Work Text:
It had been ten days.
Clint knew because ten scratch marks were dug into the back of the stone. He would mark each day until the stone was a maze that no one knew how to escape, full of dead ends and paths that lead nowhere.
He replaced the flowers, like he always would, and unsheathed an arrow. He stabbed it into the ground, leaving his signature.
With each tally mark on the tomb he added, he would also lose an arrow.
When the arrows ran out, he would leave the team.
He would make tallies until his strength was gone. And then he would stay with Phil, his body the last mark he would make.
--- (ten days prior) ---
Clint had made up his mind, before it had happened. His possession, he unwilling rewrite had made his priorities shuffle. Too much had changed; he couldn’t forget what he had learned. Phil was his home; the place where he could be the most himself, the place that made him better. He couldn’t shutter it now that he knew. He had realized, while he was locked behind ice-blue eyes, that their lives are doomed to be full of pain and hurt and the worst of the worst. This was their lot; this is what they signed up to do. They dealt with it so that the rest of the world could sleep. He had to grab the things that made him happy and never let go. There were so few to begin with, so why let them disappear on their own? Clint was stubborn. He would hold tight.
They could do it. They could say screw it, stick out their tongues, and do it. If SHIELD didn’t like it, then screw SHIELD. Two top agents can go missing if they want to. He was tired of dwelling in a dream when reality seemed so near. He had to make it real.
Having foreign fingers rifle through his brain, using his fears to keep him compliant, had made him realize his greatest fear. It wasn’t his own death, nor the loss of the whole team (Avengers be damned. There is always another superhero ready to step into place), but the loss of the person who made him feel warm. The person who made him want to keep breathing and to keep running and to just keep going, Barton, make it home. Make it home to me.
He just had to get through New York.
And then he could face Phil and just tell him. They could make it. He believed it now. They could do it together.
Oh.
No one had told him. No one had said anything. They didn’t know, how could they. He had never said. He had never even told Phil.
The shawarma tasted like nothing but it was something to do, something that kept him steady and still. It was something other than running, something other than hiding. He couldn’t leave, not after. He wouldn’t leave him.
He had built up his resolve and bolstered his hopes and was so sure. So finally sure.
Even a gravesite was more home than he had ever felt before.
He promised not to leave this home, this warm home he had finally found a little too late.
He leaned in towards that grey stone. That undecorated unnamed secret stone.
He told that stone who he loved.
Phil.
---
Day one.
He carved a line.
Time would wear it down.
He would come back to carve another.
He would always come back before the last was worn.
He wouldn’t let this home be gone. He wouldn’t let this one be forgotten.
This piece has accompanying art here.
And a song inspired by this work here.