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It was getting dark. The sky was covered by clouds, which prevented the sunset from being seen, even though Will knew it was that time of the day. The perfect time for armed robbery. And he also had a perfect target. Grasping his gun firmly in his right hand, he followed the man in a black suit, as he was walking under the dim lights of the alley. There was nobody else in sight.
Will didn't know why this man was walking alone in this part of the city, but he wasn't the philosophical type. Maybe the man was heading to his car. That would be it. He didn't look like someone who'd like to be walking long distances. Will estimated him to be a banker, or a manager of some company. A brown-haired middle-aged man with a receding hairline, not very tall, earbuds in his ears. His suit was fitting perfectly, though, obviously tailored to his body. Will had an eye for that kind of stuff. This was going to be a successful evening.
He approached the man from the back.
--
Another session of the support group for the people who came back to life, the group Phil Coulson was attending following the advice of Nick Fury, has ended, and he still didn't feel any connection to any of the people he met there. Their situation was maybe similar, but the experience... not very much.
He let out an inaudible sigh.
He wasn't very happy, and not even the famous "Sing, Sing, Sing" by Benny Goodman, which he was blasting through his earbuds at the moment, didn't help him to lighten his mood. He loved big band music, it reminded him of the times he never got to experience. He always idolized those old times. They reminded him of Steve Rogers, too, and the thought of Captain America had his heart racing.
Phil was tired, yet he didn't feel any fatigue. It was strange, since he didn't sleep even a single minute ever since he got resurrected by that strange black stone, which plunged itself into his empty, skeletal rib cage, growing his flesh back, bringing him back to the land of living.... The Death Stone, seventh of the Infinity Stones. He could feel its cold presence inside his chest, and it made him feel as empty as if he would still be just a skeleton. What kind of life was this? The pulse of power radiating from the stone made him feel like a machine, animated to fulfill the will of something... something more powerful than he'd ever be, something that caused him to split into a hundred versions of himself every minute of his existence, scattered all over the world.
("-do you prefer death by burning alive in the atmosphere, or by choking to death in space?" Phil asked after he blasted a hole in a space station by accident and he was pulled out by decompression together with Nick Fury, both clinging on a piece of cable to stay together in their last moments. "I prefer being talked to death by Phil Coulson," Fury answered. But they didn't die there, even though he brought home a souvenir... a case of PTSD that took him a whole lot of time to overcome. It was only much later that he was actually killed, and by Deadpool of all people. Wait. Why was he fixating on the topic of death again?)
Oh yes. His duty. No wonder he became so obsessed with death, he WAS Death, and attending to over a hundred dying people every minute... being split into over a hundred selves... even as he walked down this depressing, dim lit alley... it was quite the strain on his brain. Phil was overloaded. So many deaths, some different, some similar, but all of them inevitable. Elderly, adults, kids, even babies...
To force the agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., the protector, the fighter for the lives of the others, to endure watching people die, to categorize, process, let go, and move to the next one in the line... If the universe had a sense of humor, this was its prank.
Nick Fury said this power was never meant for a mortal, and he was right.
Lost in his thoughts and the music, Phil noticed the armed man only after he grabbed his shoulder, forcefully turned him around and stuck a gun into his face.
"Hand over your wallet, and quick!" the guy snarled, staring him in the eye. Seriously... a robber? Phil measured the masked guy with his gaze. He really wasn't in the mood for a robber. With the S.H.I.E.L.D. training he had, he would be able to slam the guy to the ground without even tapping into the death powers he gained with the stone. But he wasn't in the mood for that either. The guy deserved a different lesson, one that was more impactful than being beaten up by a middle-aged man in a business suit.
"I don't think that's going to happen. Just put the gun down," he said, his voice kind and devoid of any threat. Then he smiled, just a bit. Smile is a valuable tool. Phil was certain he heard that phrase somewhere, even though he wasn't sure where.
--
What is he doing? Will thought. He had the man at gunpoint, and the man's reaction didn't correspond to the situation at all. He clearly knew something that the young robber didn't, but what was it? He didn't look like one of the superheroes. Will was cautious enough to not cross his paths with known superpowered people.
"Or what?! What are you going to do?" he asked, his voice harsh and demanding. He felt like he was losing upper hand in the situation, and he hated that feeling.
"It's more about... what YOU are going to do," the man answered. Will noticed there was a small skull pin on the man's well-fitting jacket, and then his world broke into pieces.
The man's eyes went black, completely devoid of all light, like open sockets full of dark matter. And then his face started to transform. Skin disappeared, leaving only red flesh in its place, then that started to vanish too, until the man's head was only a white skull, shining in the dim alley. His suit turned into black rags, and he... reached out his right, now skeletal hand to grab a scythe which materialized out of thin air by his side.
Will yelped.
It was a short sound, but it was packed with emotions. He dropped his gun, stumbled back a few steps before turning around and running away as fast as he could.
He had seen Death, and he knew his life wouldn't be the same again.
--
Phil watched as the robber disappeared behind a building. After the man left, he slowly regained his human form, aware how gruesome it must look for a skeleton to grow flesh on its bones. After the rags morphed back into his elegant suit, he raised his hand and fastened his tie. Not that it needed to be fastened. It was just a little habit he picked up.
"This wasn't half bad," he muttered and resumed his stroll. He was feeling a bit better.
This state of "feeling a bit better" lasted less than two days.
--
"What happened?"
Sergeant Cameron was looking at the young man's corpse, lying on the floor of the prison cell. He was pale, his neck bruised, and next to him, there was a makeshift rope, apparently made from torn-up bed sheet tied together in several knots. Someone had already released him from his noose, maybe one of the medics they called to try to save him.
"His name was Will Johnson. The guy turned himself in two days ago. He was in prison before, several times. He didn't seem to learn from his time there, though."
"What was he in for?"
"Mostly armed robberies. He was choosing targets he assumed to be easy picks. Though, he teamed up with some thugs once to rob a bank. An employee triggered the alarm and Will's associates fled while leaving him in the bank to get arrested. I guess he didn't have much luck in life."
"That doesn't excuse a bank robbery attempt," Cameron frowned, "but why did he turn himself in?"
"That's the weird thing. He stormed into the police station, almost as pale as he's right now, saying that he assaulted a man... of course we handcuffed him. He kept going on about how he saw Death and that he felt that his life was ending soon. He begged us to put him in jail..."
"Any drugs? Hallucinogens?"
"We tested him. None, he was clean."
Sergeant Cameron rubbed her forehead. The only thing that was clear was that Will was terrified to death... and he hanged himself two days later.
Only a few hours before this conversation happened, as the young robber swung down from the bunk he was standing on and choked to death, there was someone else standing in the cell, and he was terrified as well. His name was Phil Coulson, now also known as Death.
--
Will was feeling numb. He saw himself, hanging on the makeshift rope, and at the same time he stood here. He looked around and rubbed his neck. The pain and the choking sensation he experienced seconds ago was gone, but that was more concerning than if he would still feel those. Was he... Was this... The words were failing him.
"Cause of death: Suffocation. Not too pleasant, is it," someone said just outside of his field of vision, "when people were hung as a punishment, they were usually falling down a specific, calculated distance, which led to their neck being snapped and the death was instant. Starting in 1872, they actually counted the distance of the fall separately for every... subject... based on their height and body mass. Let them fall too much, and their head flings right off, which would be quite a spectacle, too little, and they would suffer while suffocating instead, like you did. Hanging is an entire science, isn't it..."
Then he paused, as if he realized that giving a hanged man trivia about the history of hanging isn't the most appropriate thing to do.
"Oh. Sorry my friend. I'm new to this job, and I compensate for my own nervousness with rambling. I don't even know where I got all the cool info about the death causes, I must have somehow inherited it from the previous... never mind. Are you ready to go?"
Will knew that voice. It was a unique voice, smooth, pleasant, and it sounded as if it belonged to a man much older than the guy that he encountered in the alley. But it was him. The man who he attempted to rob. The young man turned around and looked the Grim Reaper in the face.
"It's you..." he said.
The moment Will spoke, the skeleton opened its mouth. As much as a skull can convey emotions, this skull looked surprised. Unsettled, even. What can unsettle Death himself?
Will watched as the skeleton turned into a man. The man in a suit, with the little skull pin on his jacket. The middle-aged man with warm brown eyes and receding hairline, a man who looked more like an accountant than the Death personified. A man who was visibly terrified.
--
Even though the robber wore a mask when he encountered him, the voice belonged to him. Phil was sure about it. He looked at the file that materialized in his hand when he appeared here. "William Johnson", he could read in the section just above the cause of his death. Phil didn't know if the previous Death also had files for his or her subjects, or if that was his own twist on the process of guiding souls to the afterlife, inspired by the workings of S.H.I.E.L.D., since the files did resemble the official documents used in the agency. He didn't know how it was possible that his files were filled in with his own handwriting despite him seeing the file for the first time at the moment he got it In his hand.
What he knew was that seeing this particular guy dead felt wrong on so many levels.
"Oh no, no, what have you done to yourself..." Phil muttered, his eyes wide. He refused to believe he might have nudged the man to commit suicide.
He had seen so many deaths. He was actually seeing a few at that very moment. The cycle of life wouldn't stop, no matter how much he wished for it to do so.
"I never wanted it to end this way..." he whispered as the form of Will Johnson slowly evaporated into the afterlife.
No.
It wasn't his fault. It couldn't be! And agent Phil Coulson would do anything to prove it.
--
Phil was sitting in a leather chair in his office. He was staring at the computer screen, searching for more clues. More telepaths. Anyone.
Fury gave him some freedom before he'd go back to action, to adjust to the situation, as he said.
Taking advantage of this freedom, Coulson spent the whole month traveling around. Using standard means of transport, trains, buses, planes... this was his personal operation, not S.H.I.E.L.D.'s. One would think that his power would enable him to go wherever he wanted, but that wasn't quite true. He was able to take care of the deaths, but his form while doing so was invisible to the living, and it faded away once the deceased passed to the other side. So he was left with trains, planes and buses. He didn't trust himself enough to actually drive a car, not now, not when his consciousness was constantly bombarded with experiences that his avatars lived through while tending to the dead.
It didn't matter if he was dead and revived. Phil's knowledge about superheroes and enhanced people, the one that his mind-reading fake ex Lola pulled out of his head for the Axiom protocols to be created, it was still there. A little outdated, perhaps, but that's what computers were for.
And so Phil spent a month questioning telepaths from all over the country. Everyone who he knew could influence the thoughts of a person. S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives with telepathic abilities. Mutants. Inhumans. Telepaths working for A.I.M. And none of them even knew Will Johnson. Or so they said. Phil could see that many of them tried to tamper with his mind as he interrogated them, but it had no effect. Nighthawk's brainwashing machine didn't work on him either... maybe Nighthawk was right, and the Death Stone really fortified his mind against anything that would want to change it.
He was simply interrogating them at first, submitting to the protocols of S.H.I.E.L.D., but as the time passed, and no answers were given, he started to feel like he was losing himself, especially during the last few days.
He was getting impatient. Irritable. Obsessively pursuing his hopes to be right. Because if he wasn't right, what kind of person would that make him?
As he was sitting in his chair, the door to the office opened with a loud bang. Phil barely noticed the figure approaching him. His attention was miserable from the sensory overload he was constantly experiencing ever since his powers awakened and his Grim Reaper duty began. It was only when Nick Fury grabbed him, that he realized that his friend was in the room.
"Dammit, Cheese! What do you think you are doing?! This... crusade has to stop," Fury said and looked into his two eyes with his only one. He released the collar of Phil's shirt which he was holding to pull his friend's face closer, and threw a series of photos on the desk next to the keyboard.
"You are clearly crossing the line here, agent. And you didn't even try to cover your tracks. What did you think would happen?"
Phil looked at the photos. According to the data present on the pictures, they were snapshots from security cameras, taken yesterday evening and today's morning. It was him. They were showing two different subjects, but otherwise, they were strikingly similar. Phil Coulson towering over a person who was lying helpless on the ground, and from his hands, there was dark energy flowing, the kind of energy which was difficult even to capture on camera. Look at one of the photos, and you have seen them all. Coulson sighed.
"I'm... I'm not a bad person, Nick!" he exclaimed, looking at his superior with the expression of a beaten dog, his hand covering the photos, as if it would nullify the evidence of his frenzy.
"I know you aren't, Cheese... but you need to stop this. Even you don't believe that someone changed that guy's mind, do you? It was unfortunate... but there's nothing you can do about it. You can only learn, right? You are new to this, and you couldn't expect that reaction. Damn, even I wouldn't expect it."
Phil raised his head and looked Nick Fury in the face.
"That guy's name was William. I'm sorry, Nick," he said and his eyes became void, "but there are still some people I didn't interrogate yet."
Fury reacted immediately, as if he'd knew things could go this way. He leaped towards Phil and knocked the table to the side, trying to get behind his friend and immobilize him. Nick was a way better fighter, and Phil was permanently distracted by his own omnipresence, not to mention that he didn't want to hurt his friend... but at the end, he did.
He released the beam of black energy from his hand, and as it collided with Nick Fury, the man screamed in pain. Phil hesitated. Was this really what he wanted? He looked at Fury, who was just starting to move again, and fled through the office door.
--
Nick Fury was... he wouldn't say furious, but certainly disappointed. Also, he was in pain. Attacked by his best friend. And he was also unsure what to do. He knew that Phil didn't mean for things to get out of hand like this, but his friend wasn't thinking straight. From what Fury gathered, Phil was not only really powerful now, he also had to guide people to the afterlife at least freaking 100 times per minute, and it was all pumped back to his, maybe above average, but still human brain. Fury couldn't even imagine how that felt. But he had a plan... at least he hoped it would work. But first, he had to stop his agent from escaping in a damn quinjet. What was he thinking? He wasn't even a trained pilot, Jesus Christ...
Fury ran to the area from which the quinjet was starting, grabbing one of the handheld rocket-launchers as he rushed through the base.
"Sorry, Cheese," he said, aiming at the aircraft, "but you need help, even if you don't want it." As the quinjet raised to the sky, it was immediately struck down by two missiles. It hit the ground with a rumble that alerted everyone on the base. Fury didn't want this to become a public spectacle, but it seemed inevitable at this point. Agents started swarming the area around the damaged aircraft, and even though Fury told them to dissolve, most of them gave him looks that demanded explanation.
--
Phil had awakened in the holding cell. His head hurt, and he wasn't sure how he got there. At first, he freaked out. How many deaths were left unattended, just because someone thought rendering him unconscious was a good idea? Then it slowly came to him. The nonsensical death of William Johnson. And his... psychotic pursuit of the one last idea that could mean that he wasn't a bad person. And this pursuit... made him ten times worse than he would be if he made peace with his failure. He knew that now. Then he realized that he wasn't alone in his cell. There was Steve Rogers, sitting in a chair across the cell. He wore a simple white t-shirt with a tiny S.H.I.E.L.D. logo on the sleeve, and torn jeans.
Freaking Steve Rogers!
Phil sat up and rubbed his forehead, which was pounding as if his head was full of goblins hitting the inside of his skull with vibranium hammers. And there was Captain America in his cell. That was another thing to process. Phil couldn't speak, and he couldn't even look him in the eyes. So he waited. And then Steve spoke.
"I talked with Blade," he said, and Phil wasn't sure why he said it.
"Remember what Nighthawk told you about the alternate universe that he wanted to bring back? Well, Blade remembers that universe as well. And the things he remembers... things about you.. would cause any person not to sleep ever again."
"I can't sleep anymore anyway, because people die 24 hours a day," Phil remarked, half-joking about his situation, "I can handle it."
"Anyway..."
Steve told Phil everything he knew from Blade. About Phil's first resurrection by Mephisto, and about how he came back wrong, about all his crimes and about his ultimate defeat.
"I know you don't remember it, the same way we don't, but... it was you. Not some demonic impostor. You have that in yourself, it's a part of you, the same way Axiom protocols are part of you, the result of your own, personal mistrust of everyone around you. You figured out how to defeat every superhero on the planet. And that's... well... impressive would be an understatement. But tell me Phil. How far is that from actually... becoming the one who brings them down?"
"I..." Phil didn't know what to answer. He had flashbacks of himself, getting flustered when Captain America spoke to him for the first time when he was a young agent. Yet he still made a detailed plan on how to proceed with his defeat. And in light of the recent events, how close he came to becoming the monster from Blade's memories?
"I don't.. know..." he shook his head violently.
Steve didn't want to be this blunt and it hurt him to see the expression on Phil's face as he heard all that stuff, but Fury believed that this was the best way to get his friend back on track. To make him accept his nature. It took a lot of arguing before Fury convinced Steve that telling Phil all those horrible things would benefit him in the long run. That, and Fury also told him what would happen if he wouldn't succeed.
He raised from his chair, and sat on the bunk beside the agent. It was rare for Steve to feel nervous around someone, but Phil showed what he was capable of, how unstable he was, and they had no means of restricting his power. He did his best not to show that this man, curled in a ball on the bunk in the holding cell, was scaring him.
"I know you are a good man, Phil. The fact that you are horrified right now confirms it. You have a moral compass, you know what's right and what's wrong. You are a good man... and a good friend. To me, to Fury..."
Phil twitched.
"Is Nick okay?" he asked.
" He got up and shot your quinjet down with a missile. What do you think?" Steve smiled, and it was such a contagious smile, that Phil had to smile with him.
But Steve got suddenly serious, and looked at the agent.
"Please just remember this," he continued, "you have been under a lot of pressure, and your judgment has been clouded. But that part didn't change with us knocking you out, you still hold the powers that are not meant for you. You will have a problem if you don't address that, and you will have a problem if you won't learn to be kind and understanding to yourself. Right now, you are equipped to go both ways. So follow your compass, and pick the right path. You have had difficulties in the past, and it will be hard to stay on track because of who you have been and who you could have been, I know that... But I would never forgive myself if you'd become twisted and evil like in that alternate universe we forgot about, Phil. You need to keep fighting for all the good you have inside of you, and I know there's a lot of it."
Phil looked at Steve. He could feel his eyes sting from the tears, and he let them go, hugging his childhood idol and sobbing, just crying and crying, and he couldn't stop. It was too much for him. Being revived as a tool with a single purpose, being constantly distracted, with no sleep, nothing that would help him to keep his humanity...
He felt Steve's arms wrap around his body, and he suddenly felt purified. This man was here for him now, the man who he always adored, who inspired him to try and fight his own battles to save innocent people, to save everyone he could. It didn't matter that he thought of all that stuff, the Axiom protocols, his deepest desire was to help others. And so Phil latched his thoughts on that. On the fact that even though he was never a superhero, his extensive knowledge and understanding of the capabilities of others were his best, if not only, weapons that mattered among demons, aliens and gods. On the thought that he was always ready to give his best, to lead others to victory, using his knowledge not to hurt and destroy, but to pick the best people for the job, knowing how they worked together, damn, even being able to give them advice on how to improve in using their own powers.
Until now.
Phil clenched his teeth.
Everything he thought about just seconds ago collapsed like a house made of cards. He had actual superpowers now, and he didn't use them to save lives, he went against his moral compass and nearly lost himself in the process... They say that with great power, there comes great responsibility. It was great insanity in his case. His duality was killing him. What Steve said shook the very fundamentals of who he considered himself to be. But from Steve, he could accept the truth. He knew Steve was right.
"I never wanted to hurt anyone," he cried, "anyone at all, but I did... I have been compromised... I can't work in S.H.I.E.L.D. like this! I'm a liability, Steve... I'm dangerous. And with my mind bouncing and distracted like this.. I can't even focus on what I was the best at, the tactics..."
He clung on to Steve as if he wished that he'd oppose him. S.H.I.E.L.D. was everything he lived for... And everything he died for as well. Steve knew that, yet... He stroked the agent's hair, and he was silent for a bit. Then he spoke.
"I talked with Nick Fury before I came here, and well.. he came to the same conclusion. I'm so sorry, Phil."
Coulson's eyes filled with tears again, just as he thought he had finally stopped crying. But there was something strangely soothing about letting the tears out. It felt the same way as when he released his deadly energy for the first time, punishing Nighthawk for trying to brainwash him, and for hurting Nick. And so he cried, and his tears soaked into Steve's shirt.
"But don't worry," Steve continued, and Coulson raised his head.
"There's a place where you'll fit right in, even in your current state. And they desperately need someone to set them straight. I'm sure that you can reinvent yourself in helping them find their own path."
"You mean the Infinity Watch?" Phil asked.
"Yep. I also heard they are building a secret base on a tropical island!"
"How do you know that, if it's a secret?"
"You know the best that S.H.I.E.L.D. has intel about everything," Steve said.
Phil let out an unhappy laugh. He knew what Steve was trying to do. He was trying to make him see the better side of things. But strangely, when it was Steve who did that, however... cheesy... it was, it seemed to actually work. Phil couldn't help but wonder if this was the reason why they put Steve in his cell. He could listen to Steve's reasoning without putting up a fight against reality, and it was only Steve who could influence him like this.
If it was him, in charge of the situation, he would evaluate the potential outcome and the mental state of the subject, and he would do the same thing, to use his idol to get under his skin and after all that, to calm him down. He knew it was calculating, but that's how he was, that's what made him the best tactical support in the agency. Well, not anymore. Today, he was "the subject", and he knew it was Nick Fury who orchestrated this. Nick Fury was good. But Phil was doing this for years.
And it was time to stop. It wasn't easy to get rid of his paranoid nature, and he certainly couldn't do it straight away, but he decided to convince himself that Steve was here because he cared about him. Because they were friends....
"I think you are right. I will miss you guys, but life changes... especially when you die."
"You are still welcome to visit," Steve remarked. Phil lowered his head.
"Did Nick tell you that? Because we aren't boy scouts, this is a secret spy organization, and once you fall off the loop, once you cease to be an agent, you aren't included in its secrets anymore. It's for the good of the individual and the organization alike."
"For him, you are special," Steve said, and looked up. He raised one hand and showed a thumbs-up to the camera. A green light lit up on the screen outside of the holding cell.
"I think the matter had been cleared up now," he continued, still holding Phil Coulson, the former agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., in his arms, "pull yourself together. It's time to leave this cell. You aren't considered a threat anymore."
For a bit, Phil wondered what would happen if they didn't talk it through and he would still be considered dangerous. But he decided to ignore that thought, and relaxed in the arms of Captain America, the true hero. His hero.
"Give me a few more moments," he murmured. He wanted to be forever on this bunk, hugging Steve, and he didn't care that their shirts were soaked in his tears.
--
It took a few days to arrange everything necessary. Phil gave his badge to Fury, which caused a sensation of unreality, like it was all just a dream and he would wake up, still in his bed on the base, with his badge sitting on the nightstand, his mind steady, capable, practical, ready for action. But he didn't wake up. Since the moment he gave away his badge, he was a guest. He didn't belong here anymore. He walked through the corridor and felt the eyes of the agents, staring at him wherever he moved. He didn't even recognize some of the younger faces, they must have joined while he was dead. So weird to think about that.
Fury kept Phil's "condition" a secret, of course he did, but the agents weren't stupid. They knew that he had risen from the dead, and ever since he got shot from the sky by Fury himself, a lot of gossip was spreading through the ranks. Some "good soul" leaked the security camera snapshots to the agents with lower clearance levels. The perpetrator was found and punished, but the damage had already been done. The entirety of S.H.I.E.L.D. now knew what the former agent Coulson did to the telepaths he was hunting. They saw he wasn't an ordinary man anymore. Some claimed he went insane, and that he was going straight to the Ravencroft Asylum after he'd left the base. Others speculated that the thing that brought him to life was failing, and he was retiring simply because he was about to die again.
In any case, he didn't feel quite comfortable as he walked to the meeting room. He was told some people were waiting for him together with Nick Fury. He paused in front of the room, gulped, and opened the door.
"Phil! Phil Coulson! The man, the myth, the legend!" several giddy voices called out as he stepped into the meeting room. He looked at all the familiar faces, and a smile settled on his lips. They were here.
"You don't need to be so dramatic," he tried to deflect their call. It was quite over-the-top, and he felt a bit awkward, but that was okay. He was with his team now, they had been through a lot together.
He passed by Nick Fury, who stood close to the door, and looked at the people sitting in the chairs next to the tables, filled with snacks. Some of them had plastic cups with various beverages, some were chatting, some looked at him and smiled.
There was May, a bit on the side, looking at him. He waved at her, and she waved back. She didn't smile, but that was May. She was smiling on the inside.
Fitz sat nearby with Simmons. She was already adjusted to the robotic additions from Project Deathlok that saved her life, and she looked very comfortable as she sipped something from a steaming cup. Phil concluded it had to be black tea.
The actual Deathlok, Henry Hayes, sat beside them and chatted with Simmons about something that got lost in the chatter filling the room.
Phil scanned the room for the others. There was Daisy, and Bobbi "Mockingbird" Morse, and several others with whom he wasn't as close as to his team, but who seemed to be happy to see him again.
A bit on the side, there stood Maria Hill and, to his surprise, Clint Barton, holding a big jug of beer.
Phil greeted them, and moved to the table where Fitz, Simmons and Henry sat.
"Hey guys," he said. He was so glad to be there, that even his omnipresence didn't bother him as much as it usually did.
"Nice suit," Fitz said. Phil's suits didn't usually fit too well, but his one did.
"Is this the newest fashion?" the British gadgeteer pointed at the small skull on his jacket's lapel.
"It's... more of a symbol of my function. I made it myself," Phil smiled.
"You made the skull pin?"
"I made EVERYTHING that I'm wearing right now," Phil continued to grin, and paused to let that sink in. Jemma looked at Fitz, and giggled. He had the most derpy expression on his face, as he pointed his finger on Phil. This was why Coulson liked Fitz so much, he was hilarious in his attempts to give scientifically plausible explanation to the mystical elments around him.
"Are you serious? Did you learn how to sew perfect suits while in the grave?"
"Stop it," Jemma slapped Fitz's knee, but she wasn't angry.
"Ouch. What did I do now, Jemma?" Fitz grumbled.
"They didn't tell you?" Phil asked, raising one eyebrow.
"I know the Death Stone brought you back, but I don't have any details. I just saw the camera snapshots. Some sort of energy projection."
Phil sighed. "Literally everyone saw the snapshots at this point, didn't they," he said and hid his face in his hands in the gesture of desperation.
"Hey. Hey Phil, look at me," Fitz put his hand on the former agent's shoulder, "we saw it. Everyone here did. But we are still here, aren't we? We didn't turn our backs to you just because you lost your way for a moment."
"More than a moment," Phil murmured, deciding not to point out that Fitz just called him Phil. He was not his superior anymore.
"This is a party in your honor. I don't know exactly what's happening, where you are going or what happened to you in that cemetery in Wisconsin, but Fury called us, telling us that you are leaving S.H.I.E.L.D., and we came here to say goodbye, because we respect you. I respect you, Coulson. I always will," Fitz added, and then gave another look to his suit.
"Now please, tell me how you made your clothes," he said, and grabbed the edge of his jacket, "it looks like a regular cloth. Tell me you aren't pulling my leg."
Phil smiled, and raised his right hand. In a moment, it lost its flesh and the sleeve turned into black rags. Fitz's expression was priceless.
"Look at you go! You're one of us freaks now!" Daisy exclaimed, which drawn the attention of the entire room to Coulson. Someone started clapping, and Phil laughed. He grabbed the cup with his skeleton hand and raised it all the way up, causing most of the people to raise theirs in a collective "cheers". They truly weren't unsettled by his presence, and he appreciated that. They had seen the strangest things while on the missions together, and they were glad he was back. Their Coulson was back. He might be a freak now, but he was THEIR freak. He felt it in the air. It was the goodbye, this gathering, but he'll stay with them in mind and spirit, until they die and he'll have the honor to take them to the other side. That thought was supposed to be depressing, but Phil didn't feel that way. He was here now. He will take care of his team, the best way he can now.
"I can turn into a skeleton," Phil said, "a freaking Grim Reaper, Fitz. And that isn't everything..."
He explained to the startled Brit the actual nature of his duty as the incarnation of Death.
"But that's horrible... and scientifically impossible... seriously, afterlife? And how does your brain even process that? How do you even handle that much information at once?"
"I don't," Phil joked, and then added, "no, no, I think the Death Stone is the only reason my brain didn't explode yet. That thing is really powerful.
"And you don't sleep."
"Nope. At all," Phil nodded.
"And you use FILES to record the deceased. I won't even ask how that works, or it will be MY brain that you'll be sweeping off the ceiling."
"They actually resemble the files that I use... that I used to use during my time in S.H.I.E.L.D." Phil still couldn't accept that his time in the organization came to an end.
Fitz looked at him. Despite the power that the stone lent him, he didn't look fresh at all. He had dark circles under his eyes, and his posture was a bit slumped, in stark contrast to the energetic and capable Coulson he used to know.
"Honestly? If I was in your place, I'd rather die," Fitz said, and it earned him a nasty glare from Jemma and Henry.
"I am not even sure if I can..." Phil started, but then just added: "Death is overrated. Trust me, I've been dead for long enough to know that."
--
It was a nice evening. Aside from Fitz's group, Phil talked to all of the other people in the meeting room, and everyone was so encouraging, that he almost felt like a fraud. At the end, he stood beside Fury. He looked at his watch.
"It's almost time, isn't it," he said, looking at his best friend. Fury nodded.
"Quantum will be here at any moment," he said. Phil looked at the people scattered across the meeting room.
"I will never forget you guys," he told Fury as the Space Stone bearer appeared in the middle of the room in a flash of blue light. Phil stepped towards him, feeling the Death Stone in his chest increase in power as he approached him. All around him, the cups raised once again.
"Don't forget this, Cheese! S.H.I.E.L.D. teamed up with heroes, it teamed up with villains, and it will surely team up with the Infinity Watch too, sooner or later! We will see each other in no time!" Fury shouted across the room, raising the sounds of agreement from the people present.
One last thing. Phil pulled his earbuds out of his jacket's pocket. The initial drums of "Sing, Sing, Sing" sounded in his ears. For Steve Rogers. For the history of S.H.I.E.L.D. and all its agents.
He smiled as Quantum dragged him through the fabric of space. Destination: The freshly built secret base of the Infinity Watch.
He'll forever stay an agent in his heart. Why would he keep a variation of his old suit and the sunglasses as his "superhero" costume, if that wasn't true? S.H.I.E.L.D. was his family.
He was Death, but he was also the former agent Phil Coulson. And this heritage... nothing could ever erase it.
That's how he'll keep his humanity.
He knew it now.
END