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“You are watching her again.”
“I am not,” Hawkeye said, ignoring Phillip's words as he focused on the target. He was out here to keep his aim where it needed to be even though he was not fighting anyone now. He had not left court in months, and he hated it, but as soon as he saw the woman his brother had become interested in, he knew that he could not leave. “She is watching me again.”
“You flatter yourself,” Phillip told him, his way of saying you are wrong. “You have become too used to the women around here obsessing over you because Stark is gone, but you are still not that attractive. The woman must have ambitions. She went after your brother with the sort of ruthlessness I have only seen from you in the past.”
Hawkeye glared at him. “No one asked you.”
“No one ever does,” Phillip agreed. “Still, if you thought that this woman was a threat to your brother, why have you allowed her to live?”
Hawkeye pulled back the string and let the arrow fly into the target. “My brother is a threat. You have not asked me why I allow him to live.”
“I do not need to ask,” Phillip said. He looked at Hawkeye, and the archer shook his head when he saw the concerned expression on his face. “Do you like her? Because if you do, this will not end well for you. Either of you.”
“I am not a child.”
“And that is not what I asked.” Phillip shook his head. “I know you, Hawkeye. I know that you have a reason for letting her live.”
“So you think I am in love with my brother's bride?”
“She is pretty.”
“Oh, Phil. You are the one that likes her. You are the one that is jealous. It is a shame she is too ambitious for one humble knight like you, though you are wasted on most of the women at court. I do not know that any of them has a brain besides that lady-in-waiting, and you need someone who will appreciate your love of the mundane,” Hawkeye teased with a smile. “It is a shame you bored that Contessa Maria.”
“Contessa? That woman almost killed both of us because no one thought she was the protection and not the one getting it. I should have known that Fury would try that trick, but he still manages to surprise us even after all these years.”
Hawkeye nodded. Fury had too many tricks, too many informants. He had eluded everyone's agents for too many years. His brother wanted Fury dead, but the ones that the king wanted dead outnumbered the ones he wanted alive.
He reached for another arrow, frowning when he found none in his quiver. “Phillip—”
“You are distracted,” his friend said, holding out an arrow. “You would never have let me do that two weeks ago.”
Hawkeye yanked it from his hand. “It has nothing to do with the woman. I am not jealous.”
“If you say so.” Phillip smiled. “It is a lovely shade of blue she wears today.”
“You are going blind. She is wearing purple. With her hair, that color should be wrong on her, but somehow it is not,” Hawkeye said, frowning as he lined up the arrow.
“Well, purple may look good on her, but green does not suit you.”
“Do not tempt me,” Hawkeye warned him. “I will shoot you.”
“No,” Phillip contradicted quietly. “You will not. I am the only friend you have left.”
The only one left alive. The only one Hawkeye's brother had not killed, though he had tried. He glanced toward the future queen. Her green eyes met his, and he fired the arrow, knowing without looking at the target that it, too, had hit the center. She had better have some training, some kind of skill, some reason for saying she did not fear his brother, because he doubted the king would let her live past their wedding night.
Hawkeye was not jealous. If he cared about the woman at all, he would stop that wedding.
Instead, he would let it happen, and when one of them inevitably ended up dead, he would be there to clean up the mess as he always did.
He was not green.
He was red, red with too much blood, too much war, too much failure. He was his brother's favorite weapon, even as much as the king hated him. He would never atone for the things he had done in service of this kingdom or his failure to see how far into madness his brother had fallen since their youth.
If there was a color for guilt, that was the color he would be.