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*
“This,” Loki whispers in his ear, “is your legacy.”
Phil closes his eyes and sees the war, the Avengers, resplendent over the ashes of New York, twisting, thrashing, fighting to save a world just outside his field of vision.
“Tell me,” Loki presses his hand on Phil’s chest, right above where his heart used to be. “Does this make you happy?”
*
Phil believes in heroes.
He is eleven and he sleeps in red, white and blue and his room is a shrine to Captain America. Captain America, who was small and weak until he suddenly wasn’t, who's never backed down from bullies nevertheless.
He is forty and the file on his desk is titled Avengers Initiative and somewhere near him, Captain America is thawing under their watchful eyes. He’s read their files again and again, knows every line about them with painful, awkward familiarity.
There was a hand, Phil knows, that Steve Rogers couldn’t grasp, a blank look and a different name on Natasha’s lips when someone brings up ballet, a monster always, always bubbling under the surface of Bruce’s chest. Thor tried to tear apart two realms to chase a brother who wouldn’t stop and Stark builds and builds and builds yet the blood on his hands never washes off. There’s Clint, who sees everything, who never misses, and yet couldn’t see his brother turning around and pointing an arrow to his chest.
They’re all heroes, fighting to save a world that has repeatedly, irrevocably, failed them. Phil still believes.
There’s a haunted look at the corners of Loki’s eyes lurking beneath layers of maliciousness, present in the way he loves first, always, always.
Was it, he wants to ask but the words, they don’t come.
Was it enough?
*
“What happened in Tahiti?” Raina’s voice is soothing, full of sympathy. He turns around to see her, it’s a magical place falling from his lips without any effort at all and she’s staring back at him, guileless. Raina, with her wide, deceptively innocent eyes and flowers on her dress and hands that have killed, over and over and over.
“Don’t you want to know why?” she drags her tongue over her teeth when she speaks.
He takes a deep breath, and then another, and then another. “Turn it on,” he replies.
*
Tahiti is blinding sunglight and waves crashing on the beach and a pleasant, ambiguous buzz floating through his body.
He wakes up and Clint stirs from where he’s stretched out next to him, props himself up on his elbows and smiles.
“Welcome back, sir,” he says.
*
Phil remembers, and the MRI machine is cold, unforgiving beneath him.
He remembers a knife, sharp and cold, sliding in between his ribs, edging its way towards his heart, inch by inch. He remembers Loki and the manic glee in his eyes as his image dissolves in front of his eyes. He remembers slumping against a wall and looking up to see nothing but fear. He remembers a gun, the trigger hovering under his fingers.
He remembers a war of the gods, and he has always been simply, unapologetically, human.
*
“Are you real?” he whispers, and something bleeds beneath his skin.
Loki’s smile is a thing of beauty, so carelessly, uselessly given. “You’re the one who's looking at me.”
Phil curls his fingers around his sheet, frustrated. “I don’t know what that means.”
“I’m as real as you are.” A pause, and then: “Are you real, Agent Coulson?”
*
His promotion to level five comes with a file slapped on his desk, Hawkeye written in bold letters on the cover. Inside, there’s a note from Director Fury: he calls himself the world’s greatest marksman.
Phil doesn’t laugh, because he is a respectable S.H.I.E.L.D agent and because this man has showed up to kill some of their most dangerous targets, making them look like fools in the process. He doesn’t laugh, but it’s a close thing.
*
Phil remembers, but his memories don’t fit. He remembers what they’re calling the Battle of New York, and he remembers falling and thinking he would never get up and yet, yet he can’t think of the before without a twitch. His memories are all there, immaculate, in perfect order, and yet it feels like a suit that is a little too big, like the buttons have been stitched all wrong. He remembers Clint often, predominantly, remembers realizing that he was falling in love, the brush of Clint’s hands against his, soft and warm and reassuring, the way his sweaters are garishly purple with stray threads and a smell he can’t quite place.
He remembers his life in the way he remembers old Chaplin movies, fishing trips with his cousins, Keith Richards singing to the crowd: like he is merely a spectator, watching the events of his life unfold; with a distinct detachment from the person he once used to be.
He wonders if this is how Clint feels, after Loki, after his eyes turned blue, blue, blue and made him kill all the wrong people. He wonders if he’ll ever be able to ask, lean over and grasp Clint’s hand in his own and say what did it take, to be yourself again.
He wonders if Clint will answer.
*
They chase codename Hawkeye through nine states before losing track of him in the middle of nowhere, Texas. One moment, he’s stopping at a gas station to buy a bottle of water, and the next, there’s an arrow flying in his direction, neatly slicing the bottle in two, even as he holds half of it in his hand.
Everyone draws their weapons in an instant, but there’s no visible target. Phil doesn’t think there would've been.
It is only later that he remembers to pick up the arrow and inspect it. Attached to the fletching, he finds a note, hastily written yet neatly folded: are you still laughing, Agent Coulson?
*
“You got my suit wet,” he remarks, the first time they meet.
Inside the interrogation room, shifting on the chair bolted to the floor, Hawkeye smiles.
“Well, then,” he says.
*
He dreams of calluses sometimes, of scarred hands and dirty nails with ashes underneath them, of fingers that bruise if they press too tightly on his skin. He dreams of places where the sun doesn’t rise, where the rain never stops, and he's lying on the floor, losing blood. He dreams of being helped up with rough hands that don't shake, chapped lips that whisper in his ear, calm and lyrical enough to make music out of their own words.
He wakes up too soon, always, to his alarm, to May’s landing announcement, to Ward knocking on his door and there is a name on his lips, half-formed, swallowed.
There is a name and it isn’t his own.
*
Phil remembers, and the MRI machine is cold, unforgiving beneath him.
He turns his key in the lock and opens the door to his apartment to see him in the kitchen. He’s poring over a few papers strewn over the kitchen counter, occasionally shifting to scratch something. He closes the door behind him, leaning on the doorframe for an extra second to watch him work.
“The view gets better the closer you get,” Clint says, turns around with a smile.
*
“Why are you here?” his words come out in a sob and Loki’s fingers on his chest are like a fire, burning burning burning.
“Why don’t you tell me?” Loki whispers, and that’s all he does to Coulson now, whispers like his voice has been permanently, helplessly dimmed.
“I was going to kill you,” he replies, and tries to think of the scientists working round the clock to develop the weapon, thinks of every one of them basking in the delusion that they can win against the gods.
Loki laughs, delighted. “And you failed so spectacularly, Agent Coulson. How gratifying it must have been, for your paper-thin ideations to shatter, how relived you must have been when I ended your shame.”
Coulson grits his teeth against the pain in his chest. Loki’s voice is smooth and slippery and he cannot, will not –
“You stabbed me from the back,” he hisses, in anger and pain and something else he doesn’t know. “Did your courage fail you so badly, that you couldn’t bear the idea of turning around and facing me?”
Loki’s smile is sharp edges in response, but his eyes are hard and the way he presses on Phil’s arm is nothing short of painful.”Tell me,” he pulls Phil’s arm and twists, and he sees Loki press the spectre to Clint’s heart, a hidden whisper of you have heart before he took it away.
Loki laughs, laughs, laughs in his ear until Phil can’t breathe. “Tell me, Phil,” he says, “does it hurt any less the other way round?”
*
“Barton, talk to me,” he says into the comms on their first op together, and Barton does.
He talks incessantly about everything and absolutely nothing, talks about his neighbor’s dog, last night’s takeout, the things people tell him when they see the bow until he puts an arrow through them. It is, Phil realizes soon enough, an attempt to gain an upper hand, catch him off-guard.
Barton’s voice is soothing and his words are a mockery and his laughter is rich, yet not quite true. Phil calmly switches him over to a private link and settles back, listens.
*
“I see everything,” Clint says it like the truth, like it’s simple, easy. Phil straightens his papers and thinks of Clint’s voice in his ears, his tired laugh at the end of long, but successful, missions, thinks no, no you don’t.
*
“Barton, talk to me,” he says and tries to breathe against the bullet lodged in his shoulder. Two minutes out, Clint says over and over again in his ear, but his breathing is getting shallower, and the right half of his body suddenly feels cold, far too cold.
“Barton, talk,” he says with as much force as he can muster and Clint, out of breath and shaky, speaks until his sentences run into each other and lose coherence. He declares his eternal hatred for tomatoes, talks about why he loves the color purple, this cool corner of the vents he’s discovered that’s perfect for scaring the agents in the cafeteria and he’ll show it to Phil as soon as they get back so fucking hell, sir, don’t die on me.
As far as ways to die go, Phil thinks seconds before Hawkeye bursts in through the ceiling, this is really, really not so bad.
*
Phil remembers, and the MRI machine is cold, unforgiving beneath him.
He turns his key in the lock and opens the door to his apartment to see him in the kitchen. He’s poring over a few papers strewn over the kitchen counter, occasionally shifting to scratch something. He closes the door behind him, leaning on the doorframe for an extra second to watch him work.
“The view gets better the closer you get,” Clint says, turns around with a smile.
Phil coughs, pretends he isn’t just a little embarrassed at being caught. “How you keep doing that, I’ll never, “he trails off when he catches sight of the kitchen counter. “What the hell are you doing?”
Clint turns around and presses a kiss to his shoulder, eyes bright and focused and sharp. “I’m going to make pizza,” he says, “from scratch.”
*
“You’re going to lose,” he tells Loki and watches him still, and for a second, he is but a boy playing with toys he can’t understand.
“Where is my disadvantage?” Loki bares his teeth at him and leans forward, and he would be frightened but for the desperation at the corner of his eyes. His first instinct is to laugh; him, a mere mortal slumped against the floor with a hole in his heart and before him stands Loki Liesmith, the man out of myth, who will burn all the worlds to have his brother turn back, look. For a terrifying second, crazed desperation runs rampant in Loki’s eyes; for one terrifying second, he almost fears that he’s won. When Phil opens his mouth to speak, his voice is not unkind.
“You lack conviction,” he replies and presses the trigger.
*
“Fury’s giving me a new team,” he says and Clint’s eyes jerk up to meet his.
“That’s good,” he replies a little too quickly, a little too loud and enthusiastic. “You should accept his offer.”
“I,” Phil stops before he knows why. I thought we would talk about it, he wants to says, or perhaps, we won’t see each other often then.
“I told him I would consider it,” is what he says instead.
Clint nods jerkily, looks at a point on the wall behind him. “Good,” he says. “It sounds… good.”
“And we’ll be okay if that happens?” he asks tentatively, without knowing why.
Clint looks at him at last, smiles with gritted teeth like he’s forgotten how to. “Yeah,” he says. “I, uh, there’s missions and things and Stark wants us all to move in, and he’s kind of an asshole but it’s really,” he trails off and takes a deep breath. “We’ll be okay, sure.”
Phil presses his fingers into his palm and doesn’t understand.
*
“I see everything,” Clint says it like the truth, like it’s simple, easy. Phil sees, with a small smile, Natasha cuffing him on the head, Jasper’s exaggerated groan and stop boasting, Barton, god, and thinks, resigned, you missed.
*
Phil remembers, and the MRI machine is cold, unforgiving beneath him.
He turns his key in the lock and opens the door to his apartment to see him in the kitchen. He’s poring over a few papers strewn over the kitchen counter, occasionally shifting to scratch something. He closes the door behind him, leaning on the doorframe for an extra second to watch him work.
“The view gets better the closer you get,” Clint says, turns around with a smile.
Phil coughs, pretends he isn’t just a little embarrassed at being caught. “How you keep doing that, I’ll never, “he trails off when he catches sight of the kitchen counter. “What the hell are you doing?”
Clint turns around and presses a kiss to his shoulder, eyes bright and focused and sharp. “I’m going to make pizza,” he says, “from scratch.”
Phil loosens his tie and sits down. “Okay,” he says, carefully, because Clint looks like he’s on the warpath. “Why?”
Clint pauses, raises his head to scratch his nose in a way that Phil absolutely, positively doesn’t find adorable. “It’s a thing with Tasha, okay,” he mumbles. “She told me that I wouldn’t have the patience to follow exact orders and now I have to show her that I can. It’s a matter of principle.”
His fingers twitch uncomfortably on the table before he looks up again. “And you’re the only person I know who owns this thing,” he points in the general direction of the oven, “so.”
Phil gets up and pours himself a drink.
*
Clint’s phone keeps going straight to voicemail.
Outside, he can hear Fitzsimmons and Skye, their voices escalating as they argue about something he can’t quite hear. Inside his office, there is nothing but silence and the cool, detached way Clint’s voicemail keeps telling him to leave a message after the beep.
“Clint, talk to me,” he says finally, again, again and again after the beep and nothing greets him but silence, stretching forever.
*
“Where is he?” he asks and Natasha’s fingers curl against each other.
“Mission,” she replies and it could be a lie, except.
“What have I done?” he asks next, and it’s weakness but Natasha is the one who drapes his coat over him sometimes when he’s passed out on the couch in his office, who periodically uses his office to hide expensive, and not quite legal, vodka.
“What have I done?”
“Nothing.”
“What has he done?”
She laughs and it’s not a nice sound. “You died and you woke up,” she says, “and you don’t remember anything in between.”
He frowns and something in her eyes softens.
Phil has known Natasha for longer than they care to dwell upon. Her hands were shaking when Barton had stood up with a I trust her on his lips and fought against everything he’d worked for. His own hands, they both know, had been shaking against the cool metal of the phone in his grasp; a video of Barton compromised playing in an endless loop in front of him.
“You don’t remember,” Natasha tells him, “but he does.”
Clint’s hands, Phil knows, hasn’t shaken in thirty years.
*
Phil remembers and the MRI machine is cold, unforgiving beneath him.
He turns his key in the lock and opens the door to his apartment to see him in the kitchen. He’s poring over a few papers strewn over the kitchen counter, occasionally shifting to scratch something. He closes the door behind him, leaning on the doorframe for an extra second to watch him work.
“The view gets better the closer you get,” Clint says, turns around with a smile.
Phil coughs, pretends he isn’t just a little embarrassed at being caught. “How you keep doing that, I’ll never, “he trails off when he catches sight of the kitchen counter. “What the hell are you doing?”
Clint turns around and presses a kiss to his shoulder, eyes bright and focused and sharp. “I’m going to make pizza,” he says with a smile that makes Phil want to take a step back, “from scratch.”
Phil loosens his tie and sits down. “Okay,” he says, carefully, because Clint looks like he’s on the warpath. “Why?”
Clint pauses, raises his head to scratch his nose in a way that Phil absolutely, positively doesn’t find adorable. “It’s a thing with Tasha, okay,” he mumbles. “She told me that I wouldn’t have the patience to follow exact, written orders and now I have to show her that I can. It’s a matter of principle.”
His fingers twitch uncomfortably on the table before he looks up again. “And you’re the only person I know who owns this thing,” he points in the general direction of the oven, “so.”
Phil gets up and pours himself a drink.
When he comes back into the living room after a shower, there’s flour on Clint’s hair and he’s brandishing a knife like the thought that it can be used for things other than stabbing people has never entered his mind.
“What are you doing?” Phil asks, amused.
Clint looks at him, vaguely lost. “I’m trying to chop tomatoes. I don’t think this is the right knife, though.”
Phil pauses. “Wait, what?”
Clint looks puzzled and Phil takes a step forward, tries to reach out and hold him. “You hate tomatoes.”
He frowns, like he can’t quite remember and Phil’s heart is beating, beating, beating. “You hate tomatoes,” he repeats.
His glass drops from his hand with a loud noise, or maybe it’s someone trying to break the door open, or maybe it’s the sound of a half-formed scream in Raina’s mouth. He doesn’t know, and yet, and yet, and yet.
Clint flickers away from his vision like particularly bad reception on his television and then there’s pain, overwhelming, crushing, welcoming.
He thinks, oh, thinks, this is what I missed, thinks, desperate, let me die.
*
“Look at us, Agent Coulson,” Loki fades from his vision until he’s nothing but the cold, glint in his eyes and the beginnings of a snarl, desperate and enraged, curling against his lips. “We’re both drifting.”
*
You were dead for days, Streiten says.
You were in extreme pain, Streiten tells him.
We should’ve let you die, Streiten tells him with pity in his eyes and a tremor in his voice.
We wanted to restore the man you had once been, he says, and the world is roaring over Phil’s ears and his mind is blessedly, utterly empty.
*
Clint doesn’t meet his eyes across the table in Stark’s living room.
“I called you,” Phil says, when the silence gets to be too much. Clint flinches, looks resolutely at the floor.
“I know, I’m so, so,” Clint mumbles, half under his breath and Phil sees something break within him in front of his eyes. “I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry,” he chants, almost in a monotone, dark circles under his eyes and a slightest of tremors in his fingers. It’s the most terrifying Phil has seen in his entire life. “I’m so sorry, Phil, god, I didn’t know, they didn’t tell me until after, I didn’t know, didn’t know,” he keeps saying until his words slur into one another, until he has to stop in order to breathe.
Phil reaches out instinctively to touch, to feel, to hold except, he reminds himself at the last moment, it’s not real, they’re not real, that they’ve never had the chance, ever. His hand folds into itself in mid-air and Clint doesn’t notice.
“It’s okay,” Phil murmurs instead, over and over again, from the opposite end of the table, “it’s okay.”
*
“You’d lost your will to live,” Streiten tells him, and Phil’s heart is beating, beating, beating inside his chest that was never torn.
“We tried to give you pleasant memories,” he says with a faraway, haunted look in his eyes and a sob in his voice. “We went through all your files, tried to give you things you were fond of in your childhood, of places you might’ve liked to visit, but none of them would take. And yet, your EEG, it showed the most consistent spikes when we mentioned your team. So we mentioned them, Barton and Romanoff, again and again to monitor your brain activity. And the differences in your dopamine output levels when Barton was the focus were, well, we didn’t have a choice.”
Streiten pauses for a minute, and there’s nothing but stale air and the harsh noises of his breathing, the blood pounding in his ears, the shaking of his knees and it’s not real, not real, and all he wants to do is get out, get out—
“You’d lost your will to live,” Streiten repeats, helpless. “We tried to give it back.”
*
“It would’ve never worked,” he tells Clint, their shoulders touching, “if my brain, if I hadn’t wanted it to.”
Clint turns his head to look at him, his eyes a little less haunted, no less contrite. “Yeah?”
Phil nods, stills over his own tongue. “Yeah,” he replies, and he absolutely positively does not stutter. “I, uh, I still want to.”
Clint’s shoulders relax a fraction, and Phil would’ve missed it if he hadn’t been looking out for the twitch of his lips. It’s not a smile, not yet, but it’s something. “I want to, too,” Clint replies, and his voice is a little shaky and very, very warm. “Maybe. Soon.”
It’s a beginning.
*
“This,” Loki whispers in his ear, “is your legacy.”
Phil closes his eyes and thinks of the way Clint’s hands had shaken for him, the warmth in his voice and maybe, maybe.
“Tell me,” Loki presses his hand on Phil’s chest, right where his heart is. “Does this make you happy?”
“Yes,” he replies.
He wakes up.
*