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Clint Barton spent most of time these days on the Range. He could lose himself in the art of archery, his entire focus zeroing on the tautness of the string, the angle of the arrow, and the center of the target.
Breathe in, slow and deep.
Release.
The arrow quivered in the target.
Clint reached back for the next arrow, slipping it out of the quiver and taking another deep breath.
“Incredible.” A voice shattered his calm.
The archer whirled around, ready to chew out whichever fucking stupid newbie agent didn’t know better than to interrupt his practice. Then his eyes landed on Steve Roger’s small smile, and his anger melted away, replaced by something else.
Pain.
He couldn’t look at Steve without thinking of Phil.
Clint looked down, staring at the man’s feet instead.
“Sorry to interrupt,” the supersoldier said.
Clint shrugged. “No worries.”
“I was just coming in to hit the punching bag,” Steve said. “I didn’t realize you were down here and then I got…you are really good.”
“I know.”
“You want to spar?” Steve asked.
“What about the punching bag?” Clint said.
“Sparring is more fun.”
“Okay, but don’t go easy on me.”
“Never,” Steve said with a smile.
Clint put his bow away, lovingly placing it back in its case, while Steve helped out by retrieving the arrows. Soon enough the Range was cleaned up, and the two men were on the sparring mats.
It was possible Steve wasn’t holding back, but the man couldn’t land a hit on the archer. The supersoldier was super strong, but he wasn’t particularly fast and he didn’t have any formal training. He had fought with a fucking spangled shield in a war defined by a clear moral right and wrong. Clint had learned to fight in the shadows: a world of carnies, spies, and Black Ops. And Clint was used to sparring with the Black Widow.
Clint darted forward, hitting Steve hard in the stomach before dodging back. That punch would have downed a normal man.
“That the best you can do, old man?” Clint asked, dancing along the edges of the mat.
Steve smiled and charged him. Clint stepped to the side and grabbed him, meaning to flip the man down on the mat.
But the supersoldier was a rock, and somehow Clint found himself in a chokehold instead.
Held tight against the side of Steve’s body, Clint suddenly thought about Phil and how much he would love to see this—his husband and his idol sparring. Clint started laughing, unable to fight, as he imagined all the emotions that would be playing through Phil: ecstasy to see his idol in action, unnecessary concern that the supersoldier might accidently hurt Clint, and then pride that his husband was holding his own.
God, Phil must have fucking flipped when he met Steve.
“You okay, Clint?” Steve released him and stepped back, but his eyes were twinkling.
Clint shook his head as his laughs became sobs, falling to his knees on the mat. He hugged himself, trying to keep in the pain, trying to hide the fact that his soul was irrevocably torn.
Steve settled down on the mat in front of Clint. He sat cross-legged, and Clint tried to ignore the man’s eyes on him as he wept.
“I wasn’t there,” Clint sobbed. “When he met you. God, it was all he talked about when they found you in the ice, and I fucking missed it because of Loki. His dream come true, and I wasn’t there to see it.”
It was a stupid thing to be upset about, and an even stupider thing to cry about in front of the man who probably didn’t even know that Clint and Coulson were friends let alone married.
“I didn’t know Coulson very long,” Steve said. “He seemed like a good man.”
“Phil was the fucking best.” Clint sat back on the mat, pulling a knee up to his chest and staring firmly at the ground. “He was the best fucking human being in the whole world. He gave us a chance when no one else would. He believed in us when the rest of SHIELD thought Nat and I were both fuckups who they were going to have to forcibly retire. And he loved me.” His voice cracked. “God, he loved me out of all the people in the world. No one…no one in my entire life had ever loved me before.
“And I wasn’t there for him when he needed me. I let Loki get to me. Phil would have never…he would have been stronger. I failed him.”
Clint hadn’t been strong enough. And now Phil was dead.
“Clint,” Steve said, and though Clint hadn’t known the man for long he could already identify that fucking tone of voice, his “Captain America is about to give you a rousing speech” tone of voice. “You can’t blame yourself…”
“Don’t you fucking dare.” Clint jumped to his feet, turning away from the other man, because if he had to see that self-righteous “cheer up, soldier” look on the man’s face then he was going to punch Captain fucking America in the face. “Don’t fucking tell me it’s not my fault.”
“But it’s true,” Steve said. “Whether you were there or not, Coulson would have made the same decision. His decision—the only decision he probably thought that made sense—to try to stop Loki. You can’t hold yourself accountable for the deci…”
Clint released a wordless cry of rage, burying his fingers in his hair to keep from punching the wall. He couldn’t afford to lose control and injure his hands. He didn’t need “self-destructive” to be put on his psych eval. They’d take his bow from him for sure.
“I’m just trying to help,” Steve said.
“Then stop being a fucking hypocrite!” Clint whirled around, his hands dropping from his hair and clenching into fists at his sides.
“Hypocrite?” Steve frowned. “What do you…”
“Look me in the fucking eye and tell me you don’t blame yourself for Bucky’s death.”
And Steve stepped back, his eyes widening. “What? How do you know about Bucky?”
“Because I’ve seen every fucking documentary on your entire fucking life,” Clint said, trying not to think about being curled up on the couch next to Phil, listening to Phil point out this and that inaccuracy or glossed-over fact in whatever documentary they were watching. “Hell, I’ve seen every damn movie and show—live-action and animated, even that fucking terrible 1970s cartoon. And if there is one thing every single one of your fucking Howling Commandos agrees on, it’s that you blamed yourself every fucking day for Bucky’s death.”
Steve’s face had lost all color. For a moment his mouth moved wordlessly and then he finally said, “That’s different.”
“How is that any fucking different?”
“It just is.” Steve’s face closed off.
“So you’re telling me that Phil Coulson was killed by Loki and made his own fucking decisions to get there and my presence would have made no difference, but Bucky Barnes was killed by you and not the fucking Hydra Nazis?”
“You don’t understand.” Steve turned from Clint. “I was there.”
“And I fucking wasn’t. What difference does it make?”
“BECAUSE I SHOULD HAVE BEEN ABLE TO REACH HIM,” Steve roared, and he did punch the wall, his hand going straight through the drywall.
For a moment there was silence. Steve just stood there with his hand through the wall, unmoving other than how his shoulders heaved with rage. Clint just stared at him, feeling triumphant and ashamed.
Phil would’ve had his head.
He’d make me sleep on the couch for a week, and he’d give me more red dots than Wade fucking Wilson.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Clint said, because he knew it was what Phil would’ve said.
“Yes, it was,” Steve said. “He wouldn’t have been there if not for me.”
“If not for you, he’d be dead in a Hydra base,” Clint pointed out.
“You don’t understand. He was my only friend—my only friend in my entire life. He stood by me when I was a nobody, defended me when I failed at defending myself.” Steve’s head fell forward, his shoulders hunching forward, as if trying to make himself smaller, as if becoming that weak pre-serum boy.
“In my mind he was always stronger and better than me.” Steve’s voice was a broken whisper that Clint had to step closer to hear. “I expected for him to be able to keep up with me even though I had been changed by the serum. I expected him to be more super than I was because he always had been my entire life.
“But he wasn’t the supersoldier. I was, but I…damn it, I wasn’t super enough!” Steve was suddenly vehement, nearly shouting. “I should’ve got to him sooner. Or if I was just a little taller—my arms a little longer. If I was stronger or faster or better, he would still be alive.”
“I failed him,” Steve’s voice cracked, and his shoulders shook as if crying, “and he’s dead because of me.”
Oh, God, he really was crying.
I made Captain America cry. Except in that moment Clint didn’t see Captain America. He saw a very young, very lost man weeping over the death of his best friend.
No. No. No. This isn’t right. So Clint did the only thing he could, the only thing that made sense in this situation.
He turned to Phil.
Clint pulled out his phone, scrolled through a few website until he found the one he wanted. Then he walked up to Steve and put the phone right under his face. “Read this.”
“What?”
“On the screen. Take it. Read it.”
Steve took the phone and pulled his hand from the wall. He frowned at it for a moment, reading, and then looked up. “What is this?”
“A fan forum,” Clint said with a shrug. “Some troll—uhh, someone who’s just trying to get a rise out of people—went on that one and said you were to blame for Bucky’s death. That it was your fault. And Phil, God, he could never just let stuff like that lie. He always had to respond. Said he couldn’t let people besmirch your honor or something like that.” He paused. “Are you going to read it or just stare at me?”
Steve looked back to the screen and began to read out loud.
Steve finished reading, his voice hoarse by the end. He looked up at Clint in confusion. “Coulson wrote this?”
“Sometimes I think he was actually a bigger fan of Bucky than he was you,” Clint said with a shrug. “He used to say that Captain America was an ideal, someone no one else could actually be, but that supporting a hero, being the guy in the shadows, that was something he could do.”
Sometimes Phil had looked at Clint the same way he’d looked at Captain America—as if Clint was somehow larger-than-life, a superhero. And Clint knew that in those moments Phil had thought himself lucky to be Clint’s Bucky.
Phil had never understood that he was Clint’s hero.
Steve was silent, staring at the phone as if reading over Phil’s words again. Then he said, “Coulson was a hero.”
Clint’s head snapped up.
“’To say Clint Barton caused Coulson’s death is to sully the good name of Philip, ah, Philip J. Coul…’”
“James.”
“’Philip James Coulson. It’s to deny him personhood, to make him less than you or me, merely a buoy stuck in the wake of Hawkeye.’” Steve looked up from the phone and to Clint.
“He was talking about Bucky and you, not me and him,” Clint said with a shrug.
“And how is it different?”
“Because you weren’t married to Bucky Barnes,” Clint answered, because dammit, it was all the difference in the world. Phil hadn’t just been Clint’s brother-in-arms. He’d been his rock, the only solid thing in his entire fucking life. He had done everything for Clint, and Clint had repaid him by not fucking being there when Phil needed him.
“Oh….oh.” It was like a light bulb flicked on in Cap’s head. “You were married?”
“Since 2008,” Clint said, and he pulled at the chain he always wore around his neck. Instead of just his white gold ring it had both his ring and Phil’s gold one.
“I didn’t know,” Steve said, and he sounded genuinely apologetic, as if somehow he should’ve known despite the fact Cap hadn’t known either of them very well. “I’m sorry.”
Clint shrugged.
“It still doesn’t change Coulson’s point,” Steve said. “Tell me, Clint, in all the time you were married to Coulson, in all the time you knew him—did he ever lie to you?”
“All the fucking time,” Clint said with an amused smile. “He was a spy. He had cover stories for his cover stories.” To be fair, Phil was more of a lie by omission sort of a guy, but still, the point held. A lie was a lie.
Steve didn’t seem to know what to do with that for a moment. “Well, did he ever lead you astray?”
“No,” Clint admitted. “Never.”
Steve nodded, looking back down at the phone and then up at Clint. “Well, then let’s make a deal, you and me.”
“A deal? What sort of deal?” Clint asked, naturally suspicious.
Steve handed Clint’s phone back to him and said, “I’ll try not to blame myself for Bucky’s death if you try not to blame yourself for Coulson’s. And if I feel myself slipping into self-blame, I’ll call you and you can set me right just like Coulson set right these…trolls?”
“Yeah, trolls.” Clint couldn’t help a small smile.
“And if you’re feeling guilty about Coulson, you call me,” Steve said firmly. “And I’ll remind you that Coulson was a man who did his duty to you, to SHIELD, and to this world, and he thought taking on Loki was the best way to secure all of those things—and he died not a sidekick, but as a hero. Deal?” Steve stuck out his hand.
Clint nodded, tears burning his eyes, managed to say, “Deal,” and then shook Captain America’s hand.
And all he could think was that Phil would die if he could see Steve and Clint bonding.
That is, if he hadn’t already been dead.