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“Drop your weapons and put your hands in the air. We have you surrounded.” The voice sounded over a speaker, echoing in the forest clearing.
Lance glanced around. “We're not surrounded,” he muttered, skeptical.
Another ‘jet shimmered into view, more agents pouring down the ramp. “Don't move! Raise your hands! The guns, drop ‘em now!”
Coulson and Lance exchanged looks and started to raise their arms, their weapons falling to the ground.
Then- thwock! A Real SHIELD agent stumbled and fell, an arrow protruding from his neck. As the agents shouted in alarm, several more arrows found their marks. Coulson and Lance snatched up their ICERs and fired, taking down the last few agents.
“What the hell was that?” Lance asked, staring at the prone agents.
“Backup,” Coulson said. He turned, pulling off his helmet to smile at the man now dropping out of a nearby tree. “Barton.”
“Hey, Coulson. You're lucky I was in the area. Who's this?” The man- Barton- nodded toward Lance. Lance looked him over: shaggy brown hair, rough features but handsome enough, with a compound bow of all things slung over one shoulder and a backpack on the other.
“Right. Agent Barton, this is Lance Hunter. Formerly a mercenary, now a SHIELD agent. Hunter, this is Clint Barton.”
“Hang on,” Lance said, narrowing his eyes. “I remember you. You had a thing with Bobbi a few years ago.”
Clint grinned. “Bobbi Morse? Oh, that makes you the Hunter she was always on and off with. Nice to meet you.” He offered his hand and, after a moment, Lance shook it.
“I didn't realize she had a type,” Coulson said dryly. When both men looked at him, he clarified, “Mercenaries. Ex-mercenary, in Barton's case. You know what I mean.”
“Huh. What's she doing these days?” Clint asked as he crouched down to retrieve his arrows. They had thin, needle-like tips, probably carrying a sedative of some kind.
“Oh, betraying us, working with someone who handcuffed me to a sink, that sort of thing,” Lance said, feeling a bitter taste in his mouth. “She's working for the same man as these guys.” He gestured to the bodies scattered around the clearing.
“Shit,” Barton said, eyes wide. “Man, that's… So she's HYDRA too then?”
“Oh, no,” Coulson said. “No, she just thinks that I'm not the right person to be running SHIELD, so she's helping another faction take over.” He glanced around. “On that note, we should head out of here before anyone comes looking. I'll explain more once we're in the air.”
“I still don't trust you to fly that thing,” Lance said, pointing at the Quinjet. “Watching May fly is not the same as knowing how to do it, mate.”
“Him? Fly a ‘jet?” Barton snorted. “He can do a lot of things, but flying is definitely not one. Remind me to tell you about Montreal sometime.” He led the way into the ‘jet, settling comfortably into the pilot's seat.
“So you two have known each other for a while?” Lance asked Coulson as he strapped himself into a seat for takeoff.
“More than a decade. I was his handler when he first joined SHIELD.” There was a strange look on Coulson's face, one Lance couldn't quite decipher. Somewhere between sadness and affection and uncertainty. Now isn't that interesting…
“All right, we're on autopilot now.” Barton levered himself out of the pilot's seat and joined them in the body of the plane. “So tell me, what the hell is actually going on?”
Coulson explained what was happening with the other SHIELD, and what he planned to do next. Barton listened and asked thoughtful questions, seeming to anticipate Coulson's thought process in a way Lance had only seen May do.
Now that he was paying attention, there was definitely a tension between the two men. He wondered when Barton had found out that Coulson was alive, if they had been friends before Coulson died. He could see some emotion—anger, maybe, or hurt—hiding behind Barton's casual manner.
Lance lowered his head, tucking his chin against his chest and closing his eyes. “Wake me when we land,” he muttered, ignoring Barton's skeptical look.
He could sleep just about anywhere, but right now he wasn't tired. He figured it might be a good idea to give the other men a semblance of privacy so they could sort out whatever problems they had before the ‘jet landed. And he was curious.
After a few minutes, Coulson said quietly, “You look good.”
“Thanks. I'd say you too, but I can tell you're not sleeping enough. You don't look like a dead man, though, so…”
“Yeah, well.” Coulson sighed. “There's more I need to tell you about that, but it can wait.”
Wait until Hunter isn't listening in, Lance finished for him. He probably meant all the alien stuff. Not a bad idea to postpone that discussion—who knew how Barton would react.
“Where were you when SHIELD fell?” Coulson asked.
“Deep undercover in Tunisia. Nat sent me a warning about ten minutes before everything went to hell, and I managed to get out without too much fuss. Hopped borders until I was in Europe, went to ground in Croatia for a bit.”
“I'm glad you got out safely. I… I was worried.”
“Yeah, well, you didn't really show it, did you, sir? Two years of thinking you were dead, and then still no word even after I knew you were alive.”
Yep, Lance thought, anger and hurt. Called it. More hurt than anger, which is interesting.
“How did you find out?” Coulson asked. “You didn't seem surprised when I called you last night.”
“Stark. When Nat dumped all of SHIELD's files online, he had Jarvis comb through them for anything interesting, and he found you. Or, hints of you, anyway: mission reports from a level 8 agent with the name redacted, that kind of thing.” He laughed, an ugly sound. “There was nothing on how they faked your death, of course. No reason for why you have an empty grave, or why you never told me so I wouldn't spend so much time at it, blaming myself for everything.”
“Clint-” Coulson sounded gutted. He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “My death wasn't faked. I died. I was dead for days, Clint. Fury had been playing with some extremely experimental ways to bring someone back from the dead, and the process was… Well. They messed around with my memories, too, covered up what had happened and made me think I'd spent a month doing physical therapy in Tahiti.”
Barton started to say something, but Coulson kept talking. “I had no idea you were mourning me. Fury kept my existence restricted to Level 7 and above, but I thought the Avengers had been told.”
At that, Lance had to stop himself from twitching. The Avengers? Wait, a bow and arrow… He was sitting across from Hawkeye. More importantly, Bobbi had shagged Hawkeye.
I'm going to tease her so much about this, he thought, before remembering that Bobbi was on a different side now, and that teasing her would be the farthest thing from his mind when they next met. It hurt. He was used to feeling hurt when thinking about her, it was practically his ground state of being when they had broken up, but this was different. There was no coming back from this.
He refocused on the conversation to hear Coulson say, “You're right. I should have called you. But you and Natasha kept being sent on undercover ops, and I thought you needed time to heal, after Loki, so… Once I learned what had actually happened to me, everything moved so fast and before I knew it, SHIELD had fallen. I tried to find you then, but you disappeared very well. I only figured out where you were a week ago, and then all this happened.” There was a pause. “I'm so sorry, Clint.”
Lance had never heard Coulson sound like this, his voice full of emotion. He felt a bit awkward, like he was intruding on something private. It's their own fault for talking while I'm here, he told himself. They're spies, they should know better. Honestly.
“You know the worst part of thinking you were dead?” Barton said quietly. “Knowing I had missed my chance to tell you how I felt. When I found out you were alive, I was mad, sure, but my biggest reaction was relief. I told myself that the next time I saw you, I wouldn't put it off any longer.”
Lance heard Coulson murmur something, and Barton said something in return, too quietly for him to hear. He was about to open one eye to try and see what was happening when he heard the unmistakable sound of a kiss. Ah. Now that explains a lot.
He heard Barton say, “I'm not sure if I've said this, but I'm so fucking happy to see you, Phil.”
“Likewise,” Coulson said, sounding a little out of breath. Lance pressed his lips together to keep from smirking.
Suddenly, something bounced off the top of his head. He jumped, opening his eyes and glaring at them. “Wha- hey!”
Coulson smiled. “You can stop pretending to sleep now, though I appreciate the gesture.”
He considered protesting that he had actually been asleep, thought better of it, and grinned. “Anytime, mate.” Barton was giving him a look halfway to a glare, so he raised his hands defensively. “Look, I could tell you two needed some time to sort your shit out, okay? It's not like I was trying to eavesdrop on your business, there's just not really anywhere I could go.”
That was partly a lie, but it seemed to mollify Barton. “Thanks, then,” the man said, running a hand through his hair. “That conversation was long overdue.”
“Not just the conversation,” Coulson said. Lance would swear the director had hearts in his eyes as he looked at Barton. Then he glanced over at Lance and his face hardened a little. “I would appreciate if you would keep this to yourself for the time being.”
“Sure, no worries.” He shrugged, then added, “No one's gonna care, boss. No one who's loyal to you.”
“How many people are still loyal to you?” Barton asked, then winced. “That sounded bad. What I mean is, who do you think you can count on not going over to this other SHIELD faction?”
That started a new discussion of strategy, which lasted until the ‘jet neared their destination. Barton went back into the cockpit and turned off the autopilot, beginning their descent.
As they approached the ground, Lance leaned over and clapped Coulson on the shoulder—something he wouldn't have done a week ago, but a week ago he hadn't spent the night in a cabin with Coulson, or listened to him bare his soul to the man he loved. “I'm happy for you, mate. Really.”
Coulson turned and smiled at him. Not his usual bland smile, but an expression full of hope, tinged with humor, as if he couldn't quite believe what had happened. “Thank you.”
“And hey, this means I get my own room at the hotel, right?” Lance said hopefully.
“Wrong. You get the sofa bed.” Behind Coulson, Barton started laughing.