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His vision blurs from either staring too long or crying, but he doesn’t want to think on it too hard. He doesn’t want to know the right answer. He blinks the blurriness away and focuses elsewhere and he sees ghosts. He remembers verbal reports and post-medical visits and bringing Phil lunch, or donuts, or coffee.
He remembers teasing and flirting and office sex jokes that once became reality.
He shifts in the chair, aches coming alive in his back. He looks at the worn wood and can see every mark. Marks from the chair turning and banging against the front when Phil got up too fast–it had happened once too many times because Clint showed up hurt in his doorway more often than their of them liked. There were marks from him sliding onto it with his tac gear on, marks from that time he slammed a mole’s face into the corner, marks from his nails digging into the edge when Phil fucked his brains out…
Marks and memories and ghosts.
“Fuck.” Clint’s voice cracks and he slams a fist into his thigh. It clears his head, dashes away the ghosts. Well, most of them.
He can still feel Phil everywhere, see him everywhere. “Dammit, Phil.” His next breath shakes so hard he has to cough. “Goddammit, Phil…” He wasn’t supposed to go like that. He was supposed to retire, Clint was the one young and stupid enough to be killed in line of duty. He didn’t even die when he was brainwashed.
He wished he had.
His feet hit the floor and he wants to bolt, but he can’t get his limbs to move. So, instead, he folds himself in half and wraps his arms around his thighs. He buries his face in his knees and sobs.
His ears ring with white noise and words. Everything Phil’s said, the good and the bad. The voices overlap and Clint digs with fingers into the rough denim, inhales the fabric softener and dirt, tries to push away the shaking and the soft, defeated sobs.
The voices don’t go, but one is clearer, louder. “Clint.” So simple. Just his name. And yet it has the power to shatter diamonds, to freeze lava, to break him completely.
But the loudest voice isn’t alone. It comes with the rustle of fine wool, with the scent of Phil’s favorite cologne, with tentative and gentle fingers threading into his hair. He freezes for half a second before snapping up and pushing back in the wheeled chair, but he doesn’t get far because the wall is behind him.
Phil’s crouched, just before where Clint had been. He has an arm in a sling, a cane resting against the desk, and a small, sad smile. The shaking gets worse and he can feel his face crumple and fall. Any mask he’s maintained is gone with no hope to get it back. “You’re…” His words lurch out of his mouth. “You’re just a ghost. Just like all the rest.”
The ghost looks hurt. “Clint…”
“You’re the best damn ghost, but you’re still one so get the hell out. I’m done with the lot of you.” His voice is shaking and he wants to bolt, but this ghost is between him and any exit. He’d push through him except fr the fact that he reallywants him to be real and if he can walk through him… well, that would make everything so much worse.
“Clint, I swear, it’s me.” Phil straightens, bracing himself on the desk. It groans from the weight on it. Clint’s eyes snap to the wood and then up to Phil’s face. “I swear.” He holds out a hand to take, swaying on his feet like he can’t balance well on his own.
“Prove it.”
“Take my hand.”
“N-no, prove it some other way.” He doesn’t remember gripping the arms of the chair so hard, but he can feel his knuckles ache and if this were a dream he should be awake from the pain, right?
The ghost braces himself against the desk and slowly steps closer. Clint looks wary but he doesn’t bolt. Not even when the ghost rests a knee between his legs, or braces his good hand on the back of the chair. He can feel the warmth of Phil’s body and fresh tears well up. “I’m real.”
Clint swallows and a tear drips down his cheek. Phil leans in and Clint can’t stop the gasp when warm, slightly chapped lips brush the tear away. He does it again when another tear falls.
“Phil?” Phil nods and Clint’s mouth is trembling but twisting into a smile regardless. “Goddammit, you asshole.”
“I know.” Phil kisses him, his arm shaking until Clint stands, wrapping his arms around his waist securely. Clint leans agains the desk and Phil leans against him. “I know.”