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“I need you to go to Midtown High.”
Phil isn’t quite sure what day it is or how long he’s out when Fury’s voices pulls him out of his lingering dream. There are bandages on his chest and an IV in his arm, that he can feel, as well as the last dregs of something in his system, the fading sluggishness that’s allowing alertness to return to him.
He blinks.
The room is dark, but Phil can make out the outline of the SHIELD Director at the end of the bed. He’s alone, and the absence of the two other familiar presences in the room tell Phil everything he needs to know. If there had been any other choice, this would never have become an option, but at the time the world had been at stake.
“Did we...?”
Fury nods.
“Miss Lewis will be here later to pick you up.”
Phil closes his eyes and relaxes back into his pillows. He thinks he manages a nod somewhere as he starts to drift off again.
--
Darcy brings him a fruit basket when she comes by.
Phil manages a barely-there smile.
--
He dozes off, sometimes, sitting at his desk with school paperwork spread across the desk. Darcy doesn’t wake him when it happens, instead she shuts the door and keeps the nosy kids and occasional teacher out of the office.
The stab-wound on his chest hurts a little less every day, but Phil will never admit to the other type of pain that’s starting to take its place. He dreams about them sometimes, especially on days where Darcy comes back from HQ with quiet reports that Fury never mentions in those encrypted emails he sends about the kids.
The paperwork that usually piles up is an escape from the thoughts of a heartbroken Clint. It’s a price that had to be paid and Phil is aware that when - not if, Stark will find a way through SHIELD’s firewalls - they find out that there is only sealed medical records instead of a death certificate, something will give.
Phil catches sight of the things he’d placed in the box, the little arrowhead-shaped charm that he’d kept in his pocket lying beside his old phone and SHIELD identification card when he pulls open the drawer in search of another pen. He can’t touch these, not yet.
But it’s a tempting notion, to reach for the phone. He could dial Clint’s cell number - the thought occurs to him that he wouldn’t even need to speak because Clint would answer - and listen to the archer for that brief moment.
But he can’t.
Stark will trace it heedless of how many satellites the call pings off. It doesn’t matter if he uses a burner phone either, Stark hacked his way through into the Phase 2 files, and running a trace on a single cell number will be child’s play for him.
There will be time for explanations, this he knows. Clint and Natasha will understand (eventually), even if the anger blinds Clint and breaks his heart, even if Stark and Rogers and Banner don’t.
Phil closes the drawer.
Tomorrow, he quietly promises himself. Tomorrow will be another day.