."
"I will," Phil promises. He clicks the phone off, looks up at the kitchen table. He's barely looked away but that was obviously enough time.
Clint's gone.
Phil panics for the two minutes it takes him to make a circuit of the house, check out the front and then check behind. He hasn't been out in his backyard since Clint disappeared, couldn't bear it and it's gone wild, grass almost hip-height and god knows what living in it.
Clint is standing in the middle with facing away from the house, looking at the large tree that overhangs the roof and that he's sure will topple over in a storm one day and destroy everything.
He can't bring himself to lop it down though because Clint had loved scaling it like a monkey, shooting at Phil with a Nerf bow and arrow Stark had given him while Phil mowed the lawn and hung their mingled washing.
Phil has a laundry service now.
"I thought you..." Phil doesn't finish the thought, can't bring himself to say disappeared again.
Clint turns his head enough that Phil can see his profile, dear and strange at the same time. "I don't really have anywhere to go, so," he says, a wry tilt to his lips.
"What do you remember?" Phil asks gently. Clint's got his hands held out to the sides, is drifting his palms over the heads of the tall grass.
"Not a lot," Clint says.
"Do you know your name?"
Clint turns around fully, movement halting like he's even forgotten how to be graceful. "I... no, no I don't."
"It's Clint Barton," Phil says and Clint's expression doesn't change. Instead he kind of huffs.
"Really? I felt more like an Andrew or something."
"No, you're... it's Clint," Phil repeats and Clint nods.
"Okay, I guess I can get used to it."
Phil coaxes Clint back inside, actually gets him to drink a glass of water after Clint watches him take the glass out of the cabinet and the water straight from the faucet. Clint's intent on Phil's hands, probably watching for Phil to slip him something. The paranoia is new, Phil had always worried that Clint was a little too trusting, but he has no idea what Clint's gone through and he's probably been left wary with good reason.
Clint takes a seat at the kitchen counter, perching on one of the bar stools that's wedged underneath instead of at the dining table again. He watches Phil put together two sandwiches, ingredients mixed together in bags, nothing he puts on the sandwich for himself that doesn't go on Clint's. Phil's eying Clint's skinny arms and wasted muscle when he slides the sandwich over on the plain dark blue plate that's part of the set Clint had bought after he'd used Phil's original dishes as clay pigeons.
Clint hesitates, before he picks up a neatly cut half and basically inhales it. Phil fights the smile that wants to break free watching Clint eat like he always did, a little too fast and messy. Phil takes a bite of his own sandwich, more to reassure Clint than because he's hungry. It doesn't taste like anything to him, hard to swallow like a lump of soggy cardboard but he does it because he'll spook Clint if he spits it out.
Clint's looking at the untouched other half of Phil's sandwich when he's done and Phil passes it over without comment, watches Clint nibble at a corner more slowly this time.
He's got six hours to figure out just what the hell is happening before Fury expects a call, will expect him to bring Clint in right after that.
"You're Agent Clint Barton, member of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division," Phil offers as an opening.
"That's a mouthful," Clint says and Phil does smile this time, can't help it.
"We're known as SHIELD." Clint nods. "What do you remember, if anything?"
"Just... weird stuff," Clint says, looking thoughtful. "Mundane stuff. I can tie my shoes, I can read, the lyrics to Freebird."
"How'd you find me?" Phil asks, one of the things that's been puzzling him about Clint turning up on his doorstep.
Clint slides off his stool, puts hands on the hem of his shirt and hesitates. Phil doesn't know what he's waiting for, but whatever he sees in Phil's face seems to satisfy him, because he grips the bottom of his shirt and tugs it up until it's bunched under his armpits. He turns a little until Phil can see the cut of ribs he was protecting before.
Phil feels his mouth unhinge, something low down and sharply unpleasant curling in his belly. Inscribed in the almost too delicate skin stretched over Clint's side is the address, crude like maybe the makeshift tattoo was done with the tip of a knife or a pin. It's faded, mostly healed but still evident.
"I don't know if I... or someone else..." Clint makes a helpless noise, lowers his shirt and hugs his arms around himself again. "I just figured it must have been important."
"Jesus," Phil breathes, just aches to gather up the bag of bones Clint has become and hold him, never let go.
Clint's swaying on his feet when Phil leads him back into the living room. Phil isn't sure how far Clint had to travel to get there and he hasn't been forthcoming about it, hesitant to trust even now. Phil herds him onto the couch they used to curl up on and watch television, Phil now preferring the recliner chair pushed off to the side of the room unless he has company.
Clint props his head on one hand, looks at Phil with his face smooshed sideways. It's such a bare look, nothing in it at all of the Clint that disappeared that Phil despairs for a moment. He feels like he's really never going to see his Clint again, a closer truth now than the entire five years he was gone.
"I know you," Clint says, but before Phil can properly enjoy the hope that swells at those words he adds, "I mean... I must... right?"
"You did," Phil says, wary to reveal the nature of their previous relationship, unwilling to unsettle Clint and knowing that kind of information probably will. Clint's sitting on the couch most likely thinking Phil is a colleague or maybe at the most a friend, someone to come to when he was desperate. The address he's scratched into himself tells Phil that maybe he was the last memory Clint clung to, but it doesn't tell Clint anything.
"I wish I could..." Clint curls his hands into fists, lets them relax slowly. "I get the feeling it's all right there, like that guy in hell that was immersed in water and dying of thirst at the same time."
"I've got... there are people we can see, that can explain more," Phil says and when Clint's gaze darts up and then away, skipping over windows and doors, looking for exits in a way Phil's seen him do hundreds if not thousands of times on missions, Phil holds his hands up. "Not yet, not if you don't want," he's quick to reassure.
"Can we just... I just want to stop moving. Just for a little while," Clint says. He sounds so painfully tired that again Phil has to fight the urge to gather him up, try to protect him from the world and retroactively the last five years.
"You look pretty done in," Phil agrees. "Think you could sleep here for a bit?" He gestures at the couch Clint's sitting on, doesn't want to try to put him in another room, somewhere that Clint might feel boxed in.
Clint looks pensive, chewing at his lip. "I think so, yeah," Clint finally says, hesitates a second before he slips sideways. Phil stands and Clint immediately tenses, makes to swing upright but Phil gives him his most reassuring smile, reaches for the blanket hooked over the back of the couch with careful, overly exaggerated movements. Clint lays back down, muscles still bunched for flight, watching as Phil drags the blanket over him.
"I'll be in the kitchen. Yell out of you need anything," Phil says.
Phil doesn't look in on Clint although the temptation is almost too much. He knows Clint would wake and from the way Clint had been unsteady on his feet, the dark smudges under his eyes, he needs the rest more than Phil needs the reassurance.
Phil wouldn't take it personally. Clint had taken three months when they'd first started sharing a bed to stop blinking awake like a cat whenever Phil had moved or made a noise. After that first three months though it'd almost taken Phil a marching band and a bucket of water to get Clint to rouse.
He hadn't begrudged Clint the time it took to actually get him moving when he'd finally grown comfortable enough. Phil had been secretly pleased that Clint had been able to crash that hard, exposing a vulnerable underbelly that Phil was pretty sure no one else had gotten to see.
Now he sits at the kitchen counter with his laptop open, trying to get some work done but reading the same sentence on the same report over and over again. He glares at the screen, attempting to will himself to concentrate but it's not working. Phil finally gives in, gets up and opens the fridge, hovers in front of it indecisively like he'd always griped at Clint for doing.
His phone, switched to vibrate, rattles across the counter and Phil snags it before it can jitter its way off. Fury's not due to check in with him for another three hours but Phil's sure it's him anyway, doesn't like what it means that Fury's calling him early.
"Are you shitting me?" Fury demands as soon as Phil answers.
He knows. Of course he knows.
"Sir-"
"Please tell me you do not have Agent Barton in your living room right at this moment."
"It appears the rumors about his death were greatly exagerrated," Phil says dryly.
"I would have trusted you of all people to report something like this," Fury growls, unimpressed.
"I was going to," Phil says, trying to be reasonable. "I needed a little time to assess the situation."
"Assess... Coulson, this isn't something you sit on your hands about."
"I thought you were going to trust me."
"I didn't know what we were talking about," Fury snaps.
"May I ask how you knew he was here?" Phil asks, curious.
"We switched the surveillance equipment in your home on," Fury says.
"There's surveillance equipment in my home?" Phil asks, frowning. "I do sweeps." Even as he says it, he knows how naive it actually is. SHIELD is surveilling him so of course the equipment, also provided by SHIELD... dammit.
"Agent Coulson," Fury says, sounding weary. "The circumstances surrounding Barton's disappearance were suspicious at best. We had to guard against the possibility that he'd gone rogue."
"So you bugged my house?"
"Given the nature of your relationship, even if you weren't complicit initially, we thought perhaps Barton might contact you."
"He was taken," Phil grits out, feeling sick. "Wait, is this why the S&R team was stood down so quickly after it happened? Did you think he just wandered off?"
"We thought he'd been compromised. There was some unusual chatter, a few rumors through back channels. We couldn't rule it out as a possibility. With Barton's history-"
"He has an exemplary record," Phil says slowly, gripping his phone so hard that his hand goes a little numb.
"His brother-"
"Has nothing to do with this, jesus," Phil says, tries to fight the urge to yell because he doesn't want to wake Clint. He hasn't felt so furious in a long time, didn't think he was able anymore as if Clint's disappearance had wiped the capability for strong emotion out of him.
"Phil," Fury says, tone more gentle than he's ever heard. "We still don't know where he's been all this time."
"He's been starved and beaten and probably terrified," Phil says.
"It could all be-"
"I swear if you finish that sentence-" Phil snarls, letting the threat hang in the air.
"You're not in a position to be objective. You'd be thinking the same thing if our positions were reversed. If he was taken by Hydra agents then there's no telling what they've done to him. He could be a ticking timebomb."
Phil hates Fury at that moment because he knows he's right. If any other agent had turned up after a lengthy disappearance, his first instinct would be suspicion. He would hustle that agent back into headquarters for debrief and lock down so fast the guy's feet wouldn't touch the floor.
"Just give me a little more time, get him to come in willingly."
"Coulson, I can't do that," Fury says.
"Just-"
"I've already dispatched a team. Wake him, tell him what's going on, tell him not to fight."
Phil hangs up, drops the phone onto the counter in disgust. When he looks up, Clint's in the kitchen doorway, looking painfully vulnerable. Clint's not ready for SHIELD headquarters, to be questioned and treated like a criminal.
Phil's not ready to allow Clint to go through that.
"We're going on a little road trip," Phil says.
Phil only takes the time to strip out of his suit, replace it with jeans and a sweatshirt. He fishes his go-bag from under the bed and then hesitates right before he leaves his bedrooom. He hunkers down, pulls the bottom drawer out on his dresser, stares at the neat jumble of Clint's things that he hadn't been able to part with.
Phil digs down into it, comes up with a Ramones t-shirt he'd seen Clint wear whenever he had a rare day off and a pair of jeans, also snags the hoodie that he'd tried to throw out dozens of times and that kept magically reappearing. He remembers the way Clint would poke his thumbs through the holes in the cuffs, chew on the string in the hood because he knew Phil had a thing about people having material in their mouths.
Phil tucks these into his go-bag and then collects Clint on his way to the door, who follows silent and meek and totally unlike Clint, his Clint who would be asking a million questions and demanding they stop for powerade and red vines before he was even out the door.
Phil pushes his front door open, feels thick dismay wash through him when he spots the unmarked black SUV already idling at the curb. He curses inwardly, of course Fury would have sent people before he'd called, knowing he would have to, that Phil couldn't give Clint up, not now, not like this.
Phil's dismay is short lived however when the driver's side door pushes open and a pair of purple boots appear, followed by the rest of Darcy. She's got her fists pressed to her sternum and tears in her eyes. She doesn't run and tackle Clint like she so obviously wants to though because she notices the way he flinches at her arrival.
Darcy's frighteningly observant, it was one of the main reasons Phil snatched her up when Jane's research took her in a direction Darcy couldn't follow.
Darcy visibly reigns herself in, pulls it together. Phil doesn't know how much she knows but it's obviously enough. "I'm Darcy," she says, only the slightest wobble in her voice. "We were...are friends."
Clint hesitates, Phil trying not to feel pleased when Clint shifts closer to him before stepping forward, holding out a hand. "Nice to meet you... again I guess," he says and Darcy offers him a strained smile, half amused, half sad at his formality.
"Darcy, what are you doing here?" Phil gathers his wits and gets over his shock enough to demand.
"Beating the goon squad to you, boss man," Darcy says. She sweeps a hand towards the waiting SUV. "Hop to, time's a'wastin' and all that."
"Darcy, that's a SHIELD car," Phil says. "They're tracked."
"It's Natasha's," Darcy says. "Tony disabled the tracker thingy ages ago."
"Natasha let you take her car?" Phil asks, surprised.
"Not without me, of course," Natasha says, popping up over the roof of the SUV. Natasha is wearing a plain black t-shirt and has her hair in a loose ponytail. Out of the SHIELD uniform Phil hardly recognizes her. She seems to think the same thing about him out of a suit if her raised eyebrow is any indication. "Clint, it's good to see you."
"Um, hi," Clint says, shrinking back into Phil's side a little more.
"Look, thanks for the vehicle. You guys should get out of here though before-"
"We're coming with you," Darcy says, the duh obvious in her voice. Phil just blinks at her and then at Natasha who looks inscrutable as always. "I should have taken the packing of the go-bag more seriously though when you told me to. I'm going to be wearing a Pussycat Dolls t-shirt tomorrow."
"You can't-"
"The latest season of Project Runway is finished," Natasha interrupts. "You know how I get when I have nothing to do and that happens."
"Look," Phil says, holding his hands out, trying to be firm. "I'm not sure when or even if we can come back. I need to give..." Phil looks sideways at Clint who's staring at his feet. "We need some time to figure stuff out."
Darcy walks up to Phil, careful to stay on the side furthest away from Clint because again, scarily observant, and claps a hand on his shoulder. "Like the song says, we are family," she says. "We go where you do." She leans closer and Phil instinctively meets her halfway. "We love him too. We missed him too."
"Let's go," Natasha barks. "We have a little bit of a head start but we're wasting it."
Darcy drives like she does everything, a little scattered but she gets the job done. She's alternating drinking a coffee the size of her head, eating a blueberry muffin about as impressive in its dimensions and carrying on a mostly one-sided but still spirited conversation with Natasha.
Phil watches all of this a little bemused, relegated to the back seat with Clint while Natasha rides shotgun. Natasha has been a little cool with him and he doesn't blame her. He'd been the one to pull away when the Avengers first fell apart after Clint's disappearance.
Natasha notices his scrutiny, meets his eyes in the rear vision mirror and gives him a shrug without actually moving a muscle.
It's impressive.
Something about Darcy's rambling is relaxing and Clint seems to feel it too, sliding further down into the seat and eventually letting his head rest against the window on his side, eyes drooping. Phil has an urge so strong just to lift a hand and rest it on Clint's knee that he's almost done it before he catches himself, redirects and makes it look like he was reaching for the bottle of water in the center console cupholder.
A few minutes later, Clint lets out a wounded noise and jerks upright, panting hard and wild-eyed. Phil shifts into his line of sight, can recognize when someone has let themselves go and woken without knowing where they are. "Hey, it's okay," he says, voice level and calming.
Clint darts out a hand and Phil thinks he's going to get punched but instead Clint's hand tangles in Phil's t-shirt, material stretched taught over his knuckles. Darcy pulls over and Phil pushes the door open as soon as they've stopped, tows Clint out with him and lets Clint lean over, hands braced on his knees and tugging air in like it's hurting.
Phil glances at Darcy and Natasha hovering over Clint's bent back. Darcy's biting her lip and even though Natash's face is carefully neutral as always, she's let Darcy take her hand and Phil can see she's squeezing back.
Clint calms eventually, dashes a forearm over his eyes and grimaces. "Sorry, I didn't... for a moment I didn't..." he huffs a frustrated laugh at himself.
"You didn't know where you were," Phil finishes for him gently and Clint nods.
"Hey look, a motel," Darcy says brightly, waving an arm like a showroom model at the rundown but still fairly decent looking place behind them.
"We should keep moving," Natasha says, narrowing her eyes at the road like a line of SHIELD vehicles is about to appear over the horizon at any moment.
"We've been driving all day, I'm beat," Darcy says and even though Phil's itching to keep moving too, Clint has curled into himself, still looking exhausted.
"Just for a few hours," he relents and Darcy claps, jogs back to the SUV to snag her bag. Natasha nods stiffly, heads towards the motel office to get them rooms, brings back just the one key for Phil and Clint. "We can get you your own-" he starts to offer but Clint looks at him, mute and nervous and Phil nods.
"Dibs on the first shower," Clint says when Phil's gotten his own bag and they're headed for their room. Phil just stares at him for a moment, before he huffs.
"Dibs, really?"
Clint half-shrugs, smiling for the first time, unrepentant.
Phil tries to swallow down the hope he's feeling because they have a long way to go.
Phil wakes when the sky is only just starting to lighten but the bed on the other side of the single room is empty, sheets tossed back. He checks the bathroom but it's empty as well. He tries not to panic, if Clint keeps on disappearing on him he's going to eventually have a heart attack.
He does a circuit of the motel, finally finds Clint in the vacant lot behind it, Darcy perched on a dangerously leaning fence and Natasha standing with her eyes shaded by her hand in the morning sunlight.
Clint's standing, side-on with his favorite bow in hand. As Phil watches, Clint picks off a series of soda cans propped on a burnt out car opposite with precise, economical motions. Phil gapes a little, always loved watching Clint in action, how he was built for it. Clint's having trouble, his muscles not what they were but the skill is definitely still present and he compensates for the lack of strength smoothly.
Clint catches Phil lurking out of the corner of his eye, turns with a grin that Phil's missed so much. "Not just the lyrics to Freebird," Clint says, sounding adorably pleased with himself.
When they're back on the road, the screen in the middle of the dashboard Phil had assumed was a GPS flickers to life and Tony Stark's disembodied head appears. "Good morning angels!" he chirps.
"Good morning Charlie," both Natasha and Darcy sing out together. When Phil just raises an eyebrow at them, Darcy huffs and says, "Wow, pop culture just passes you by, right?"
Phil unsnaps his seat belt so he can lean forward through the middle of the front seats. "Stark, is whatever you're doing right now secure?"
"Phil, Phil, Phil," Tony says with an eye roll. "I might have become persona non grata to your friends but I'm still me."
"They're not my friends at the moment," Phil says and Tony's mouth screws sideways, an expression Phil can't read properly.
"Anyway, get your strangely narrow head out of the way so I can see our boy, eh?" Tony says and Phil blinks for a moment before he sits back. Clint looks at him but after Phil nods, he edges forward himself. "Barton, goddamn," Tony says, grinning and shaking his head. "Listen, I'm coming to you guys."
"I thought you said the tracker was disabled," Phil says, poking Darcy in the side.
"Ow, hey!" she protests as Tony says, "For anyone who isn't me, yes."
"Look, I don't know if that's a good idea," Phil argues. "It's risky enough having Darcy and Natasha with us."
"I'm not joining your road trip as fun as that might be," Tony dismisses. "I'm going to get you guys out of Dodge."
"Stark, that's-" Phil tries again to protest but Tony holds up a hand.
"Anyone else in the car with a private jet, raise their hands." He waits for a beat, grins and says, "No? Really, that's a shocker. How about you guys pull over somewhere with food and I'll see you soon."
"We're getting the band back together," Darcy enthuses as Tony gives them a little salute and the screen goes black.
Phil sits back, puts a hand over his face, takes it away carefully again when he feels someone grip the fingers on his other one. Clint is looking at him, concerned. Phil risks squeezing his fingers in return, heartened by just that small amount of contact.
"An island. You own an island?" Darcy is repeating, looking astounded. Phil is glad she can vocalize the amazement that they're all feeling.
They've been in the air for three hours, Tony being evasive about where they were going until Darcy had managed to wheedle it out of him.
Bless her.
"A company, that owns another corporation, that has shares in a smaller shell company owns..." Tony huffs when Darcy kicks him in the shin, rolls his shoulders and lowers the sunglasses that he's wearing at night inside an aircraft because he's ridiculous. "Yes, if someone were to take the fifteen or so years to sort out the tangle of paperwork about it they would find that I do indeed own an island."
"How are you even real?" Darcy asks, eyes gleaming.
"How are you not evil?" Natasha doesn't look up from the tablet she's procured from somewhere to add.
"It's the facial hair, right? Gives off more of a super villain vibe?"
Phil retreats from the others, finds Clint curled up in one of the chairs furthest from the group. He's got a blanket over his legs and the hoodie Phil had packed for him on, thumbs pushed through the sleeve holes like he always had. He looks rumpled, worn but safe for the first time in longer than Phil would like.
Clint smiles to see him, drops his legs off the seat opposite so Phil can slide into it. He's watching Phil with the calculating look he always got when he was about to do something Phil didn't like, something reckless. "So," he says. "Tell me about us."
"What do you want to know?" Phil asks, hoping Clint doesn't hear the hesitation in his voice. Clint cocks his head, looks at Phil in a c'mon, be serious way. "I was...your handler," Phil settles on and Clint snorts, sits back throwing his hands up.
"I might not remember much of my life but I get the very strong feeling that it's more than that," he says. "You've basically chucked in your career for me, because they wanted to take me in."
"They would've dumped you in a hole till they could figure out what happened to you, if they ever did."
"I know," Clint says, leans forward to lay a hand on Phil's knee like Phil had wanted to do back in the car. "You could've let them."
"No, I really couldn't have," Phil says.
"Of course your island has an airfield," Natasha says with a roll of her eyes. Tony merely shrugs, leading the way off the jet. There's an honest to god staff waiting for them and even though it makes Phil nervous, Tony just says, "Look, I pay enough for people to be discreet."
"Do you have a lair shaped like a skull, too?" Natasha asks dryly and Tony smirks at her.
"That would be much too cliche. It's shaped like my enormous-"
"Oh my god," Phil groans, Clint sticking close to him, brushing their shoulders together that makes warmth curl in the pit of Phil's stomach. "Can you just not be... you for two seconds?"
"Thank you Tony for taking me and my wayward amnesiac boyfriend to your island paradise to lay low," Tony says pointedly, waving an airy hand. Clint catches Phil's sleeve when the others are piling into a couple of golf carts, tugs him back a few steps.
"Handler, huh?" Clint says. It takes Phil a moment for it to really register what Tony had said.
"Um, oh, you mean the boyfriend thing-"
Clint uses the sleeve he's still holding to tug Phil forward, into his space. He's smiling and Phil groans, helpless not to. "You're... there's something about you that I..." Clint's so close that the warmth of his words dusts across Phil's cheeks. Phil holds very still, not wanting to break the moment. "There's something about you I remember," he finally says.
"Kids!" Tony calls and they shuffle apart, both chuckling at themselves. "I need a piss, a wifi connection and a wet bar. Move it or lose it."
They're given the option of separate rooms but for once Tony lets the opportunity for an uncomfortable comment pass him by as Clint trails Phil silently into his allocated one. There's only one bed instead of two unlike the motel but there's a large leather couch that's almost as deep as it's long so Phil figures he can take that.
He can take a lot to keep Clint feeling safe.
Clint's playing with the frayed cuffs of his hoodie as Phil puts the few belongings they have in their proper places, checks and is relieved to find the bathroom fully stocked with toiletries even though they look ridiculously expensive.
"This is mine, right?" Clint says when Phil reemerges after taking the time to splash some water on his face and brush his teeth. His tongue had felt like something was growing on it. Clint holds his sleeves out, as if Phil might not understand what he's referring to. "This was in your house but it's mine."
"I tried to throw that thing out, I lost count of how many times," Phil says with a fond smile. "I even bought you the exact same one new, took a lot of hunting around on Amazon to find it but you weren't interested."
"The address," Clint says, ghosts a hand over his side, the one with the inscription. "It wasn't just your home... it was mine too."
"Yes," Phil confirms. "Before you were living on the residential floor of SHIELD and I had an apartment in the city. We wanted something that was ours and you'd never..."
"I'd never had a house," Clint murmurs.
"We were talking about getting a dog before you.... before."
Clint drops onto the corner of the bed, head in his hands. He rubs over the top with his palms, a quick frustrated gesture. "It's all so close, I can practically feel it," Clint says.
"We have time," Phil tries to reassure him, puts his own hand to Clint's head, scratches through the messy short hairs when he doesn't shy away. "We've got nothing but time."
"So your idea of a go-bag is a pussycat dolls t-shirt and a swimsuit?" Phil asks, finding Darcy out by the kidney shaped pool that's behind Tony's idea of a little getaway cabin and looks more like a five star resort. Phil only left their room when Clint had crashed again, possibly catching up on five year's worth of sleep debt.
Darcy pushes her sunglasses up onto the top of her head and squints at Phil. "No, but this place has a gift shop. Insane, right?"
"I'll be surprised if it doesn't have a red light district," Phil says, lowering down into the lounger beside Darcy's with a grateful groan he wouldn't have let out as a younger man.
Darcy sits up so she's facing him, crosses one pale leg over the other. "How are you doing boss man?"
"I think since we're in hiding on an island owned by an eccentric billionaire and we're probably both fired, you can start calling me Phil."
"Meh, that would be weird," Darcy says, pulling a face.
"That's where you draw the line?" Phil asks, amused despite himself.
Tony appears, grinning and obviously brimming with news. He pauses to ogle Darcy for a second before his brain seems to come back online. "Oh hey, I found Steve," he says, bouncing like a kid.
"I draw the line at involving Captain Rogers," Phil snaps sharply. He already feels pretty much like the world's biggest asshole to have dragged Darcy and Natasha into his problems without muddying the only person to have escaped from the shit storm that was five years ago relatively unscathed.
"Boohoo for you, he insisted," Tony says with a dismissive wave of his hand.
"He wouldn't have been in a position to insist if you hadn't tracked him down," Phil grits, furious. He's been running on fumes and adrenalin for a few days now, needs a punching bag and Tony seems to be volunteering.
"It wrecked him, what happened," Tony says, his own good humor vanishing in an instant. "I know you were too involved in your own private hell to really understand that other people were affected-"
Phil punches him. He regrets doing it almost immediately when it doesn't feel as good as he'd always imagined. Darcy makes an abortive sound of dismay but Tony just seems to shake it off, smirks with bloodied teeth. "You get one for free considering the circumstances," he says.
"I'm sorry, I-"
"No, really. That one's on the house, no harm, no foul. Try it again though and we'll have a proper conversation."
"You just... you shouldn't have contacted him."
"I know you tried to hog all the blame yourself when it all went down," Tony says. "But he was taken right out from under our noses, not yours. We were too busy patting ourselves on the back after that goddamn..." Tony swallows, grimaces and Phil's discomfited to see Tony's bravado break, even if only for a moment. "It was all just a distraction. Steve was with him right before, don't you think that eats him up inside? He kept wondering if there was something he could've done different... if he'd maybe seen something-"
"That's ridiculous," Phil says.
"I know that, you know that but he doesn't."
They're waiting for Stark's jet on the airstrip when Natasha appears next to him. Phil glances around, sees Clint is occupied with Darcy a few feet back and leans into Natasha, says, "You had his bow in your van."
Natasha makes a small noise of confirmation but doesn't offer anything more.
"What I'm saying is, you didn't go and get it, there wasn't time for that. No, you already had it in your van."
Natasha glances at him out of the corner of her eye, says, "I'm getting the feeling you want me to say something specific here."
"I was angry at you for a long time," Phil admits and Natasha doesn't look surprised, just inclines her head slightly. She never really gives anything away but Phil often forgets that she's perfectly capable or reading other people. "You and Clint were close and I know it was unfair but I was relying on you to be as stubborn as I was about his disappearance, as miserable." Phil takes a beat, watches the distant speck in the sky resolve itself into Tony's jet. "You gave up."
"I knew he was dead," Natasha says flatly.
"But you had his bow in your van. I'm thinking that I've been really wrong here."
"No, you were right," Natasha says. "I knew he was dead. When Stark modified my SUV I had a compartment for the bow installed, but it wasn't because I had some crazy idea that Clint was still kicking around somewhere." Natasha's jaw tightens and Phil realizes belatedly that she's been angry at him, probably this whole time. "You wouldn't let us bury him."
"With good reason it turns out," Phil snaps, can't really help himself but he winces and says, "No, sorry, I'm... sorry." He's tired of being mad, he doesn't have any need to be anymore.
"How is he?" Natasha asks.
"A lot better than I was expecting," Phil says, grateful for Natasha's willingness to let his little outburst pass without comment.
"Really?" Natasha asks and Phil looks at her, tries to read what she's not saying on her face but it's like trying to grip an ice shelf.
"You don't sound convinced."
Natasha sighs, tucks a curl of hair behind her ear. "Clint's always been a chameleon, he's always been good at showing people what they're expecting to see."
Phil frowns, wants to say no, you're wrong, he's doing fine but when he risks a glance back at Clint and Darcy again, looking for it this time, he sees it, knows Natasha's right. Clint's smiling at Darcy as she chatters at him, but every time she looks away from his face the smile drops revealing another expression underneath, that of a kid lost in a crowd, abandoned by his parents, surrounded by strangers.
"I'm starting to think-" The rest of Natasha's words are lost as the jet lands, sound overwhelming everything else. Tony appears as if by magic, barely waits for the jet to taxi to stop before he's bounding forward. The door on the side pushes open and Steve appears out of the shadow of the cabin, looking as illogically handsome as always.
Phil watches Steve's face break into a grin when he spots Tony, lets the smaller man sweep him up in a hug that lifts him off his feet for a moment. It would look ridiculous if the affection wasn't so genuine. Phil feels his heart squeeze at the sight, hates that he let this happen, let everything fall apart on his watch.
There's a startled yelp from behind them and Phil turns to see Darcy hit the ground and Clint charge forward, blank faced and vacant eyed. It takes a few precious seconds for Phil to realize what he's seeing and by that time Clint's past him. Tony's just stepped away from Steve and Clint barrels into him and rides him to the ground, Steve taken by rare surprise.
A knife appears in Clint's hands and it's only Steve's reflexes that save him, means he gets the blade buried in the meat of his forearm and not his neck. Clint makes to yank the knife free, probably to have another try but Steve tucks in and rolls them, ends up with Clint pinned beneath him, thrashing and making a wounded noise that has the hair standing up on the back of Phil's neck.
Natasha reaches them first, even though Tony was closer and there's a flash of metal before Clint goes limp. Fear crawls up Phil's spine, relief replacing it when he sees Natasha tossing the single-use SHIELD issue tranq pen aside so she can ease Steve gently off Clint's prone form and look at the damage to his arm.
Phil's first instinct is to run to Clint but instead he turns, crosses to Darcy and helps to put her back on her feet. She's looking shocked and pale but otherwise unhurt. She grips Phil's hands before he can leave her, says, "It wasn't him. It just wasn't him."
"He doesn't remember it," Natasha says, dropping into the seat next to Phil. He shouldn't have been surprised to hear JARVIS' no-nonsense voice in this place, it certainly made monitoring Clint easier. They would be alerted the minute he moved from the room he was put in. "He remembers talking to Darcy, seeing Steve on the top of the jet's stairs and then nothing."
Phil's grateful that Natasha was the one to be there when Clint came to. Phil keeps hearing over and over in his head you're not objective in Fury's judgmental voice and feels sick.
"That's worse then him consciously attacking me, right?" Steve says, looking stricken. He's got bandaging over his forearm, they all know he'll heal in a matter of days but that isn't the point.
"I hate to be the one to say it-" Tony starts.
"Then don't," Phil interrupts, rubbing a hand over his forehead, the feeling of helplessness palpable.
"We should call them, call Fury," Steve says, reasonable.
"I can't..."
"Coulson, he needs medication, he needs therapy, he needs deprogramming," Tony says. "Who knows what other cute little directives are nestled in that scrambled brain of his."
"It was just the stress," Phil insists even though he knows that isn't it. The horrible thing is, he's seen this before, they all have.
Jessica Fellows was a cute little lab assistant with a security clearance so low it barely got her into the SHIELD offices. She'd come back to work after a month's holiday and she'd seemed fine, if a little quiet.
She'd killed four agents, four seasoned agents because no one had wanted to put a bullet in the woman who baked cupcakes for people's birthdays.
Phil himself had done it, two in the chest, quick and efficient.
"I'm thinking Hydra," Natasha says. "Fellows was probably a dry run for them, to see if they could do it."
"Fellows was only gone a month. Clint was gone five years," Phil points out.
"Hydra's patient and I can imagine Clint was a little harder to break than poor Fellows." Tony says, winces a little. "It's also probably harder to train someone for a specific target instead of just going berserk."
"She knew who she was." Phil doesn't know why he's still arguing, denial coating his tongue with a bitter taste.
"We don't know what they did to him, maybe the amnesia was his brain's last ditch effort to protect us from himself."
"They'll disappear him," Phil says.
"I have the resources and have spent the time cultivating the political connections-" at Phil's dubious look, Tony corrects himself, "Pepper's spent the time cultivating the political connections to make sure they can't do that."
"I don't want to give up on him," Phil says. He feels a small hand settle on his shoulder, looks up to see Darcy with a blanket hugged around her shoulders and a sad smile on her face. He puts his own hand over hers, squeezes, knows they were very lucky she wasn't badly hurt.
Clint never would have forgiven himself if she had been.
"Okay, make the call."
Fourteen months later, they're back on Tony's island, but under much better circumstances. Tony had grumbled about it, muttering something about how people find out you have one little island and suddenly they're always wanting to go.
Phil watches Clint horsing around by the pool with Darcy and Jane. Clint's put back on most of the weight he lost, still not quite fighting fit but he's getting there. Phil's gaze catches on the tattoo that curls over Clint's side, mostly hiding the scarring. It's a house, stretching upwards and stylized.
"It is good that we can relax amongst friends but your attire is far too formal," Thor says, from behind Phil before clapping him on the shoulder. Phil winces, Thor still doesn't really know his own strength sometimes.
Phil's happy that Jane and Thor could make it this time, but relieved that they hadn't exposed Clint to Thor until Clint had become more comfortable with people in his space. Thor had picked Clint up like a toy when they were reunited, squeezed him to within an inch of his life and gotten quite emotional about it all. Jane had tucked a hand into Thor's elbow when he'd finally set Clint back on his feet, patted his arm and had given Clint an apologetic but relieved grin.
"I came from work," Phil says. He'd only landed about twenty minutes ago, hadn't been able to take the time off the others had so was flying out on the weekends. He doesn't begrudge anyone else this time with Clint, he needs to reconnect with everyone and while Phil wants to be selfish, he refrains.
Thor's quiet for a beat, then his hand returns to Phil's shoulder, much more gently. "Your bond will grow strong again with time," Thor says. Phil glances at him, is touched to see the concern marring Thor's usually jovial features.
Clint's memories have started trickling back, but it's slow going. Phil is wary, conscious of Natasha's words, mindful that Clint may feel compelled to play a part, be the person they're all expecting him to be far too early. Phil's not pushing, wants Clint to come back to him in his own time, on his own terms.
He has to have faith that it'll happen.
"Remove the shackles of your office and come join us," Thor says, tugging at Phil's tie and he smiles, is helpless not to in the face of Thor's returned exuberance.
"In a minute," he promises.
Thor nods before he darts through the glass doors leading out onto the pool deck to join the others. He's in time to rescue Darcy as she's dangled over the water by Clint, squealing. Phil watches Jane sneak up behind Thor when he's distracted by his efforts to pluck Darcy out of Clint's hold and catches him off guard, her push sending both Thor and Darcy into the pool.
Phil laughs when Jane bombs in after them, almost on Thor's head.
Phil sees the moment Clint realizes he's being watched, he always had a knack for knowing. He turns, shields his eyes with a hand and spots Phil hovering. His grin turns bashful and sweet as he ducks his face.
Phil finds Clint to be softer now, still quick to laugh but also more somber. He fell in love with the reckless jackass with a surprisingly gentle side but he isn't exactly unhappy with the quieter, more reserved version of Clint.
Clint raises a hand, waggles his fingers. Phil puts his hand up in return, passes through the doors as he tugs his tie free and meets the future he thought he'd lost.
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Volume 72, Issue 25
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Too many feels to contain
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Hee... I could just imagine Coulson telling Darcy with a VERY SERIOUS FACE that she needs a go-bag and she'd be like, yeah, whatever bossman with an eyeroll and fill it with stuff that was forgotten underneath her bed.
I don't care if Darcy isn't in the movie, I'm just going to picture her in the background making sure Coulson has a thermos of coffee at all times, getting hugs from Steve and going to Karaoke bars with Natasha where they sing Wind Beneath My Wings as a drunken duet. :DDD
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THIS. I'm going to write Darcy into every single scene of the movie somehow. I hope there's lots of fic after the movie comes out that retcons her in. :D
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what gets to me the most, the one thing that makes me love a fic among all others, is when there's a family feel for it. When not only there is an engaging story with the main protagonists - and boy did you grip me with that -, but when the supporting characters are THERE and meaningful and AWESOME. and this has it all. (your Tony is SPECTACULAR, I love him so much).
and well, amnesia fic? that's how you do it right babe, so right. ♥ ♥
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I just enjoy writing relationships and not necessarily just the romantic ones. The TV shows that have stuck with me have always had a tightknit ensemble cast.