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One of the fluorescent lights above the dairy section flickered as Clint tried to decide what Laura meant by ‘milk’.
After the great ketchup fiasco of 2009, Laura had banned Clint from grocery shopping. Nathan had a cold, which meant he was a snotty miserable mess. Laura had been up with him two nights running and Clint had offered to take something, anything, off Laura’s plate. She’d grudgingly given him the grocery list. If he screwed this up, he’d never live it down.
The problem was that milk had gotten complicated. You could still buy regular old cow's milk but also organic and local and milk in glass jugs. He was pretty sure Laura liked the kind in the paper cartons, but beyond that all he remembered was that the art was purple. Clint could see a half dozen cartons with purple art work.
She usually bought two percent milk, right? Most of the two percent was in purple cartons. Except for the fancy name brand, which was red; their purple carton was the whole milk.
Clint tried to think of what he’d done lately to deserve a trip to dairy purgatory. Maybe he shouldn’t have knocked down that wall.
Clint dug into his pocket and pulled out his phone to call home. He set his basket down on the floor, thumbed into the Recent Contacts menu and dialed Laura. While the line connected, Clint tried to remember if they needed more diapers. Even if it wasn’t urgent, he should probably buy a pack anyway. It wasn’t like Nathan wouldn’t use them.
“Hi, Daddy.”
“Hey, Lila.” He really needed to get her a phone of her own so she’d stop stealing Laura’s. “Can you give Mommy her phone? I need to ask her a question.”
“Mommy said not to come back into the house.”
Clint rubbed at his face. “Is Cooper home?”
“He’s at swim practice.”
Clint could just call the house phone, but if Nathan had fallen asleep Clint wasn’t going to wake him up. “I really need to talk to your mom, kiddo. Can you just take her the phone?”
“She’s *really* mad. She yelled at me and told me not to come back in, no matter what.”
Clint shuffled out of the way of the young couple trying to get almond milk. He took a minute to wonder what almond milk even was, before what Lila had said sunk in. Laura wasn’t a yeller. “Do I want to know why you’re banished to the backyard?”
“I didn’t do anything! Mom is mad at Uncle Phil.”
That was… not what Clint had expected. “Lila, Uncle Phil is dead, remember?”
“I know! I told him he was dead and he said he had been, and then Mr. Fury made him better and he has a cool scar!”
Clint had survived torture, mind control, and the destruction of the organization he’d given his life to. He’d never been more afraid than right now. “Is he in the house?”
The retort of a shotgun sounded through the speaker as a response instead of Lila’s voice. There were two seconds of silence, the longest two seconds of Clint’s life, before she said, “Wow. Mommy is really mad.”
“Lila.” Clint sucked in gulp of air, and slumped back against the cool glass of the milk case. They should have moved after the infodump, no matter what Fury had promised about keeping their secret. “Where are you right now?”
“Playing in the back of Lola.”
SHIELD had taken custody of Lola after Phil died. Clint had always assumed Fury had taken her, but she wasn’t in the garage at the new base. Anyone could taken her in the chaos.
Clint abandoned his groceries on the floor and sprinted for the front door. People stared as he vaulted over a display of candy and skidded through the exit. No alarms went off so no one stopped him as he made for the car. Like an idiot, he’d parked on the far side of the lot. “Don’t move. I’ll be home in just a couple minutes. Whatever you hear-”
“Don’t go in the house. I know! See you soon.” Lila’s cheerful tone was jarring to Clint’s rising anxiety.
Clint pressed the unlock button on his key repeatedly and the instant his hand made contact with the door he tore it open. “Be careful, Lila. That’s not Uncle Phil.” They had talked about Daddy’s enemies and about mind control, but they had never talked about shapeshifters or what to do if a rogue Life Model Decoy showed up.
Laura had gotten to her gun. She was still a crack shot, even after all her years out of the business, and the situation was probably under control.
Clint lied to himself a lot.
He made the fifteen minute drive home in eight.
Clint roared up the driveway and came to a stop behind Lola, blocking her in. Of course, you couldn’t block in a flying car so easily.
Lila was right where she said she’d be: in the back seat playing some game on Laura’s phone. “Hi Daddy.”
“Hey honey.” Clint was covered in cold sweat and his heart was trying to pound out of his chest. Maybe Lila wouldn’t notice.
He pulled her up and into a hug. Cooper was out of the house, Lila was fine. As long as Laura and Nathan were okay, Clint could deal with ten minutes of absolute terror.
Lila squirmed free and curled up on the bench seat. “Did you get any granola bars?”
“No, sorry.” Clint needed to get inside but first he had to disable the getaway car. He reached down inside the car and popped the hood release. It was simple enough to disconnect the battery and just for extra insurance he pocketed something that sort of looked like a spark plug. “I don’t suppose you saw your mother drag an alien shapeshifter out of the kitchen? Or a robot?”
“Don’t be silly, Daddy.” Lila was playing that stupid Avengers Match-Three game and it was hard to keep her attention. “Is Uncle Phil a zombie now?”
“I’m not sure.” Clint went to the trunk of his car and pulled out a bow and a pistol. “I’m going to find out. You wanna switch into my car?”
“I like Lola better.” Lila grudgingly climbed into the passenger seat of their car, not really looking up from her screen. “You need more hit points.”
“Don’t I know it.” He snapped his bow out of it’s compact form and slung a quiver over his shoulder. “If you hear more gunshots, call Aunt Natasha, okay?”
The door hadn’t been forced, but the phone - an older model that didn’t need electricity to work in an emergency - was off the hook and giving off a steady beep. Clint put it back on the hook, summoned up all his courage and called, “Laura?”
“We’re in the kitchen! I’m so glad you’re home.”
Clint found her sitting at the kitchen table. Nathan was in his carrier, dozing, and Laura had a shotgun in her lap, guarding the door to their half bathroom. Shotgun pellets were embedded in the wall.
Laura gave the bathroom door an irritated look. “Remind me again why we reinforced that door?”
She was fine. The kids were fine. He hadn’t fucked up and gotten his whole family killed. Laura was saying something, her forehead wrinkled in confusion, but he couldn’t figure out what she was saying. He opened his mouth to answer her question about the door, but all that came out was a hitched breath. Nausea rolled over him as the last of his adrenalin drained away. Clint sank to his knees, practically at Laura’s feet and put his arms around her.
He may have cried a little. Laura just made soothing noises at him and ran her fingers through his hair until he was done.
“It’s okay.” Laura reached down and turned Clint’s face up to look at her. She had dark circles under her eyes, but those were Nathan’s fault. As far as he could tell, she wasn’t hurt. “We’re fine. Everything’s fine.”
There was a throat clearing noise from behind the bathroom door and a familiar voice said, “You reinforced the door to have a secure space on the first floor.”
“Everything is fine except for the doppleg ä nger in the bathroom,” Laura conceded.
Somehow, Clint hadn't expected whatever Laura had trapped in the bathroom to actually sound like Phil. “Wow, that’s really convincing.”
“I know, right?” Laura reached for her shotgun with her free hand, even thought they’d specifically bought that door because it had a solid metal core. “That’s how he got in. He told Lila Fury lied about him being dead and that sounded about right to her. She’s never going to let the tooth fairy thing go.”
The voice, not-Phil’s voice, spoke again. “Can we talk this over? It hasn’t been a great week and I’m really sick of being shot at.”
“You’re dead and I’ve seen enough movies to know you don’t invite your dead friend in for coffee.” Clint pushed up off the floor. Having a purpose always made dealing with his nightmares coming to life easier. “Someone probably would have mentioned if you were alive, so I’m going to go get a drill and break-”
“Have you checked your email lately?”
The voice had a point. Clint hadn’t checked his email since Nathan had been born. Even before that he’d been bad at checking it on a regular basis, as evidenced by his blissful lack of awareness as Natasha literally blew up their jobs. Clint grudgingly opened up the secure email app and let it do a biometrics scan.
His inbox had a bunch of emails, mostly from Stark with inane subjects like, ‘Sushi tomorrow?’ and ‘Bolo Arrows a No-Go.’ One message was marked URGENT, from Maria Hill. The subject was, ‘Visit from the new Director.’
Clint glanced at the door, then back at his phone and clicked the message. ‘I feel like I owe you a warning before he shows up on your doorstep: Phil Coulson is alive.’
Fuck.
“Clint?” Laura knew him too well to be fooled by his lizard face. “Who do I have captive in the bathroom?”
Each sentence in the email made the situation worse and worse. ‘I need you to understand, we didn’t lie to you after the battle. Phil died in New York.’
“Phil Coulson?” Clint suppressed a shiver as he read about Fury altering Phil’s memories. SHIELD had done that, not HYDRA. He passed Laura the phone. He didn’t want to read any more.
Laura read a few lines and set the shotgun down. “Clint, baby, you have got to get better at keeping up with your email. What if I’d killed him in the hallway?”
“Sorry.” Clint eyed the buckshot in the wall. He was going to have to replace the drywall. “Usually, if it’s important, someone calls.”
Maybe he could put up a tile backsplash. He’d have plenty of time, since he was definitely suspended. Phil hated being shot at.
Phil also probably didn’t appreciate being trapped in the bathroom. Clint rapped on the door. “I was wrong. We will absolutely make our dead friend coffee if he doesn’t fire me. ”
Phil opened the door and stepped out, brushing debris off his suit. One arm was in a sling and he’d already re-holstered his pistol, which Clint was grateful for. “I could drink coffee.”
It was really him. Clint crushed him in a hug, trying not to jostle whatever Phil had done to his arm.
Clint didn’t know what to say. If he tried to tell Phil how happy, how grateful, he was that Phil was alive he’d start crying again. Instead, Clint went for a joke. “Jesus, Phil, I know Fury said you had to work for him forever but this is taking it a little far.”
The joke wasn’t funny, and Phil just patted Clint on the shoulder with his free hand. “It could be worse. He could have shoved my consciousness into an LMD.”
Nathan gave off an awful sounding sneeze, then a miserable sounding cry.
“Nathan and I are done for the afternoon. If you really want coffee, the new machine only takes voice commands.” Laura picked Nathan out of his carrier and tucked him into one crooked elbow. “While it brews, you can sweep up the part of the wall I shot up.”
“Laura-” Phil barely managed to say her name before Laura picked her shotgun up off the table.
To her credit, she didn’t shoot Phil, she didn’t even point it at him. “Broom’s where it always was.” She tucked the shotgun under her free arm. “I could have killed you, Phil. In my house, in front of my baby. So you and Clint can sweep up the kitchen and get me a cup of coffee while I go explain to my daughter how sometimes death isn’t forever. Next time, call ahead.”
Phil looked like he’d rather Laura had punched him in the face. He didn’t look at her as she pushed past him out of the kitchen. “I guess we should talk.”
“So, are you an alien now?” Lila seemed fixated on the alien in the drawer, even if that part of the story had been at least twenty minutes ago.
“No, sorry.” Lila looked so disappointed that Phil pushed the last cookie across the table to her. “But I do have a human-alien hybrid on my team.”
“That’s so cool.” Lila ate the cookie fast, like she was afraid someone would realize how many she’d already had if she took too long to eat it. "Daddy only has a regular alien on his team.”
“Wait. Are you saying Mack cut off your hand and you *promoted* him?” Clint had pulled some pretty epic stunts on Phil, including going awol to bring Natasha in, but dismembering him seemed worse.
“He was turning to stone.” Laura held out her cup and Clint refilled it with coffee. She was back up to six cups a day after having to give coffee up when she was pregnant with Nathan. Once they’d given her caffeine and turned a package of dough into actual cookies, she’d been willing to listen to the rest of the story.
Clint still wasn't sure what Phil was doing here, instead of setting up the new Avengers HQ. “Now that we’re all caught up on what you’ve been up to while pretending to be dead, what are you doing here? Doesn’t SHIELD need you?”
Phil smiled, like he’d been waiting to say it all day. “Clint, I’m the Director of SHIELD now. I’m here to talk to you about the Avengers Initiative.”