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He knows it's been a while since -- whatever had happened, because he remembers sunny summer days, and the few remaining leaves outside his window are red and gold and brown, and the sky is iron-gray, clouds massing on the horizon. Snow clouds, if he doesn't miss his guess.
"Four months," Fury says, and Phil wants to scream, or possibly cry, because he feels perfectly fine, and there are only a couple of thin notched lines on his chest to suggest he was mortally injured earlier in the year. And he remembers nothing, nothing for four months.
He settles for glacial cool, which has the desired effect on Fury, who looks discomfited. "We won, I assume." Even his voice sounds perfectly normal, if a little hoarse for lack of use. Damn it.
"Yeah. We did." Fury clears his throat. "You had something to do with that. They rallied. After."
"Barton?"
"Recovered by Romanov. He's fine."
Phil allows a fast quirk of a nod. "They think I'm dead, don't they?"
"We didn't know --"
"Spare me." He casts around, looking for something to wear besides a blue printed johnnie.
"Coulson. It's not --"
"Would you like to debrief me, sir?" There are no clothes here. His closet is empty. No shoes, no slippers. His toes curl against the cold linoleum floor. No one has expected him to get out of that bed. "I took a shot, died, came back to life. The end."
Fury says nothing while Phil finds the call button, twitches the open back of the johnnie over his bare ass and sits down on the edge of the bed. There is a tiny grumpy ache in the center of his chest, more like the bitching of a few underused muscles than the memory of gross penetrating injury.
Four months. And all this time they have believed him to be dead.
Fury stays silent while a nurse appears, looks flustered to see Phil out of bed and asking for -- no, demanding -- clothing, shoes, his things. From her doubtful look he isn't sure any of those are available.
Fine. He'll wear his johnnie and call a fucking cab. There is no time to lose.
A heavy hand lands on his shoulder. His arm twitches up before he identifies it as Fury's.
"I'm having some of your things brought over." The hand lifts, and Phil nods shortly. "You really aren't supposed to be up and around yet."
"Why's that? Because you don't think I should be, or because of what I'll do when I am?"
Fury gives a short, gusty sigh, the type he's prone to when dealing with the Council. Not with Phil. "Either one."
Honest, at least. In this regard if few others.
An agent he doesn't recognize shows up an hour later with clothes, his SHIELD ID. There's no wallet, nothing else to identify him. Nothing to pay for the cab he's about to call.
"Agent Ellis will drive you." When Phil makes himself look at Fury he sees nothing but a tired, stressed man with a shit ton on his mind. Not an enemy. Perhaps not a friend, either. "I'll tell them today."
"You do that," Phil says evenly, and reaches for his shirt.
~~~~~~~~~
Barton's Brooklyn apartment is in a shabby neighborhood, one Phil had once hoped would become a beacon for gentrification, if only so that he'd feel less as if this was all Clint could afford, or something. Assets earned a decent wage, even by New York standards. Clint could afford better. Didn't want it, maybe.
There's a hard icy clot in the middle of his chest that has nothing to do with injuries and everything to do with dread.
The bag Agent Ellis had brought him didn't have any keys in it. Phil isn't sure he could get into his own apartment, much less Clint's, without access to a few tools. He rings the buzzer, edging to the side when two pre-teen kids poorly dressed for the cold go past him. They don't seem curious. It isn't the neighborhood for curiosity. Part of why Clint had chosen it, back in the day.
Clint doesn't buzz him up. For a few moments Phil isn't even sure he's there, but then Clint peers through the smeared plate-glass outer door. There is no reading his expression.
Phil waits, then says, "Fury called you."
Clint lifts his chin, but his lips stay firmly pressed together. For once, Phil isn't sure he reads the expression right. Is it anger? Relief? Shock?
"May I come up?" he asks, and there is no surprise in Clint's rapid headshake.
"You're alive," Clint whispers.
"I am. I'm sorry for the subterfuge."
Clint's wide eyes narrow, go cold. "Lies, you mean."
Phil inclines his head. "I woke up this morning. Got here as fast as I could."
"You shouldn't --" Clint wedges the outer door open, but blocks it with his body. Ignores a third little kid trying to get in, then lifts his arm so the child can scoot under. "They're at the tower. Stark's tower. You should go see them."
"They aren't the ones I want to see."
"It's not -- It's not a good time."
"Clint."
Clint's lips press together, and then he blurts, "You were gone."
"I know." Phil steps closer, swallows regret at the way Clint's body tightens inward, shoulders hunching for an invisible blow. "But I'm back. Please let me inside."
When his thumb brushes Clint's cheek Clint moves against him, a tiny press of skin, and he says, "It's a mess."
Phil nods. "I know. Can I help?"
Clint's eyes are tearless and anguished. "I'm a mess too," he whispers.
"It's all right. We'll fix it."
The hallway is dim and smells strongly, mildew and old food and something thin and rotten, like a body fairly recently buried under the floorboards. Phil can't be entirely sure there isn't one, somewhere in this cruddy building. He steps carefully on the stairs, avoiding a wadded-up fast-food wrapper that looks like it has blood on it. Even without Clint's back in front of him he'd have known not to bother trying the elevator. It may not ever have worked, even when first installed. He's more than a little reluctant to see what might be inside if the door ever opened.
Clint stalls on the first landing, head down, and fumbles into Phil's arms. He smells, too, musty and unwashed, his hair limp and long enough to cover his ears, his eyebrows. Has he been this way these entire four months?
"Come on," Phil murmurs against Clint's ear. He can feel Clint's heart pounding against his chest, fast and fluttering like an anxious wren's.
Magpie's, he thinks, and pulls Clint tighter. "I'll help. You know I will."
"It was okay at first," Clint whispers. "It really was."
It has never really been okay. But Phil nods and smooths his hand over Clint's bow-tight back. "And it will be again. I promise."
Clint goes very still, and then relaxes, as sudden as a rubber band snapping. "You're alive," he breathes, pressing a dry kiss against Phil's neck. "Do you -- aren't you --"
"I feel fine," Phil says. "I really do. All healed."
"Let's go somewhere."
"All right. But upstairs first."
"You'll."
"I won't, Clint. You know I won't. Let me see."
Clint pulls back, enough that Phil can finally see his face. Lines, familiar and bitter, bracketing Clint's mouth, gouging furrows to either side of his nose. Between his brows, carved into his forehead. More than were there a few months ago, and glinting silver in his lank hair. Only a little, but it hadn't been there before. Phil has put it there, all of it, and for all that he's spent years lamenting how Clint's tendency to jump first and think later have enlarged his own forehead and made him start to gray before his time, he hates that these lines and brittle silver strands are his fault.
Clint climbs the next two flights of stairs like a man trudging to the gallows, his feet in untied boots trailing and scuffing the dingy floor. His apartment is at the end of the hall, and he stands in front of his own door, motionless, until Phil touches the small of his back, lays a cautious kiss on the outside curl of his ear.
There is no one else in the hallway, not right now. As good as any.
"Like ripping off a bandage," Phil says, and hopes Clint hears humor and warmth and not criticism. He's never been entirely sure what Clint hears. He's got peculiar filters.
Clint gives a tight nod and unlocks the door.
The smell hits him first. As before. The high, rotten smell, not quite putrescence but close. One time, years ago, he thought he ought to be thankful Clint didn't keep cats; that ammonia reek was impossible to escape. At least Clint's mess cleans up.
It isn't just a mess, though, really. It's collapse, it's a silent and eloquent statement, and he edges inside, letting Clint silently shut the door behind them. The narrow front hallway is almost impassible, worse than it has ever been in the past, stuffed with boxes spilling out papers, plastic bags, the kinds of things Clint always believes might come in handy one day. Just need to hang onto them, just in case.
After New Year's, last year, Phil had managed, with Clint's wary help, to reduce the stacks of boxes to waist-high. Now, only months since Loki, the boxes are piled to within an inch of the ceiling, unsteady and probably dangerous. There is only a narrow path between, and Phil edges through, aware that one knock of a hip could bury them both.
Clint wreathes effortlessly through the passage, catlike and silent, vanishing into the living room.
Phil takes his time. There is no rush. He knows what he will find.
He remembers when the shows had become popular, two years ago, thereabouts. Remembers Sitwell on a mission, parked in front of a dingy motel television and making a face at Phil.
"Why do you watch this shit?" Jasper had asked, and Phil had only smiled at him and kept on watching.
He'd kept watching even after he knew about all of it, knew how to explain it, had thrown out his back a couple of times trying to help Clint get on top of it. Or at least kept Clint nominally out of the way so Phil could get on top of it.
He remembers that first day, bright cold sunny morning and Clint sick at home, a well-meaning stop to bring soup and orange juice and cough medicine. The building, worse then, and Clint's fever-flushed face peering through the narrow gap between door and security chain, almost voiceless, telling him he'd be fine, you don't want to catch this, sir.
Phil, insistent, and Clint: "It's a mess, sir, you don't want to get your suit dirty."
Phil had really thought it was just some dirty dishes. Maybe some laundry.
He makes himself look into the small kitchen. It's -- not good, and for a second he's hotly, furiously angry. At Clint, at -- something, because it had taken the better part of a year to get Clint's apartment into some sort of shape, something that wasn't a health-department flag, a certain eviction notice, and now it's bad again, it's very bad, and Phil doesn't want to deal with it. Doesn't want to deal with any of it.
And then it's gone, the anger, because Clint is withdrawn into a silent cocoon in the living room, a tiny space kept free for him to sit in the midst of all of it, all of the crap that Clint has never had in his life, never until SHIELD gave him a job and a paycheck and most of all, stability, and he could start to actually own things. Have things of his own.
Phil's throat aches, a sharp familiar pain. It isn't as if Clint doesn't know.
He knows.
"Hey," Phil says softly, hears something crunch beneath his shoes while he navigates the minefield of Clint's living room.
On his shows, Phil's grown used to tears. There are no tears on Clint's face. Just shame, blazing bright as fire, and underneath it the fear, the ever-present fear: All of this can be taken away. All of it. Your house, your things. Your lover. All of it can and will be taken away, at some point. It's inevitable as the tides.
Something fragile topples and shatters when Phil edges himself down next to Clint on the sofa. The air is laden with the smell of rancid beer. Clint is warm and tense, eyes darting every which way, every way but Phil's.
Phil reaches over and grasps Clint's stubbly chin, turns his head until Clint finally meets his eyes.
"I love you," Phil says. "I'm sorry I left you so long."
Clint's face undergoes a complicated transformation, from tight embarrassment to shock, to puzzlement and finally, now, blank surprise. "You didn't," he says. "Well. You did, but."
"I told you I'd never leave. Remember?"
Clint doesn't nod, but his eyes are steady. He remembers.
"I guess God loves to make liars out of all of us."
"You're here now."
Phil smiles, slides his thumb to caress Clint's cheek again. "I am."
The breath of a smile flirts with Clint's lips, and then vanishes like smoke. "I'm sorry," he says hoarsely. "I got -- it got away from me."
"It's all right." Phil bends forward until their foreheads touch. "It happens."
"I missed you."
"I know."
He slides an arm around Clint's shoulders and sets his chin on top of Clint's greasy hair. It's windy outside, but he can't see through the window to check if the weather's really going bad.
-end-