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Every once in a while, when things are quiet and the day is long over, Coulson sits back at his desk, closes his eyes, and tries to remember.
His time in Tahiti feels more like a memory from a long forgotten dream with each passing day, but if Coulson makes himself focus enough, shutting down every part of his brain which is tired and overworked, he can taste the gentle ocean breeze and picture a trail of footprints in the sand from one of the many beach walks he took there.
Leaning back in his chair, Coulson lingers in the memory. He has strangely few memories of his time in Tahiti, truth be told, and it troubles him when he has the time to let it. The basic sights and smells you’d expect from the place are there, in the very back of his mind, but trying to pin those down to specific events, set them in any sort of order, makes him feel as confused as he does when he forgets how to release a chambered round from his gun.
Coulson allows himself to sink deeper into office chair, lets his surroundings fade away as he holds onto the image of one of those beach walks, relishing in how clean the air was there. Maybe he can’t remember much about Tahiti because that was the point of it. Rest and relaxation, days much the same and blending into one another until he slowly found his way back to the land of the living. He’d been technically dead for just a few seconds, he’d been told, but maybe that was still enough to shake up body and mind very badly. Was it too surprising if his head didn’t want to recall the memories of the direct aftermath of coming back from the dead? He tries to relax properly, to think of anything but dying.
The stars were brighter in Tahiti, warmer and close enough to touch. The setting sun was speculator there too, turning the sand into a rusty red as it slipped below the water. The colors in Tahiti were like a song, loud and alive.
Smiling, Coulson can now slowly begin to remember what he’d thought about on the beach walks and sits up, opening his eyes and reaching for a small wooden box on his desk. He opens it carefully, the latch making an unobtrusive sound as Coulson flicks it up between his thumb and finger.
Inside, the gold wedding band is gleaming. Coulson takes it out and cleans it most days, the few precious minutes like this which he manages to get fast becoming some sort of anchor. Clint Barton is what Coulson eventually finds himself thinking of whenever he's been struggling to remember something, whenever he feels slightly “off”, as is happening with worrying frequency. Sometimes picturing his husband helps, steadies him in the here and now, keeping him from drifting too far into territory he’d rather avoid even though he doesn’t know what that territory is. Increasingly, however, to Coulson’s bewilderment, it doesn’t seem that thoughts of Clint are nearly as comforting as they should be.
He holds the ring in his fingers for a long time, appreciating the way the gold shines in the dim room under the light of his desk lamp. He thinks about calling Natasha and asking how Clint’s doing but not much time has passed since he last did that and he knows if anything changed or something major went down, she’d contact him herself. Coulson is completely sure he’d have gone truly insane without Natasha to keep him in the loop, although sometimes he thinks she knows more about his time in Tahiti than he does. He always stops short of investigating that suspicion further. Even as a S.H.I.E.L.D agent, Coulson has decided sometimes it’s better to not know about certain things.
Thinking about Clint is usually a good distraction when Coulson can’t shake off Tahiti, even if it saddens him. They’d only been married for a couple of months before Loki happened, getting Coulson out of his way and forcing Coulson apart from Clint, from everything. The last time Coulson has seen his husband was at his own funeral, a few hours after the mourners had left. Clint was lingering in the cemetery at Coulson’s gravestone. He was too far away to see Clint’s face but he could tell what the man was feeling from his posture; anger, self-hatred, bitter regret. He blamed himself, and walking away from the cemetery and leaving Clint alone to those feelings, unable to reveal the truth, is always going to remain one of the hardest things Coulson’s ever had to do.
Not as comforted as he’d hoped to be by thoughts of Clint, Coulson makes himself remember, instead, the better moments. Like Clint stopping by with a bottle of scotch or whiskey when Coulson was, as ever, working late. Or those first kisses of the morning when they woke to the dawn after a rare night of sleeping in their own marital bed. Or they many times they saved each other’s lives on the field, having someone you can trust without pause to always watch your back. Or…
Coulson smiles. This is definitely working now. And he knows – because any doubt would be too much on top of the heartbreak he’s already endured – he’ll see Clint again before too many years have passed.
He imagines taking Clint for a spin in Lola, how he’ll get the archer to love that beautiful car as much as he does. One day. Hopefully one day soon.
Tahiti, though, is still lurking just beyond the forefront of his mind. The stars really had been so bright there, like it was a new world only just born. Everything had seemed like that, almost too new and wonderful.
Sighing, Coulson fondles his wedding ring for a few more moments before putting it back in its box. One day he might be brave enough to dig deeper into his suspicions over Tahiti, but not today. For now, he just wants to sleep so he can continue leading his team. He has more to worry about than his own life now, and more and more he’s growing to like that.