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In the hospital room, Captain America is sleeping.
He's been at SHIELD's ground-level New York office for five days. The office isn't equipped to handle medical, but this was deemed the safest place, so here he is, with a jury-rigged hospital room that used to be an interrogation room.
There's a lot going on that Coulson's not privy to, not yet, but he knows that Fury's playing a long game, like always, kowtowing to little idiots who have a so-called plan to control the Captain, letting things run their course. Someone's going to get spanked when the Captain wakes up, and it's not going to be Fury.
Coulson sits on the other side of the glass, in the observation room, and watches. Steve Rogers is more handsome than he looked in the comics.
The door opens, and Coulson pretty much knew this was coming; what he doesn't know is whether Clint came here on his own, or Fury sent him. Clint settles next to him on the bench, bow propped between his legs, chin on his palms resting lightly on top of the bow.
"He's not waking up in there, you know," Clint says. "He's in a medically induced coma."
"I know," Coulson replies.
"You've been here a lot."
"I know this, too."
Clint tilts his head to eyeball him. Coulson has been eyeballed by much more imposing men than Clint Barton, though most of them probably didn't have Clint's body count.
"You should sleep," he says quietly.
"I'm sleeping fine," Coulson replies.
"Something's coming, isn't it?"
"Something's always coming."
"Then you should sleep."
"I sleep every night. It's a habit I've developed over the years."
"All these powers popping up..." Clint shakes his head. "Stark with his robot suit, Vankov with his robot suit, that clusterfuck in New Mexico, Natasha's running a pool on when we haul in Banner, and now Selvig's starting to solve the big blue Rubik's Cube. Something's coming. Gonna be ugly."
"That your big picture?"
Clint grins at him a little. "Indeed it is, sir. I get up high, I see it all."
"Why aren't you up high at your assignment?"
"I'm on leave. Fury called me in to make sure you weren't crazy."
Well, that answers that question.
"He thinks you're brooding, sir."
"Where do I fit into your big picture?" Coulson asks.
"At the heart of it, sir. Always." Clint knocks his shoulder against Coulson's. "I'm not as worried as he is, but it isn't healthy. Even for you. There's work out there to be doing, and you do it, and you come in here at the end of the day and just...watch him? Is there something Fury should know?" he pauses. "Something I should know?"
The division is a delicate one; can he report this to Fury? And, if he can't, can Coulson tell him, just him? They must both be worried. Which is ridiculous; this isn't affecting his job or his health, it's just where he comes at the end of the day.
Coulson rests his elbows on his knees, tapping his steepled fingers against his lips.
"I was a scrawny kid," he says, and Clint composes himself to listen. "Used to get beat up in school. Little kid with a smart mouth."
"You, sir? Never."
"Well, not as smart as some," Coulson says, and Clint salutes. "I loved Captain America. Loved him. He was a scrawny kid too, and he got to be different. I used to wish someone would come along and recruit me and make me into a supersoldier."
"You're a big guy, boss. You can hold your own. Half of SHIELD is scared as shit of you."
"Now, yes." Coulson exhales, not quite a sigh. "When I was twelve I figured out nobody was going to hand me power in a syringe, so I gave up wishing. I started fighting back. If Steve Rogers could take his licks and get back up, I could. Stopped mattering when I hit a growth spurt."
"I bet."
Coulson holds up a hand, waggling his fingers, and an old white scar across his knuckles catches the light. "That's where I knocked Bob Mulligan's bottom teeth in."
"Bully?"
"King of bullies. He came after me with a knife a week later. So I knocked his top teeth in too."
Clint whistles low.
"When I got to be sixteen I realized this country..." Coulson shakes his head. "This country is...not what I wanted it to be, what I thought it was. But if Captain America could still have faith in it, I guessed I could. You know, do what I had to, to make it better. Could have joined Peace Corps, decided on the Army instead. When I enlisted, I got through boot camp because if Steve Rogers could, I could. I didn't believe in the war we were fighting but I fought anyway and I tried to be the best person I could be. Kept the other guys orderly. Nobody from my outfit ever stepped out of line. We did what we could to make things better, not worse. When things got fucked up, I asked what Captain America would do, and I did that, and I got out alive."
Clint's eyebrows rise at the profanity. Coulson doesn't often swear.
"We don't always do good things here, but we do necessary things. I try to do them with courtesy, I try to be respectful and polite. I believe that we do more good than harm, which is important to me. I've spent my entire life trying to live up to him," Coulson said softly. "Trying to be good in a world that is not good, trying to be strong when I wasn't, trying not to be a bully when I was strong. I'm not an idiot, Clint, I know how to separate myth and truth. He was still a genuinely good man even when you sift out the stories from the reality. But he's lying there and he's only a man and I didn't ever think the reason I did half of the insane things I've done would show up alive."
He glances at Clint, who looks amused.
"What?"
"Welcome to how the rest of us feel," Clint says.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I work with the guy I'm trying to live up to," Clint tells him, and Coulson gives him a confused look. "Most of us, if we're lucky, have to put up with the fact that our role model is standing right there, ready to tell us whether we managed it or not. I have."
"Clint -- "
"No, look, I'm just saying. It's stupid hard, especially when we don't do as well as we should, but we're used to having you around. You know us. We know your judgment is sound and we trust it. That guy in there doesn't know you from a hole in the ground so he doesn't matter, not yet. When he does, if he doesn't approve, he's a moron. That's all." Clint turns back to look at the man on the hospital bed. "When are they waking him up?"
"Tomorrow. The psychs have a whole song and dance faked up."
"Yeah, I heard about that. Think he'll buy it?"
"My Cap wouldn't."
"Guess we'll see." Clint stands, shouldering his bow. "I should go report to Fury."
"Please tell him I'm not crazy."
"I think he knows. Hey, good reality check. We should do this more often, bonding over the unconscious bodies of other people."
"Clint," Coulson calls, when Clint is at the door. "I have never, ever not been proud of you."
Clint smiles. "That's very Captain America of you, sir."
"It's true."
"I know. That's what makes you so damn hard to live up to," Clint says with a shrug. "Worth trying, though."
When he's gone, Coulson stands and goes to the observation glass, pressing one hand against it.
"You'd better be worth trying for," he says quietly. "If I find out you're a dick, I'm going to need therapy for years."
Captain America doesn't reply.
"No pressure," he adds. "See you when you wake up."
In the hospital room, Phil Coulson is sleeping.
"Nick Fury's a dick," Clint says into the silence.
Steve nods. Clint's been quiet since they arrived, four hours ago; Natasha went off to make sure Coulson's security access is reinstated, Stark stormed off to pick a fight with someone, and Bruce went to talk to the doctors and see what he could find out. Clint and Steve have just been sitting there, watching, in uncomfortable chairs.
Steve has essentially been waiting for this, because while he doesn't know this young man very well, he knows people.
"I mean, I get it, I do," Clint continues, "and God knows I have no right to even fucking be here -- "
"Clint," Steve says sternly.
"Come on, man, don't give me that sunshine."
"You were a prisoner under coercion."
"Thank you for not saying victim."
"Any more lip out of you on this topic and my hand to God you will regret it," Steve says.
Clint stares at him for a moment, really the first time he's made eye contact with anyone since the battle, and then he looks down and laughs.
"I didn't think you could possibly be as good as Coulson thought you were," he says. "Turns out you actually are just that fucking heroic."
"No. I just don't mind feeling the pinch for doing what's right," Steve replies. "Easier to do when you can sock anyone in the room through a wall, true, but it's not that hard in general." He turns back to look at Coulson. "Seems like he felt the same. And it's a lot harder these days to know what's right."
"I dunno. Seems like it was pretty obvious when we were smashing alien heads in."
"Maybe."
"Maybe?"
"Well, we were the only ones who could, so we did," Steve admits. "But we were just cleaning up a mess we made in the first place. A mess SHIELD made, anyway, and I threw my lot in with SHIELD, so I'm not blameless."
"Phase II?" Clint asks. Steve glances at him. "The mess. Phase II?"
"Not where it started, but where it ended up," Steve agrees. "I'm not sure how to reconcile all of that."
Clint knots his fingers together, looking down at them. "Coulson told me he just wanted to do more good than harm."
They sit in silence for another few minutes, until Clint inhaled to speak.
"You're his idol, you know."
"I did get that impression," Steve replies.
"I mean, since he was a kid. And he turned out pretty well, so you can be proud of him."
Steve looks over at Clint, and he isn't sure why it should be so important that some stranger Phil Coulson barely really knows is proud of him. He's not actually the man Coulson looked up to, whoever that man was; he's just Steve, doing the best he can.
Honestly, in that sense, it's probably pretty easy. Hard to fall off a pedestal you were only on by proxy.
"I'd be proud of any man who did what he did," he answers. "But that's a pretty heavy responsibility I didn't ask for."
"You don't ask for it. You just get it if you deserve it," Clint says. "Besides, you've got pretty wide shoulders. I don't see it being a problem."
"No," Steve replies. He watches Coulson's body struggle for every breath, stares at the bandages on his chest. "I don't suppose it is." He stands to leave. "I'm going to get dinner. Coming?"
"No, I'll stay."
"Call us when he's up."
"Ten four," Clint says, and gives him an only slightly sardonic salute. Steve is almost through the door when he pauses.
"Hey," he says, and Clint looks up. "It was a hell of a fight, and I know you had other...things going on. You did good work. It was a pleasure to fight with you."
Clint's smile is a little wider than perhaps it should be, but it's nice to see. "Thanks, Cap."