Archive of Our Own

Phil is still Philip when he gets his first Captain America comic book. He devours it five, six, seven times before riding his bike to the shop again to buy a few more issues. It’s too far of a ride for his parents’ taste -- he’s immediately grounded once he returns home, backpack heavy -- but it’s not like he was planning on leaving his room for the next week anyway.

Philip’s grandparents are more than happy to share stories with him about Captain America and World War II, the world’s first superhero and the war to end all wars, surely, and he listens with wide eyes and rapt attention to what his grandmother remembers of the war bonds speech, what his grandfather recalls about the short films. When his dad’s mother dies, she leaves him envelopes and folders full of newspaper and magazine clippings about Captain America, including what he soon realizes is the first article ever written about Steve Rogers: a headline splashed across a page with a question mark and a photo of a man holding a car door like a shield. He reads the article a dozen times before he frames it, countless times afterward. It hangs on his childhood bedroom wall -- soon joined by vintage posters and a framed cover for a vinyl album that includes “The Star-Spangled Man” -- until it’s no longer his childhood bedroom, until he’s Phil instead of Philip.

He has a bully in high school. It’s no one special, just a jock who doesn’t like the fact that Phil’s B average is crushing his straight Ds, or that Phil plays first chair clarinet, or that Phil knows more about 1940s superheroes than most people know about their own families. Phil thinks it’s fair that the asshole doesn’t like all that stuff about him, because Phil doesn’t like the guy’s haircut, but it’s a miserable time regardless, and if he stares at his hands for too long one afternoon because a jerk called him fruit, then it doesn’t matter, because the only one who sees him cry is on a poster, in an article, long-lost and forgotten to the world but not to a teenager in Ohio whose bully suddenly feels as big as a Nazi scientist with world annihilation on his mind. Phil wipes his eyes in time to appear unbothered at the dinner table, but he does his homework lying on his bedroom floor next to the record player, singing along with the chorus girls at “stalwart and steady and true,” a mantra that holds him over until graduation.

Phil lands a clarinet scholarship to the University of Chicago, where he declares a major in history, mostly to piss off his mom and dad. He writes a paper on scientific advancement and the emergence of genetically-altered superheroes in his first semester, gets an A, and everyone in the department knows him as “the Captain America fan.” Phil figures he could do worse. He dates a guy who plays violin, and then the guy who’s helping him pass their History of Spain class, and then he doesn’t date but just sleeps with a guy who bartends in Boystown before he decides that he doesn’t really get the big deal about sex. It’s nice when it’s okay, great when it’s good, but it’s nothing he couldn’t get from himself, and no gay man in 1982 wants to date a guy who doesn’t get gay sex, so he goes it alone for a couple of years. When he’s a senior, he tutors a freshman girl in her Western Civ class and freaks the hell out when she kisses him. They fuck in his apartment, because she wants to, and he can’t see why not, and afterward Phil splashes water on his face and cringes, politely asks her to put some clothes on before they continue with that afternoon’s notes about the Peloponnesian War. She gets an A in the class and wants to see him again next semester, but he says, “I’m moving to New York after I graduate,” which is stupid, because now he has to move to New York after he graduates.

He moves, instead, to Boston. He works as a tutor for the music department at Boston University and rolls his eyes every time he passes a newsstand lined with papers and magazines featuring Tony Stark’s face. Phil was impressed the first time he’d heard about the son of Howard Stark, the engineer behind the German scientist behind Captain America, but Tony Stark is fifteen and top of his class at MIT and all of Massachusetts seems to worship him and Phil can’t help but look at the smug young face of a teenager standing next to a robot he built without thinking that Tony Stark is a far cry from Steve Rogers. He knows it’s not fair -- hell, he’s a far cry from Steve Rogers -- but there’s a poster on his wall and vintage trading cards protected behind glass in his tiny studio apartment and the truth is that he compares everyone to Captain America and that’s why he doesn’t watch the news, because the United States Senate waited thirty-seven years to approve a treaty that outlaws genocide, and everyone thinks Top Gun is a really good movie, and Ronald Reagan is the fucking worst, and no one cares about 1940s ideals in 1986 except Phil Coulson.

Two Mays later, the entire state celebrates Tony Stark’s graduation and Phil returns to his apartment from work on a Thursday to discover a man with an eyepatch sitting on his couch.

“Okay,” Phil says, and the man looks up from the vintage Captain America trading cards on display under the glass of the coffee table. “I know I don’t look like much, but I promise that if you so much as get a fingerprint on one of those cards, I will rip you limb from limb.”

The man blinks at him. “A fingerprint,” he says, and his voice is low and clear and loud and, bizarrely, comforting, for all its obviously meant to make him feel mocked and intimidated. “That’s dedication, Coulson.”

Phil nods and doesn’t ask how the man knows his name, or how he got into the apartment, or why he’s here. He just maintains eye contact and waits, silent, fingers itching to grab the clarinet in his bag and use it as a weapon. It’s no less than four minutes before the man on the couch finally lets out a low chuckle and stands up, approaches Phil with hand outstretched.

“Philip Coulson, my name is Nick Fury,” he says, “and I’m here to recruit you to the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division.”

“Sorry,” Phil replies, shaking Nick Fury’s hand, inexplicably no longer wanting to stab him with a woodwind instrument. “The what now?”

---

Within a year, Phil becomes Agent. His training is exhausting and heavily physical at first, and Phil spends months going to bed and waking up bruised and sore and drained, but they give him two guns and a badge and really, terrifyingly high security clearance, and on the other side of twelve months he owns a closet full of Armani suits, can shoot with (literally) deadly accuracy, and is chosen by Director Fury himself to be, as Fury puts it, “the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent.” He can afford an apartment in New York now, ends up with one in Brooklyn because the rest of the city still gets under his skin and not in the good way, and when he looks out the window he wonders, every time, if this is the building where Steve Rogers lived, or if the alley below him is one where Steve Rogers used to get beat up and rescued by Bucky Barnes, and how the neighborhood has changed since Steve Rogers left this burrough, since Captain America piloted a plane into the ocean and saved the city, saved the world.

It’s a capital-letter Big Deal when Howard and Maria Stark die. The entire agency seems to be in mourning, even the newer, lower-level agents who never met Howard at all, and when Fury asks Phil why he’s not grieving, Phil shrugs and says, “I’m sure he was a decent man.”

“But?” Fury prompts, and Phil would smile, if smiling hadn’t been trained out of him.

“But I just don’t think he could’ve been a halfway decent father for Tony Stark to be, well, Tony Stark.”

Fury looks at him for a long moment, one patchless eye betraying absolutely zero emotion, which Phil thinks is to be expected at this point because he’s pretty sure Nick Fury doesn’t have feelings at all. Then, horrifyingly, Fury smiles at him. Phil actually takes a step back, angles his hand toward his gun in case he ends up having to shoot this obvious impostor, but Fury just says, “You’re my one good eye, Coulson,” and then, sternly as ever, “And that’s classified information.”

“Yes, sir,” Phil replies with a singular nod.

It’s weird to be on S.H.I.E.L.D.’s holiday card list; weirder still to be on Nick Fury’s.

---

Maria Hill isn’t big on introductions. She calls Phil into her office at HQ, gestures to the other man in the room, and says, “Agent Coulson, Agent Barton. There’s a plane waiting for you two. Check in when you land,” and that’s it. Phil has eyes still, though, two good eyes, and access to every dossier S.H.I.E.L.D. ever had reason to put together, and he gets as far as ran away to join a circus, has enough time to think, “Jesus, that is literally the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard,” before he falls stupid in love with Clint Barton.

Hawkeye sleeps with his eyes open, clings to his bow like it’s a part of his body, and smiles something sincere and winsome in the midst of carnage. He doesn’t laugh unless it takes him by surprise, and nothing takes him by surprise, so Phil never hears him laugh, not until the mission’s complete and they’re standing in the rain waiting for a helicopter, soaked to the bone in a suit and leather, and Barton deadpans, “You know, I’ve always wanted to be kissed in the rain,” and Phil actually kisses him.

Phil hasn’t had sex with another person since college, a fact that Clint finds to be egregious, but then, Clint doesn’t have a home at all, not a mailing address to be found, and Phil finds that to be egregious. Clint taps the coffee table and asks how long it took Phil to collect those trading cards and then jumps him before Phil can finish answering, rocks their hips together and clings to Phil like a spider monkey, and when Phil accidentally says it out loud Clint rewards his awkwardness with a shout of laughter, says, “No one’s ever compared me to a New World monkey before,” voice sparking with delight, then, lower and full of promise, “I’m gonna blow you now, right here in the doorway, and then you’re going to take me to your bedroom and I’m going to fuck you.”

“Jesus,” Phil says then, and during, and after, and also, “Those other guys were doing it wrong,” which makes Clint scrape his teeth across Phil’s neck, smile smugly until Phil elbows him in the ribs.

“So,” Clint says later, naked in the living room, eating toast and getting crumbs everywhere, “this Captain America thing.”

“You think it’s creepy and weird,” Phil guesses.

“Coulson,” Clint says, giving him a look, “I’m a sniper. I stalk people and then I shoot them with arrows. Sometimes the arrows are actually bombs. Also, I grew up in a circus, surrounded by clowns. There is honestly nothing in this world that I find creepy or weird anymore. What I was going to say is that it makes sense, you being a Captain America fanboy.”

“It makes sense,” Phil says, doesn’t ask, but Clint hears the question anyway. He shrugs.

“World’s first superhero. Started out scrawny and asthmatic. You don’t believe in god, but you believe in heroes, and you root exclusively for underdogs. Captain America’s the only thing you could be this crazy about that would make any sense at all.” Clint laughs when he catches the curious glint in Phil’s eyes. “Don’t look at me like that, Coulson. You’re not the only agent with access to S.H.I.E.L.D. dossiers.”

Phil smiles and shrugs and steals the last bite of toast out of Clint’s hand. “Captain America was good for the sake of being good. It’s admirable. I’ve never seen anything like it in my lifetime.”

“‘s too bad you never will, either,” Clint says. “He died saving New York, right?”

“He didn’t die,” Phil says, and sighs when Clint gives him a concerned look. “I know that’s the common belief, even within S.H.I.E.L.D., but I’ve never believed that. The formula Dr. Erskine used--it affected the body’s cells in such a way that--there’s constant cellular regeneration. A bruise would disappear in an hour, a cut would heal in minutes; he most likely couldn’t get drunk.”

“That’s a shame,” Clint says.

“I just don’t think he’s dead,” Phil continues. “We just haven’t found him yet.”

Clint stares at him, really stares, unblinking, and finally says, “That is really romantic, Coulson. I thought they squashed that kind of thinking out of you during training.”

“Can’t squash a childhood dream, I guess.”

Clint smiles. “Don’t I know it,” he says, and then he’s in Phil’s lap, kissing him, fingers tugging at the collar of Phil’s t-shirt.

---

Hawkeye does not kill Black Widow. Phil doesn’t know why, doesn’t need to, just knows that, the bare fact itself, and trusts her.

While Clint gets yelled at by S.H.I.E.L.D. officers during the debriefing, Phil stands guard outside the locker room where Natasha Romanoff is showering. She steps out wearing dark blue jeans and an ill-fitting S.H.I.E.L.D.-issue polo shirt. She is barefoot and her hair is still wet. She looks into Phil’s eyes and asks, “Are you going to kill me?”

Phil actually laughs.

“You’re a very skilled assassin, Miss Romanoff,” he says. “Our own top sniper couldn’t kill you. What makes you think I could?”

“I don’t,” she says, and then, “He could have, though. He just didn’t. Do you know why?”

“No,” Phil replies. “I imagine he saw something in you worth living.”

She narrows her eyes. “That’s quite a romantic notion for a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent.”

“I’ve been told I have some of those leftover from childhood,” he says. She stares at him. He stares at her. He wonders, briefly, what she’s seeing, what kind of information she’s gathering from observations such as his receding hairline, the color tie he chose to wear today, the lines around the corners of his eyes. He’s seen footage of her at work, in action, and knows already that she’s more Sherlock Holmes than Professor Moriarty, no matter how frightened of her all the other agents are.

“You can call me ‘Natasha,’” she says finally.

Phil lifts the corners of his mouth for her, just a little, just to get the same reaction from her, and says, “Around here, they mostly call me ‘Coulson.’”

---

The thing is that Phil’s never really had friends before Clint and Natasha, and now that he does, he has no idea what to do with it. It’s not bad, though, because Clint and Natasha quite obviously don’t know what to do with friendships either.

Natasha grows out her hair, curly and deep red and falling down her back; mentally catalogs all possible exits when she enters a room; and never turns her back on anyone unless she’s facing a mirror. Clint sings in the car, loud and twangy country songs that Phil and Natasha have never heard; can spot the roof from which he’ll have the best viewpoint within seconds; and never eats anything until someone else takes a bite. Phil sleeps on his stomach, one arm under his pillow and the other thrown out over the surface with abandon that he never experiences during wakefulness; asks questions first and shoots only once and only when he’s sure he wants a person to be dead; and never repeats himself.

They spend two nights in the desert while on a recon mission. They talk about building a campfire, roasting marshmallows on a few of Clint’s more boring arrows and telling scary stories, but it’s just talk. All three of them know that a fire would get them spotted, because even though it’s just recon and they’re miles from town, they all have enemies everywhere and nowhere at once: S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hawkeye and Black Widow make enemies easily, have for years, and the open space of desert makes it a good place for an attack already. Instead, they lie on their backs on top of sleeping bags, speak in low voices about what they’d do if they were just Normal Camping like Normal People.

“The important question is: how do you like your marshmallows?” Clint asks, so quiet it’s nearly swallowed by the expanse of sky above them.

“Burned to black,” Natasha says.

“To the surprise of absolutely no one,” Clint replies. “What about you, Coulson?”

“Crispy on the outside,” Phil says. “Gooey in the middle.”

“How gooey?” Natasha asks.

“As gooey as possible. Just a melty, gooey mess. Barton?”

“Lightly toasted,” Clint says. “Still immediately recognizable as a marshmallow. Just sort of. Brownish.”

“Predictable,” says Natasha.

“You’re one to talk, Romanoff.”

“Kids,” Phil says, “play nice or I will turn this car around.” Clint grins and stretches out his hand toward Phil’s, twists their fingers together.

“Home, home on the range,” Natasha sings, and Clint lets out a burst of laughter, and Phil hums along until they all pretend to fall asleep.

---

Tony Stark disappears in Afghanistan. After one month, he is presumed dead by nearly everyone except Director Fury, who insists, stoic as ever, that Tony Stark is meant for something bigger. After two months, Agent Hill fires thirteen S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who placed bets on when the body will be found. After three months, Tony escapes, returns to California and refuses medical care, and Phil is dispatched to his press conference.

He approaches Pepper Potts, gives her his business card, and watches Tony Stark sit down in front of a room full of reporters and declare that Stark Industries will no longer be manufacturing weapons. It takes the breath from Phil’s lungs, that announcement, and for hours that night in his hotel room, he mentally replays Tony’s quiet statement to Obadiah Stane, I never got to say goodbye to Dad.

Pepper Potts doesn’t call, but then, Phil didn’t expect her to. He spies on Obadiah Stane before Fury even gives him the orders, because Phil knows good from bad and bad from good and Stane’s entire being screams bad guy from the top of his shiny head to the soles of his shiny shoes. He goes to a charity event in his nicest suit, intending to introduce himself to Stane, but ends up meeting Tony Stark instead.

Tony Stark is everything Phil thought he would be even when Phil had to walk by local newspapers with Tony’s young face on the front page: arrogant, self-possessed, bored, ordering a drink already and making a joke about it. There’s something in his eyes, though, and the way he carries himself, something small and hidden, curled away in a shadowy corner and ignored when other people are around. It’s something Phil likely wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t been trained to see that sort of thing. It makes him think of Captain America; it makes him think of Clint and Natasha; it makes him think, lost.

Two days later, he sits in the lobby of Stark Industries and says, “Did you forget our meeting?” to a rapidly approaching Pepper Potts by way of greeting. He knows immediately that it was the wrong thing to say, stands and walks with her, matching her frantic pace.

“Right now,” Pepper says, voice shaky. “I’m going to give you the meeting of your life.” Phil looks at her face, away, and back, and feels her terror through the tears in her eyes, the tremble of her lips. The moment the doors close behind them, she gasps for air and turns to him, says, “Obadiah hired the Ten Rings to kill Tony--” and it’s all he needs to hear.

“Come with me, Miss Potts,” he says, places his hand on her elbow in what he hopes is a comforting gesture and escorts her to his car, calling his team of agents to meet them on the way. “Normal procedure is to take you somewhere safe,” he says as she buckles her seatbelt, “but you’ll be needed in order for us to get into the laboratory.”

“Are you kidding?” Pepper says, hands in her lap, knuckles white and shaking. “I wouldn’t miss this.” Phil almost smiles. He likes her.

“You may want to call Mr. Stark,” he says. “There’s a bottle of water in the console if you need it.”

Pepper lets out a terrible sound, a sob and a lament and a scream, and covers her face with her hands. It’s the worst sound Phil’s ever heard. He knows, even through the adrenaline raging in his ears, that he will never forget it, ever, and will never tell anyone else about it, ever.

He swallows, opens the console himself, and offers her the bottle.

---

Obadiah Stane dies, horrifically, and Phil has never felt worse for a person than he does for Tony Stark, who somehow manages to sit in an office chair and look as though a man he’s known his entire life didn’t hire a terror cell to kill him, didn’t try to kill Tony himself just last night; who reads a newspaper with himself on the front page again and only remarks on his new superhero name instead of the unspeakable hell he’s been through in the past four months; who lets Pepper cover up the cuts and bruises on his face and acts like he wasn’t forced to kill a father-figure less than twenty-four hours prior.

It feels bizarre to admire Tony Stark. It feels even stranger to worry about him.

“There’s nothing in here about Stane,” Tony says as he reads through the cards Phil gives him. Phil notes the use of Stane instead of Obie, bites down on the inside of his cheek, and maybe takes a little too much pleasure in explaining Obadiah Stane’s death story. He tells Pepper to expect to hear from S.H.I.E.L.D. and decides at the last minute to stick around for the press conference.

“The truth is,” Tony starts, standing at the podium and looking wistful, and Phil knows instantly what he’s going to do. To save time, he preemptively sighs, closes his eyes, and pinches the bridge of his nose.

“I am Iron Man,” Tony finishes, and Phil crosses to Pepper as the reporters lose their collective cool.

“Well,” he says, watching Pepper shake her head and give him an apologetic look, “I didn’t mean you’d be hearing from us again so soon, but here we are.”

“Here we are,” Pepper agrees. She sighs and closes her eyes, rubs at her temples in slow, long-suffering circles.

Phil likes her a lot.

---

Fury offers Phil the job of monitoring Bruce Banner. Phil has seen the footage, has seen photos of the aftermath, knows that “monitor” will eventually mean “speak to personally, possibly put in custody.” Phil is a brave man, but he is not a stupid one. He says, “With all due respect, sir, hell no.”

He does meet with General Ross, though. Fury tells him that Ross has become obsessive, dangerously narrow-minded when it comes to Banner. Fury is correct.

General Ross is thrilled, at first, to meet Phil. He puts out a strong hand for Phil to shake and says, “It’s about time S.H.I.E.L.D. took this threat seriously.”

But Phil is there to tell Ross that S.H.I.E.L.D. is not, in fact, taking it seriously, or at least not as seriously as Ross would like. “He’s on our radar,” Phil says, “but as it’s been nearly a year without a major incident--”

Phil returns to S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters with self-bandaged knuckles, formally recommending that they monitor General Ross as well.

---

Agent Hill says, “There is something wrong with Tony Stark.”

From Phil’s left, Clint says, “What else is new?”

Agent Hill says, “Romanoff, you’ll be planted in the legal department at Stark Industries as Natalie Rushman. Gather intel and get as close as possible. Understood?”

From Phil’s right, Natasha says, “Yes, Agent Hill.”

Agent Hill says, “Barton, you’ll be our eyes. Find a roof, or several, and report back. Stay low-tech. Stark’s got an AI butler who might take notice of you otherwise and we need you to be invisible. Understood?”

Clint says, “Got it.”

Agent Hill says, “Coulson, we’ll bring you in for direct contact if things get sticky. In the meantime, you’ll be stationed in the vicinity on standby. Understood?”

Phil says, “Understood.”

Thirty-five minutes later, they’re on a jet to Malibu. Clint and Phil agree that Natalie Rushman is much scarier than Natasha Romanoff.

---

“How is Mr. Stark doing these days?” Phil asks. He’s standing next to his hotel room window, looking out over parking lots and a sunset, on the phone with Pepper. It’s far from the first time they’ve spoken since the initial Iron Man contact, but it is the first time he’s asked her directly about Stark. He figures it can’t hurt. Pepper gives a heavy sigh.

“Tony is Tony, Phil,” she says, sniffling. “He’s making my life impossible, as usual. Do you know he just donated our entire modern art collection--”

“To the Boy Scouts,” Phil finishes for her. “So I’ve heard. Do the Boy Scouts really need an art collection?”

“No, they do not,” Pepper says angrily before settling into a brief coughing fit. Phil waits patiently for her to stop before suggesting she take a day off to get some rest. “Ha!” says Pepper, coughing again. “That’s not going to happen, Phil, and you know it.”

“Then go be furious at Mr. Stark to his face,” he says. “That always makes you feel better.”

Two days later, Pepper becomes CEO of Stark Industries and Phil receives a text message from Natasha that simply reads, “Stark. Wow.” The day after that, Clint comes down from his nest to spend the entire day in Phil’s hotel bed, bursting into hysterical laughter every few hours about Natasha’s new job as Tony Stark’s personal assistant while Phil fields emails and texts from Fury regarding S.H.I.E.L.D.’s recent monitoring of a young astrophysicist in New Mexico. Phil and Clint sit on the roof of the hotel and watch as the Stark mansion is torn apart and Colonel Rhodes flies away in an Iron Man suit.

“This is almost romantic,” Clint says.

“Like watching fireworks over the beach,” Phil agrees.

“You’ll have to deal with Stark tomorrow.”

“Fury’s already called me in to babysit after their meeting.”

Sparks fly from the mansion for hours; Clint and Phil are silent until dawn.

---

Tony all but blatantly asks Phil to bring him coffee.

Phil all but subtly threatens Tony with intense bodily harm.

---

“Sir,” an agent says, interrupting Phil’s Animal Cops: Houston marathon. “Stark has left the building.”

Phil sighs. “Where’s he going, JARVIS?”

“Mr. Stark appears to be visiting Miss Potts at Stark Industries,” answers JARVIS.

“Let him go,” he tells the agent. “Barton will keep an eye on him.” The agent nods and exits the room again, leaving Phil to watch two dozen pigs be rescued from a hoarder’s mobile home. “I like you more than I like most people, JARVIS,” he says after JARVIS turns off the television at the first sign of Phil displaying emotions. “Now where in this house can I find the best blackmail material for Mr. Stark?”

---

The sky pelts a hammer down in New Mexico.

Phil gets reassigned.

He allows himself one sigh and three more seconds of The Real Housewives of New York before turning the television off and vacating the couch. He goes to Tony’s workshop to say goodbye and ends up picking up a Captain America collectible item instead.

It’s a would-be replica of the famous shield, designed in 1976 by Howard Stark for the country’s bicentennial, commissioned by the Smithsonian Institute. It’s impractical as protection and weird as hell to look at, all incomplete shapes and sharp, sudden angles. It’s one of a kind. It’s worth millions. It’s in perfect condition.

Tony uses it to prop up his homemade particle accelerator.

Phil says, “Good luck. We need you.” Phil says, “Not that much.” Phil leaves.

Phil does not say, “I am going to return from New Mexico and steal that shield from you and hang it up on the wall of my apartment.”

He doesn’t say that.

He doesn’t.

---

Phil’s been craving those crappy mini-donuts that are only available in gas station marts and drugstores ever since Tony Stark was found by Director Fury sitting inside a giant donut. It’s 12:03 AM when he stops at a gas station to fill up and gives in to temptation, wandering inside the shop and staring at his options: powdered or frosted. It’s 12:05 when he incapacitates two men using a bag of flour. It’s 12:06 when he buys both kinds of donuts.

At 12:08, he’s back on the road, his suit flecked with flour and his mouth full of donut that he can barely chew.

At 12:10, he gets a call from Clint. “Barton,” he answers, though around the donut still thick in his mouth, it sounds more like, “Mutton.”

“I heard you wanted me,” Clint replies, voice crisp and smug on the other end of the line. “Asked for me specifically.” Phil swallows as much donut as he can.

“I didn’t even ask,” he says. “I just said I wanted you.”

“You’re gonna get us in trouble with Fury,” Clint says. Phil can hear him grinning. “And all this time you’ve been worrying about me letting it slip. Anyway, the point is: thanks to you, I’m currently on my way to Ass-Fucking Egypt, New Mexico.”

“Would it make you feel better if I invited you with me to steal something from Tony Stark after this mission?”

“Um,” says Clint, excitement evident, “yes. You could also save me a frosted donut.”

---

Phil doesn’t understand a thing in Jane Foster’s notebook. It’s all ramblings about constellation patterns and crudely sketched star charts, capitalized scribblings about something called an Einstein-Rosen Bridge surrounded by exclamation points. He shakes his head and leaves it with the agents who know a little something about science. He can tell they have no idea what they’re dealing with either, though. He finds himself wishing for the presence of Tony Stark.

He likes Darcy Lewis’ iPod much better. She has great taste in music.

---

A man breaches the portable laboratory perimeter and physically assaults everyone who comes within fifteen feet of him. A storm begins. Phil doesn’t think these two events are related. He will continue to not think these two events are related until he learns the man’s true identity, at which point he will need to take exactly one minute and thirty-seven seconds to reevaluate his worldview to account for the very real existence of both Norse gods and aliens. Right now, however, he just needs eyes up high. With a gun.

“You want me to slow him down, sir?” Clint asks. “Or are you sending in more guys for him to beat up?”

“I’ll let you know,” Phil says, and watches as the man punches and kicks and delivers a sound defeat against the best muscle S.H.I.E.L.D. sent. The stranger is covered in mud and soaked to the bone by the time he stands, and even then he gives another kick in the face to one of Phil’s agents. Phil would scowl at the thought of the paperwork that’s going to be involved if he could tear his gaze from the fiercely determined expression on the man’s face.

“You’d better call it, Coulson,” Clint says. “‘Cause I’m startin’ to root for this guy.” Phil watches the man tear through the tarp to the small, guarded site where the immovable hammer remains stuck in the earth and steps closer to the railing to get a better view, rain soaking him immediately. He’s not going to say it aloud, but he’s rooting for this guy, too. He can hear Clint swallow even over the thunder and rain. “Last chance, sir,” Clint offers, and a line of tension twisting up to Phil’s brain coils a little tighter.

“Wait,” he says. “I want to see this.”

The man drenched in mud smiles as he reaches out a hand to grasp the handle of the hammer. He pulls and nothing gives except the smile on his face, which washes away in the rain as he tries again with both hands. Phil can see the strength involved in this effort, the muscles bulging and tensing under the skin, the wet shirt. The man pulls and pulls and pulls once more before releasing the hammer. The sight alone is enough to make Phil breathe easier, release his tension as well, but then--

Phil is about to turn away when the man looks up to the sky, faces the rain and thunder and lightning, and roars. Phil’s never heard anything like it from a human, and the hissing intake of breath in his ear tells him that Clint hasn’t either, and Clint has heard a lot of sounds from a lot of humans. Then, like a broken string, the man goes silent and drops to the ground, his knees digging into the mud, his shoulders slumping. He even bows his head--the last act of humility from a shamed man--and Phil has absolutely no idea what he’s going to do with this guy.

“All right,” he says finally. “Show’s over. Ground units, bring him in.” He looks up in time to see Clint lower his bow, turns away before he can see the man below allow himself to be cuffed.

This mission is weird.

---

Dr. Eric Selvig is horrible at lying, but Phil lets him take He Who Is Not Donald Blake with him anyway. He doesn’t miss Not Donald Blake reaching out and snatching Jane Foster’s notebook on the way out, though.

He sends two agents off to follow them and finally gets around to reading the text message Natasha sent him an hour ago.

“In VA. Tailing Banner. Fury’s orders.”

“Stark?” he sends back. He gets a reply almost immediately.

“Iron Man: yes. Tony Stark: no.” Phil blinks, reads it again. It’s cold, but it’s probably the right decision, and he’s glad Natasha had to make that call rather than him. “Fury’s keeping him on as a consultant,” Natasha sends a moment later, then, “How’s NM?”

“It was a dark and stormy night,” he replies. “Don’t get smashed please. Barton would be inconsolable.”

---

Phil Coulson has always considered himself man enough to admit when he doesn’t know what the hell is going on. Staring down at some incomprehensible patterns imprinted into the New Mexico desert, he’s getting the chance to test that theory. He certainly thinks it, over and over and over again--What the hell is going on with this mission?-- but what he says is, “Get somebody from Linguistics down here,” as if he actually knows what he’s doing.

New Mexico has got him feeling lost.

A dust storm kicks up out of nowhere and a gigantic metal figure drops from the sky. Of course it does. He picks up a loudspeaker and tells whoever’s inside it to stand down. It shoots fire at a S.H.I.E.L.D. car from where its eyes should be.

Phil Coulson has had a headache for thirty-six hours.

Minutes later, Phil watches from a dust-covered vehicle as Not Donald Blake is killed by the gigantic metal fire-shooting man only to reach up and catch the hammer that comes hurtling toward his body at top speed--the same hammer that should still be under lockdown fifty miles away. When Not Donald Black stands up, he’s covered neck to toe in armor and has an honest to god red cape blowing behind him in the breeze.

“A fucking cape,” he mutters to himself as he gets out of the car, and then, louder, “Excuse me!” while he approaches this guy and Jane Foster and their friends. “Donald? I don’t think you’ve been completely honest with me.”

“Know this, Son of Coul,” Not Donald says, which is all Phil needs to hear to decide he likes whoever this man actually is.

He orders his agents to return all of Jane Foster’s equipment to her and recruits Clint to help him recover the remains of what he’s officially calling the Destroyer. Clint complains loudly just to hear his own voice echo through the near-empty town. Phil is glad for it; he finds Clint’s voice promising in the best of times, soothing in the worst, and this is an in between time where the sound is a comfort, a solid rock in the middle of whatever the fuck this week has been. He stares down at a piece of charred metal in his hands for a long moment before throwing it onto the truck with the--body? Shell? What can it even be called?

Clint appears at his side. “This one’s been real weird.”

“Would you believe the weirdest ever for me?” Phil asks. Clint looks at him.

“I would if you told me,” he answers after a second. “Which is more than I can say for anyone else in S.H.I.E.L.D.” Phil gives Clint a considering look.

“You trust me that much?”

Clint shrugs. “‘Course.” Phil stares at him.

“I love you, Clint,” he says, low and sure. Clint doesn’t blink, doesn’t let his gaze waver, doesn’t swallow, doesn’t flinch, doesn’t sway at all. His hand, though, jerks out as if on instinct, fingertips touching the buttons on Phil’s shirt over his stomach before pulling back. Clint shrugs again.

“I love you, too, Phil,” he says casually, like it’s nothing. He holds up the keys. “You wanna drive?”

---

“You and Agent Sitwell wanted Tony to ruin that meeting, didn’t you?” Pepper asks when she calls Phil three days later.

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about, Miss Potts,” Phil says, all business because he knows it irks her on personal calls.

“Phil,” Pepper says. “Listen, I know I’m not supposed to even know about the Avengers Initiative, but I watch the news. Someone in charge wanted that soldier--Blonski? After what he did to Harlem?”

“Someone in charge would point out that he wasn’t alone in Harlem,” Phil says.

“So they’re blaming it all on Dr. Banner?” Pepper asks.

“I’m really not at liberty to say,” Phil says. “Let’s talk about something else, Pepper.” Pepper sighs.

“Fine,” she says. “How’s the love life?” Phil doesn’t miss a beat.

“I’ve been seeing a cellist,” he says, thinking of bows and music and arrows. “She’s from Portland.”

“Oh, is she with the Portland Cello Project?” Pepper asks, and Phil loves her for getting that. “I was just showing their cover of a Kanye West song to Tony.”

“I’m sure he loved that.”

“Well, maybe if they did an AC/DC cover,” Pepper offers. Phil pictures Clint trying to listen to anything other than Charlie Daniels and Garth Brooks; he actually laughs.

---

Phil is assigned to check up on Peter Parker. He puts on running shorts, a well-worn Iron Man t-shirt - a joke gift from Tony Stark that, to Phil’s chagrin, Clint loves on him - and sneakers and goes for a run from Brooklyn to Queens.

“Coulson, what the hell?” Clint says, breathless and doubling over as he catches up to Phil. “You couldn’t have mentioned it was gonna be a twelve-goddamn-mile run?”

“I brought water,” Phil replies between gulps of water, as if that’s an answer, and then, “I was under the impression you were in better shape than you apparently are.”

“Twelve fucking miles,” Clint mutters. “And where’s this kid supposed to be?”

“Should be coming up the sidewalk across the street in approximately ten seconds,” Phil says, gesturing to the convenience store on the corner across from them. Ten seconds later, a thin boy with a sad face and an extreme case of bedhead appears, his shoulders hunched, his eyes looking down at his black Converse sneakers.

“Sighting,” Phil says quietly into a microphone hidden in his watch wristband. “Peter Parker, alive and - well, alive.”

“How’s he look, Coulson?” comes Director Fury’s voice in Phil’s ear. Phil watches the sixteen-year-old from across the street, struck by the way he can see unhappiness etched in the downcast curve of Peter Parker’s mouth even from a distance.

“Lonely, sir,” Phil answers. He hears a sigh in response.

“I don’t know why I keep expecting more,” Fury says. “Job well done, Agent.”

“Yes, sir,” Phil says, and then looks at Clint, takes in the empathetic eyes that still follow Peter, brows furrowed in understanding and regret. Clint Barton’s dossier doesn’t mention even once that he’s especially good with sad children, lonely teenagers, orphaned boys and girls forced to reevaluate over and over again what the word “family” means, and Phil thinks that’s a damn shame.

He clears his throat and Clint finally looks at him. “Let’s take a cab,” Phil says.

---

“Budapest is awful,” comes Natasha’s voice over the message in Phil’s personal voicemail. It’s muffle and whispering; Phil has no trouble imagining her barricading herself in the bathroom of the motel room she’s sharing with Clint. “Barton keeps dragging me on bus tours. Bus tours, Coulson. What am I--yeah, cool it, Barton, can’t a lady piss in peace? Give me a second!--Coulson. Tell your man to stand down with this tourist shit or you might not ever see him again. I know you know I mean that. His body will never be found. You’ve been warned.” Phil hears the beginnings of a flush before the message cuts off.

He laughs until he chokes on his coffee, on his own breath, and then he obeys the computerized prompt and presses 7 to save the message.

---

Director Fury calls Phil, Clint, Natasha, and Maria into his office, says, “Career fair at Berkeley. Grab an intern,” and sends them away.

Natasha and Maria spend the entire way -- car ride, airplane, car ride, traveling like civilians -- complaining.

“Never let it be said that S.H.I.E.L.D. adheres to traditional gender roles,” Clint says darkly, rubbing at his temples. He looks at the intern they’ve brought with them: a young, lanky man with curly hair and a serious face. “Right, Toby?” Clint says loudly, clapping Toby on the shoulder.

Toby looks uncomfortable.

“Absolutely, sir,” says Toby. Clint sighs.

“It’s no fun if you just agree to agree, kid,” he says, and turns back to look past Phil, out the window as they approach the university. “I never went to college.”

“I didn’t either,” says Natasha, jumping swiftly from voicing her dissatisfactions with being assigned to interact with young people. “Of course, I never really went to school at all.”

“Sure ya did,” Clint says with a smile. “It was just a specialty school. A private one. Very specific curriculum.”

“Red Room Schoolhouse,” agrees Natasha, one corner of her mouth curving up to form a smirk. “But yours was pretty special and private, too.”

“Big Tent Elementary, Middle, and High School,” Clint says, laughing. “Another one with very unique course offerings. Instead of English and Algebra, it was Archery and Survival. What about you, Agent Hill?”

“Political Science at Northwestern,” says Maria. She shrugs. “College was pretty great for me, to be honest.”

“Gross,” says Clint. “You were one of those Type A, Student Government leader, way-too-involved--”

“Volleyball, tennis, executive vice president of Student Government, campus tour guide, and I graduated with a 3.8 GPA,” Maria interrupts, her voice somehow entirely devoid of smugness, settling instead somewhere in the matter-of-fact range. “What about you, Coulson? What was college like for you?”

Phil looks out the window, thinks of writing papers of Captain America and playing clarinet and, save for the only time he had sex with a woman, college for him doesn’t look much too different from high school, or junior high, or elementary. He thinks of graduating and running away to Boston, rolling his eyes at newspapers with front pages adorned by Tony Stark’s teenage face, returning home to Nick Fury sitting terrifyingly still on his couch, and says, “College was just a holding cell before I got recruited.” It comes out sounding much sadder than he means it.

The car parks and Clint says, “I’m taking it upon myself to go find pizza. Everyone else is welcome to tag along.”

“Except you, Toby,” Phil says. “You get the honor of setting up our booth.”

Toby looks uncomfortable.

---

The career fair is more or less uneventful. As per Director Fury, their booth is the most boring one in the auditorium; none of them make it a point to be friendly to anyone passing by. They use their own judgment on the few students who bother stopping and asking what S.H.I.E.L.D. is, which means they pass on everyone.

Then Banhi Patel walks right up to Phil, introduces herself, and asks, “What sort of entry level positions does the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division have available?”

Phil takes in her tight jeans and her neon yellow sari, her long dark hair tied to the side to fall in front of one shoulder and her bindi, and says, “That depends, Miss Patel. Do you want to fly or do you want to be a spy?”

Banhi smiles at him. “What do you think?”

Phil returns the smile. “In that case, you’ll want to talk to Agents Romanoff and Barton here.”

The career fair is not a total waste.

---

It’s nearly June when Phil is awoken at dawn by a phone call from Director Fury.

“Agent Coulson,” Fury says, torturously crisp for 6:13 AM. “There’s been a development in the arctic.”

Phil thinks maybe he’s missing something. “In the arctic, sir?” he asks, rubbing at his bleary eyes.

“Members of a Russian oil expedition found a crashed HYDRA airship in the ice,” Fury says.

“HYDRA?” Phil bolts to a sitting position. Next to him, Clint rolls himself into a tighter bundle in the sheet and blankets. “Sir, is it Captain America’s--is it the one he flew into the ocean?”

“It is,” Fury confirms.

“How do you know?” Phil asks. “Did they--the recovery team found a body, didn’t they?” He can barely breathe.

“They did,” says Fury. “He’s being sent here to Manhattan as we speak. He’s expected to eventually make a full recovery.”

“A full--” Phil’s breath comes again, shaky and staccato, his heart pounding wildly. “He is alive,” he says quietly. “Captain Rogers is alive.”

“You were right, Coulson,” Fury says. “He’s alive. I just thought you should know.”

Phil says, “Thank you, sir,” and hangs up, listens to his own breathing for a full minute before pulling back the covers and getting out of bed. He’s still sitting on his couch -- silhouetted by the shield stolen from Tony Stark hanging on the wall beside him, staring down at the vintage trading cards under the glass of his coffee table -- when Clint appears from the kitchen two hours later.

“No coffee?” Clint asks, arms crossed over his chest, face contorted into Half-Asleep Annoyed, and then, “Whoa, what’s wrong?” as he crosses the room and sits down next to Phil.

“He’s alive,” Phil says. He looks up, finally, from the coffee table. “Clint. They found him.” Clint blinks.

“Holy shit,” he says. “Where the hell’d they find him?”

“Fury just said ‘the arctic,’” Phil says, “but he’s being sent to S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ right this second. Or he was, two hours ago when I got the call.”

“Two hours ago,” Clint says. “Well, Phil, he’s probably there by now. Why are you still here?” He stands up, pulling Phil with him. “Come on! Go get dressed, man! Your hero lives!”

---

Steve Rogers looks exactly the way he does on the trading cards, on the 1940s newspaper, in the old movie footage. It’s more unsettling than Phil would have expected, if he’d known he should expect anything like it.

They’ve put Captain Rogers in a bed in a room that isn’t so much a room as it is a space closed off by four walls and a door. There are windows looking out into nothing, just a fake New York City as it was in the 1940s. There’s an old radio playing Dodgers games back from when they still belonged to Brooklyn. Everything has been strategically designed to make Rogers feel comfortable and safe whenever he wakes up.

Phil looks around him, and down at the man on the bed, and back up at Director Fury, and says, “No offense, sir, but this is an awful idea.”

“Experts agree--”

“Experts?” Phil interrupts. “Experts in what? Psychology? Coma patients? Memory loss? What?” He doesn’t know why this room makes him so angry when the continued existence of Captain Rogers makes him feel so proud, but there it is, rising to the surface, threatening to boil over and get himself banned from this room, demoted, fired. “Steve Rogers is not stupid, Director. He’s quick witted and reactionary and--”

“He was quick witted and reactionary,” Fury says. His tone is a warning. “We have no idea what he’ll be now when he wakes up.”

“He’s been frozen in ice for decades,” Phil says. “He hasn’t been beaten in the head repeatedly. That Dodgers game is from before he even became Captain America, and you think he won’t know something’s up just because you painted the room beige and put the agents watching over him in a ‘40s Army nurse outfit?”

“Agent Coulson, you were not invited here to give advice on how to handle Captain Rogers in his condition,” Fury says. “I suggest you remember that.” Phil takes a deep breath and turns away, looks back down at the man in question, peacefully asleep.

“Yes, sir,” Phil says, and he’s surprised to find that he means it. “My apologies.” Fury nods and turns to leave, but when he gets to the door, Phil adds, “For the record, though, when this proves to be a bad idea, just remember who told you so.”

---

Captain Rogers wakes up.

The room was a bad idea.

Phil gets a text message from Clint that reads, “Fury won’t say it so I will: you were right.” He sighs and puts his phone away without responding.

Clint’s been assigned to Project PEGASUS security. He spends his days and nights on a subterranean rafter, watching Dr. Selvig and a team of scientists work on harnessing energy from the Tesseract; his mornings are spent sleeping in an extra chair in Phil’s office for three hours. Phil doesn’t see much of him lately.

If he’s honest, Phil is a little bit glad of that new development. It makes it easier to go home alone - for all that a tiny apartment in the middle of the desert is a temporary home - eat dinner alone, go to sleep alone, wake up alone while feeling an inexplicable, creeping sense of dread gnawing at the pit of his stomach. Clint doesn’t have time to ask what’s wrong, to make him talk about it, so he doesn’t have to. Phil doesn’t know what he would say anyway.

It’s probably bad form to look a man in the eyes and say, “Ever since my lifelong hero was found alive in the arctic, I’ve just had this weird feeling that my number’s going to be pulled sooner rather than later. Should I be worried?”

Yes. Definitely bad form. It’s best to keep that sort of thing to oneself.

---

Phil loses himself in the S.H.I.E.L.D. gym, punching a bag until he can’t feel anything except tired muscles and the sweat dripping from his skin, and then punching it a little more. He only stops when Agent Sitwell takes hold of the bag and peers cautiously from the other side of it.

“Agent Coulson?” Sitwell says. “Are you okay, sir?” Phil looks at him.

Sitwell has been working under Phil’s authority since he was recruited to S.H.I.E.L.D. seven years ago. He’s worked his way up from bringing Phil coffee to being his protege. Sometimes Natasha is on assignment across the world, and sometimes Clint is on top of a building on the other side of the country, but Sitwell is always at Phil’s right hand. Looking at him now, Phil wonders if he’s learned anything. The thought that Sitwell might consider his mentorship mediocre at best makes Phil want to start throwing punches again.

“Agent,” Phil says, “Do you feel you’ve learned something valuable from me?”

Sitwell looks surprised. “Of course, sir,” he says. “Everything I’ve learned from you has been valuable. I feel like you’ve taught me everything you know.” One corner of Phil’s mouth twitches upward.

“Not quite everything,” he says. “I will, though.”

---

There’s a big ugly building going up in the middle of New York City with Tony’s last name on it.

Phil can’t bear to look at it.

It rouses the dread curled at the pit of his stomach and makes it roar, makes Phil smell death each time he passes under its shadow.

Pepper leaves a voicemail asking what Phil thinks of the new project.

Phil can’t bear to call her back.

---

There are many things Phil never thought he would hear himself say. “But the chin strap dramatically weakens Captain America’s strong jawline!” can now be crossed off that list.

---

The dread takes the shape of anxiety and Phil takes off ten of the eighty-eight days he has built up in order to get it downgraded back to dread. Phil Coulson can handle ever-present dread. Anxiety is another monster, one he hasn’t seen since high school; he’d rather not end up locked in his bedroom listening to “The Star-Spangled Man” on repeat again.

He’s cooking dinner on day six when Clint breezes in, wraps his arms around Phil’s waist at the stove and squeezes. Phil smiles at the kiss pressed against his shoulder, smirks at the filthy words growled into his ear. Clint’s got him flat against the refrigerator two seconds later and Phil doesn’t notice the fingerless shooting gloves on Clint’s hands until he feels the soft leather against his flesh, Clint’s hand slipping down under cotton shorts.

Phil’s dinner is burnt by the time they’re done, so they order delivery from the little Indian place down the street. Clint has enough time to devour his chana masala and four pieces of naan before giving Phil a kiss and leaving again, on a plane back to Project PEGASUS. Phil has enough time to think, I’m never going to see him again, before losing his appetite entirely and stretching out across the couch, digging blunt fingernails into his skin as if he could claw the dread out himself.

He knows it’s foolish, though, to hope. He’s known it since the first itch.

Phil isn’t going to claw the dread out; the dread is going to claw itself out and leave him there to die.

Five days later, Phil returns to work. One week after that, the Tesseract opens for the Norse god of trickery and deception. The earth shakes under his feet and Phil tells his men not to worry about the stuff, just get in the shuttle, ensures everyone’s safety. The dread rises to fill his chest, taking up valuable space in his body, violently shoving aside his lungs and heart until they’re pressed hard against prison bars meant to protect them. Phil closes the van doors behind him and forgets how to breathe.

---

The S.H.I.E.L.D. base caves in on itself and takes a few miles of desert with it. When Phil jumps out of the van and walks out to meet with Director Fury and Agent Hill, he’s vaguely surprised to find that he is able to walk at all, for all the lightheadedness and swimmy vision he’s been experiencing for the past half hour.

“We’re relocating to New York,” Fury says. “Have your agents pack the Phase Two material in the cargo area.”

“Yes, sir,” Phil replies.

“What happens when we get to New York?” Hill asks.

“The Avengers Initiative happens,” says Fury. “You’ll need to contact Agent Romanoff in Russia, Coulson. She’ll be in charge of bringing in Banner.”

“What about Barton?” Phil brings himself to ask. A dark look passes over Fury’s face.

“He’s been compromised,” Fury says, and then, “He and Dr. Selvig are both with Loki now, willingly - or as willing as it can be when he’s turned their brains into an Asgardian chew toy. I’ll need you to bring in Stark.”

Phil swallows down the claws scratching and climbing their way up his throat. He nods and walks back to the van, gives the agents inside their orders, disappears on the other side of the ensuing busyness, and vomits.

---

“Tasha,” Phil interrupts, because he feels like a washcloth being soaked and wrung out over and over again. “Barton’s been compromised.”

He listens to Natasha do what he’s seen her do multiple times already. The sounds of her breaking jaws and leaving mobsters suspended by one ankle on the third floor of a warehouse are just as familiar to Phil as his phone ringing, as his own voice. He almost tunes it out as if it were elevator music, as he’s done countless times before, but then he thinks, This is the last time I’ll ever get to hear her doing what she does best, and snaps back to focus on the sound of her shoeless feet alternately hitting the floor and people’s noses, with equal force, and the bones of men who didn’t know what they were getting into when they decided to mess with Black Widow breaking cleanly, agonizingly. It’s not elevator music, but it is music nonetheless. Phil decides to miss it now, early, because he knows he won’t be able to once he’s dead.

Which will be soon, he’s realized. He can hear an awful crescendo building inside his skull, feel the unfairly familiar dread vaporizing, liquefying and seeping through the spaces between his ribs. It’s going to get into his blood any minute now, and that’s when he’ll know.

“Coulson, you know that Stark trusts me about as far as he can throw me,” Natasha says, and Phil thinks that, actually, that’s probably pretty far, especially in the Iron Man suit, but chooses to ignore it.

“I’ve got Stark,” he says. “You get the Big Guy.” Phil can practically hear Natasha’s pulse accelerate through the phone. He feels bad, honestly, that Fury is making her face the personification of her greatest fear - lack of control - but on the other hand, he has to go to the big ugly building that makes him feel the Reaper’s scythe cutting into his shoulder and convince an overgrown child to shelve his ego for the good of the world.

He begins practicing his long-suffering internal sigh as soon as he hangs up.

---

“JARVIS, this has been a really bad twenty-four hours, and unfortunately Mr. Stark is vital to saving the world, so can you please just tell him that I’m hacking into your system and let me in?” Phil asks, rubbing at his eyes as he leans against the wall outside the main entrance to Stark Tower.

“Of course, sir,” JARVIS replies. “Please allow me adequate time to make it a believable scenario.” Phil stands there for a full minute, eyes closed, listening to himself inhale and exhale, before he hears JARVIS’ voice again. “Take the elevator to the very top floor. You’ll find Mr. Stark and Ms. Potts there.”

“I’m not going to walk in on anything traumatic, am I?” Phil asks. “My days are numbered here, JARVIS. I don’t want that to be one of the last memories I have.”

“They will be either drinking champagne or arguing,” JARVIS answers. “Possibly both.”

“Thanks, JARVIS. You’re a real pal.”

---

Pepper asks about the cellist.

Phil thinks of bows and music and arrows, of brainwashing and magic weapons and working for the enemy, and answers, without hesitation, “She moved back to Portland.”

---

In the car on the way to the airport, Pepper pitches her voice low and says, “This is serious, isn’t it? I was telling Tony you seem really shaken.”

“If shaken is all I look, then I’m doing better than I thought,” Phil says. He keeps his eyes on the road even as Pepper turns her head to look at him, really look, for a long moment.

Pepper Potts is smart and capable and compassionate. She is intuitive and brave and frightening. She has never, in the few years that Phil has known her, been hesitant to show emotion, afraid of herself, overly concerned with her own safety over that of others. It is for these reasons that, when she places a small hand on Phil’s arm and asks, “Are you going to be okay, Phil?”, that he breaks.

“No, I’m not, Pepper,” he answers, calm as ever, voice monotone and eyes devoid of anything resembling tears. These are merely facts he is stating to her. They should be treated as such. “I’m not going to make it through this mission.” He catches his knuckles going white around the steering wheel and loosens his grip. “I’m going to die.”

Pepper doesn’t gasp or remove her hand or tell him not to say things like that. He figures there must be something in his voice, something about him that makes her understand that he knows, how he knows, but then he hears her exhale and remembers that she had to look Tony Stark in the face every day knowing that he was killing himself, knowing that he knew he was killing himself, knowing that he was letting himself die. Pepper knows what death looks like when it’s incoming, what it sounds like when its echoes are all that can be heard across the desert, what it smells like on a man’s breath; not as intimately as Phil does, but enough to know he’s not making a blind prediction. He wonders, selfishly, how it makes her feel, if she’ll miss him at all.

She squeezes his arm and whispers, “I wish you wouldn’t.”

---

Phil sleeps on the couch in his office for four hours. When he wakes up, the dread has gotten into his blood, and he knows.

He tries to look on the bright side: sure, this is the last day he’ll ever be alive, but at least he’ll be meeting his ultimate lifelong hero.

He’s got a headache already. The crescendo is officially too loud for him.

---

Captain Rogers wears a brown leather jacket and has a great handshake. If Phil had time left, he could write another college term paper on that handshake. Instead, he tells Captain Rogers about some of the other members of the Avengers Initiative.

“Natasha Romanoff is a trained assassin and a spy from Russia,” he says. “But don’t worry. We’re pretty sure she’s at least most likely on our side now.” Rogers looks slightly alarmed. Phil smiles. “Tony Stark is -” he starts, and then shakes his head. “Actually, you’re on your own with that one. And then there’s Dr. Bruce Banner.”

Captain Rogers watches footage on a tablet of Banner tearing New York City apart and asks, “So this Dr. Banner was trying to replicate the serum they used on me?” He seems genuinely surprised.

“A lot of people were,” Phil says. “You were the world’s first superhero.” He winces a little. He’s been trying not to be obvious about the whole personal hero thing. It’s proved difficult. He drops a pop culture reference that Captain Rogers doesn’t understand, makes an apologetic face, and finally says, “It’s an honor to meet you. Officially.” He gets a smile in return, what appears to be real gratitude; he feels delight in his lungs for the first time in weeks. “I sort of met you,” he shrugs before he can stop himself. “I mean, I watched you, while you were sleeping.”

Rogers looks vaguely uncomfortable. This is not how Phil wanted this meeting to go.

“I mean, I was--I was present,” he amends, “while you were unconscious.” Strangely, he notes, it sounded less creepy in his head. “From the. Ice. You know, it’s really--just a--just an honor to--to have you on board.” He sighs. The last time Phil stuttered, he was lying to a college girl about his post-graduation plans to keep her from wanting to sleep with him again. Yes, this is certainly less than ideal.

But Rogers ducks his head and looks out at the sky and when he says, “I just hope I’m the man for the job,” it sounds like he’s actually doubting it.

“Oh, you are,” Phil says. “Absolutely.” If he’s being completely truthful, he’d say that Captain Rogers is quite possibly the only man for the job. He knows that Captain America is an icon that even the least patriotic can root for, because he was and is the disenchanted American’s hero, and he knows that Steve Rogers will put himself to work even if he doubts his practical ability, because he did and does not rest until the right thing is done. If anything, just his presence so close by is sure to give Phil the strength to do whatever he has to, when the moment comes, as Phil knows it will. The propaganda-filled theme song used to make Phil feel brave enough to conquer another day at school with a homophobic bully; the hero himself can certainly make Phil feel brave enough do what needs to be done to glue the Avengers together.

Once off the jet and on the helicarrier, he introduces Rogers to Natasha, and tries to tell her, with his eyes, not to embarrass him.

Natasha smirks at him.

Phil just wants to hug her.

---

Phil listens to Dr. Banner throws out a lot of scientific terms with enviable ease and thinks, Stark’s going to look at him like he’s Christmas.

He considers warning Banner, but eventually decides not to bother. Anyone else would: the man’s got jumpy nerves that turn him into a very large tool of destruction. Phil knows that Banner’s also got self-control that should make every person on this helicarrier seethe with jealousy and issues about his own self-worth that something like automatic admiration from someone like Tony Stark could only improve.

He just hopes he’s present when Tony introduces himself. He’s sure it’s going to be a horrendous social faux pas. It would be great to have that in his last memories.

---

He mentions the trading cards in his locker as casually as possible. It is, perhaps, too casual.

Seconds later, Sitwell finds Loki in footage from Germany and Fury tells Rogers to suit up. Phil actually shudders.

It’s okay, though. Sitwell will never tell anyone.

---

Loki is at least nine kinds of deranged, but he’s planning something awful. Phil can tell that just from watching his surrender from the helicarrier.

On orders, he and Sitwell track the jet carrying Natasha, Rogers, Stark, and Loki back to them. A sudden lightning storm does not escape Phil’s notice. He raises an eyebrow and looks at Sitwell expectantly.

“I haven’t seen a storm look like that since New Mexico, sir,” Sitwell says. Phil nods approvingly. Then he realizes exactly what it means.

“Oh, good,” he says. “Our friend Thor’s coming back.” Sitwell looks at him.

“You don’t sound especially pleased, sir.”

“No,” Phil says, “I suppose I don’t.”

---

Tony arrives on board and immediately asks Phil about the cellist.

He wants to sigh and say, “There’s no cellist; there’s just an archer who drives me crazy with country music and perpetually cold feet.” He wants to laugh and say, “Oh, just wait until you meet him, Stark; he might actually beat you at your own Asshole Game.” He wants to slump his shoulders, rub his temples, and say, “It’s not fair that you’ll get time with him after I don’t have any left.”’

He looks straight ahead and says, “She moved back to Portland. She couldn’t find a good job here. I imagine that’s what happens when your career path leads you to being a cellist.”

---

Phil adds the beautiful way in which Agent Hill loathes Tony Stark to his list of perfect final memories.

That, and Tony telling Dr. Banner, “And I’m a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster.” Phil actually has to breathe that one in, it’s just so good.

He deliberately does not catalog Captain Rogers being excited about getting a reference to a piece of pop culture trivia from 1939. That one makes him hurt too much.

---

“In my youth I courted war,” Thor says, and something inside Phil’s chest shatters.

On the monitors, he watches Natasha play Loki like a Russian folk song with nothing but her brain, and then watches what should be a celebrated victory get bastardized into an internal fight among the present Avengers and Fury. He closes his eyes, pinches the bridge of his nose, and tries not to scream at them all. The crescendo in his head is growing impossibly louder, and frighteningly quicker, and when something explodes on a wing and causes an engine to fail, all the strings in the symphony suddenly break.

“Coulson,” Fury orders even as Phil’s already up and running downstairs, “initiate the systems lockdown.”

He’s able to watch, in the middle of the lockdown, Clint take out another engine a few minutes later. The picture quality is good enough that Phil can see the bags under Clint’s eyes, the crystallized blue of the irises, and when he hears Natasha say, “I copy,” he grips the railing until his hands go entirely white as he repeats, like a mantra, like a prayer, She’s not going to kill him. She’s not going to kill him. Of all people, she is not going to kill him.

When he comes back to full focus, he glances at a different monitor in time to see Loki trap Thor in the cell meant for the Hulk. He double checks that the lockdown has been completed and heads to the weapons vault.

His number is being called, but he’s not reporting for duty without a gun.

---

The gun is his hands is huge and heavy, made from the remains of the Destroyer picked up across the desert. It’s never been fired, still, because no one really has any idea what it is capable of doing. Test fires have been called off repeatedly, agents who’ve seen the footage from New Mexico too nervous to put their hands on it.

Phil isn’t afraid when he points it at Loki, but Loki looks it as he backs away from the control panel. It’s a heartening turn of events, but Phil isn’t stupid. He knows this is where he dies. He just doesn’t know how or when or at whose hands.

“You like this?” he asks. “We started working on the prototype after you sent the Destroyer. Even I don’t know what it does.” He flips a switch on the gun, readying it for firing. If he’s going to die, he’s at least not letting Loki get away. “You wanna find out?”

Searing pain rushes through his body then, sharp pulses of it raging from his spine out to his ribs, and the only thing he can think is how nice it is that Thor considers him enough of a friend to roar with anger and grief. He drops to the floor, against the wall, and tries to control his breathing as he watches Loki shrug and send his brother hurtling towards the earth.

Loki stands there, eerily still, for a full minute after Thor disappears. Phil thinks that for a moment he sees true regret in Loki’s face, but it passes, and maybe that’s just Phil projecting.

“You’re going to lose,” Phil says suddenly. He doesn’t know why, when he says it, but as soon as Loki turns to him, arrogance brimming in cold eyes, he understands. “It’s in your nature.”

“Your heroes are scattered,” Loki says. “Your floating fortress falls from the sky. Where is my disadvantage?”

Phil almost laughs at him. “You lack conviction,” he answers, thinking of Captain Rogers, of Tony Stark and Bruce Banner, of Natasha and Clint and Thor, of the reason they were fast friends or at each other’s throats just minutes ago. Loki was right to call them heroes; he was wrong to assume they are scattered.

When Phil pulls the trigger of the gun across his lap, a fireball sends Loki back and rolling to the ground. It’s really rather impressive.

---

Director Fury is both the last and only person Phil wants to see right now, in his literal time of dying.

“Sorry, boss,” Phil says when Fury bends down toward him, and he means it. He’s sorry for letting Loki go free. He’s sorry for getting deceived by the deceiver. He’s sorry that the Avengers Initiative was always going to begin this way. He’s sorry for dying in front of him.

“Eyes on me,” Fury says, stern as ever. It’s almost comforting.

Phil wants to explain himself. He wants to say that this was never going to work like this anyway: secrets can’t be kept from professional secret seekers like Tony Stark; control can’t be aimed like a gun at those, like Bruce Banner, whose greatest accomplishment is controlling themselves; soldiers like Steve Rogers can’t be expected to unquestionably fight wars for countries that can’t be trusted; women like Natasha, trained to lie and kill in the service of liars and killers, cannot be kept from violently defending the only real family she’s ever known; men like Clint, even with eyes sharp and record untarnished, can’t see into the future; and metaphorical weather can’t be cleared up by gods like Thor who create storms just by existing. They were always going to be separate and uncontrollable, forces of nature with no regard for people’s plans, and they couldn’t be called the Avengers if there was nothing to avenge.

Instead, he swallows and says, “I’m clocked out here.”

“Not an option,” says Fury, and Phil decides to try again.

“It’s okay, boss,” he says. He thinks, suddenly, of his parents, of his high school bully, of that girl in college, of Maria Hill and Pepper Potts, of Sitwell and Banhi Patel, of Stark and Rogers and Banner, of Thor and Jane and Darcy, of Natasha, of Clint. Seeing their faces like this makes it difficult to die. “This was never going to work,” he continues, and remembers the first time he met Nick Fury, thinks of the trading cards in his locker that he’ll never see autographed, and tries, through slowing heart beats and labored breathing, to finish, “if they didn’t have something--to....”

It’s undignified, not finishing a sentence in this state, Phil decides. He looks away and manages, “to unify them, to rally around, to avenge,” and realizes only belatedly that his lips never formed the words, just a final breath.

---

“I know you died for us,” Tony Stark says to the body in the open casket. The service hasn’t begun yet - agents are still filing in, looking simultaneously dapper and somber - but Tony’s never been one to live by a schedule, much less to get sentimental in front of people. “That was really stupid, Phil.” He pauses, then cringes. “Yeah, I’m just gonna call you ‘Coulson.’ At least it’s better than ‘Agent,’ right?”

Tony senses rather than sees Steve Rogers come to stand next to him. When he looks over, he sees blood-stained trading cards peeking out of Steve’s fingers. “You signed ‘em?”

“‘course,” Steve says, holding out the cards in front of him. “I just wish--”

“No point in that now,” Tony says, looking around the room. “Hey, is that Jane Foster?” he asks, and doesn’t give Steve a chance to answer before disappearing, leaving Steve alone with a casket and a set of vintage Captain America trading cards.

“I’m sorry,” Steve says, slipping the cards into Coulson’s suit pocket. “I’m sorry I didn’t sign these while you could still appreciate them. I’m also kinda sorry that you chose me for a hero. I’m not sure if I’m much of one.”

“It’s a good thing he’s not around to hear you talking about yourself like that,” Natasha says from beside him. Steve jumps a little; Natasha disguises her smile as a smirk, and Steve huffs out a laugh.

He looks down at the body again and says, “Sorry.” He and Natasha stand there in silence for a few moments before he turns to her and asks, “Did you have something to say? I can leave if you--”

“You don’t have to leave,” Natasha says, looking down into the casket. “He was the best man I ever knew. After I first joined S.H.I.E.L.D., all the other agents were unsure of me, my allegiances, but not Coulson. Never Coulson. He never questioned me. Clint trusted me and that was enough for him.”

“Clint seems--” Steve starts, pausing to find the right word.

“Upset?” Natasha offers quietly. “Despairing? Empty?”

“Broken,” Steve says.

“Yeah, well,” Natasha says. “There wasn’t a cellist, Steve. There was just an archer who now knows that the last Coulson ever saw of him was when he was firing explosives into the helicarrier.” She follows Steve’s gaze to the corner of the room where Clint sits against the wall, looking down at his knees, still and expressionless. “Barton is broken.”

“He’s going to need help piecing himself back together eventually,” Steve says. “Will you--make sure he has my phone number?” Natasha looks back at Steve and gives him a real smile this time.

“You’re a great man, Steve,” she says. “It’s no wonder Coulson idolized you.” A flash of yellow catches her eye and she turns toward the door. “Come here, Steve, there’s someone I want you to meet.”

Banhi Patel is talking to Sitwell when Natasha and Steve approach them. “Agent Romanoff, it’s so good to see you,” she says, letting go of Sitwell’s wrists and hugging Natasha. “I just wish it were under cheerier circumstances.”

“Agent Patel, this is Steve Rogers,” Natasha says. “You may know him as Captain America.”

“Agent?” Bruce asks, sidling up beside them. “But you baked bread in my village.” Banhi grins at his surprise.

“I brought some with me, actually, Dr. Banner,” she says. “Want some?” He looks to Natasha, who shrugs.

“I told you we never lost you.” A hush begins to fall as agents take their seats, and across the room, Fury nods to Natasha, who says lowly, “We may have to carry Clint to the front row.”

“I’m here,” Clint says, walking past them toward his seat. “And I’m okay. You can sweep up the eggshells.”

The Avengers take up the front row of seats, with Pepper resting her head on Tony’s shoulder while she clutches a tissue, and Jane and Darcy flanking Thor. Dr. Selvig sits behind Clint, between Agent Hill and an empty seat belonging to Director Fury, who stands at the podium behind the casket and thanks everyone in attendance for coming to the service. He invites Agent Sitwell to give the eulogy before taking his seat.

Sitwell stands behind the podium and takes a few deep breaths. He says that Coulson was his mentor, his role model, his hero. “I never told him that,” he says. “It sounds silly because Coulson’s heroes were, you know, heroes - heroes with super strength and super tech and super aim. But Coulson once took out two would-be robbers with a bag of flour and a kick, and then he overpaid for two packages of donuts and told the cashier to keep the change and tell the cops that she was really into tae bo.”

At this, Clint covers his face with both his hands and doubles over. He feels Natasha’s hand on his back, knows she’s trying to be comforting, because his shoulders are shaking and embarrassing, high-pitched whimpering sounds are escaping his throat. He’s not crying, though; he’s laughing. He never knew about the bag of flour; it’s so unsurprising that Phil would take someone down with a fucking bag of flour, and pay too much for gas station donuts, and not take any credit for it. Clint hates funerals usually, hates that people stand up and tell lies about the dead just because they think it’s more respectful, but he hears Sitwell say, “Agent Coulson died like a hero,” and he can’t let this funeral be boring or overly maudlin, because Phil’s done a lot more than take a man out with flour.

Sitwell sits down and Fury takes his place again, is in the middle of announcing the burial plans when Clint stands up suddenly and practically shouts, “I have something to say.” Fury raises an eyebrow but gestures for Clint to stand at the podium before returning to his seat.

“Clint,” Natasha whispers. “What are you doing?”

“It’s okay, Tasha,” Clint says as he stands not at the podium, but merely in front of the casket, and stares out at the heroes and scientists and S.H.I.E.L.D. agents filling the room. “I’m okay,” he says, giving her a quick smile. Then, “Phil Coulson jogged twelve miles from Brooklyn to Queens just to check up on a teenager whose parents were killed in the line of duty for S.H.I.E.L.D. when that teenager was just a little boy. It’s on record that he did this once, because he was only ordered to do so once, but the truth is that he jogged that twelve miles every few months, every single year since that kid’s parents died. I know he did this regularly because I went with him, the one time it was on orders, and on the cab ride back I asked him why he wasn’t winded at all half a dozen times before he told me.”

Clint clears his throat, looks down at his hands and up again. “One time he went to meet General Ross, who wanted S.H.I.E.L.D. to be more active in tracking down Dr. Bruce Banner,” he says, nodding to Bruce, who’s giving him a curious look. “General Ross said that Banner was a terror and a monster, among other things, and Phil punched that guy right in the face, and then he came back and told Fury and Hill to put Ross on their list of suspicious people to monitor. Phil said Ross was the real monster and Banner would be a hero if anyone would just step aside and give him a chance.” When he looks back at Bruce, his eyes catch Tony’s, and a laugh bubbles up out of him.

“Oh, yeah, and there was this one time, after Thor’s first visit, that Phil and I broke into Tony Stark’s mansion in Malibu and, uh, appropriated a one-of-a-kind weirdass replica of Captain America’s shield from the bicentennial.” He looks at Tony and shrugs. “I’m not sorry. It’s hanging on Phil’s apartment wall right now. You’re not getting it back. Let’s see, what else? Oh! Once, when Phil and Natasha and I were on a mission, his father died. He got word but he didn’t take off, didn’t even tell us until after we caught the bad guy, and he mentioned he was going to visit his father’s grave. He’d missed his own father’s funeral so we could finish the mission unhindered and uninterrupted. Do you remember that, Tasha?”

Natasha won’t look at Clint, has her hand over her mouth, but she nods all the same, and when Clint smiles, it actually feels real. “I almost shot Thor, by the way, during his first visit. He was tearing into the camp and beating up agents, all to get to that hammer of his, and I had a clear shot but Phil wasn’t giving me the order. I had to tell him that if he didn’t, I wouldn’t shoot, because I was starting to root for this crazy guy covered in mud, and Phil never said the words themselves, but he didn’t have to, because I knew he was rooting for Thor, too. That’s what Phil did: he rooted for underdogs who ended up heroes.”

He rubs at his eyes with the heels of his hands and breathes deeply. “Sitwell was right: Phil died like a hero. But I think we’re missing something critical here, which is that Phil also lived like a hero. He fought for--” his voice breaks, and he looks down at his feet, swallows past a hard lump in his throat.

“Clint,” Natasha whispers to him. He shakes his head without looking at her, lifts his head back up to continue.

“He fought for me to not get kicked out of S.H.I.E.L.D. and probably brutally murdered and dismembered after I defied an order to kill a certain assassin who was raised by Soviet spies,” Clint says. “He fought for that assassin to be trusted when at least two-thirds of the agents in this room still thought I should have killed her. He fought for Agent Patel to be allowed to wear her bright saris with these boring S.H.I.E.L.D. uniforms. He fought for Agent Sitwell to be given his own team when everyone else thought he wasn’t ready. He fought for his mother to have a live-in companion in a retirement community instead of just sticking her in a nursing home like her doctor suggested. He fought for Steve Rogers to have a normal room for recovery while he was still unconscious instead of the 1940s farce engineered by alleged experts.”

In the front row, Steve’s renewed grief is evident on his face. Clint thinks maybe he should feel bad for breaking Captain America’s heart - he knows Phil would disapprove. He rubs his palm across the back of his neck before continuing, “Even if Phil had lived to be the oldest man alive before--before dying, even if he’d died next week of a heart attack during one of those goddamn twelve-mile runs, even if he choked on breakfast cereal, he still would have died like a hero because he lived like a hero. That’s who he was, who he is.

“I’ve seen the footage. He went into that room holding a gun no one knew how to use, knowing there was no other option but death. He died so that Iron Man and Captain America could keep the helicarrier in the air, so that Black Widow could beat the brainwashing out of me, so that nobody could use the Hulk against himself, so that Thor could have a chance to confront his brother and put a stop to everything. Iron Man saved New York City, and Black Widow - well, she saved the world a lot.”

Clint jerks his thumb back toward the casket behind him. “But he saved us. Phil Coulson saved the Avengers. People are getting Captain America tattoos and little kids are dressing up like the Hulk all over the world, but nobody’s immortalizing the real hero. Phil Coulson - he--” Clint lets his shoulders fall, looks down at his shoes again. “The rest of us are just playing dress-up. Phil Coulson was always the real hero.” With that, Clint turns toward the casket and struggles to close it; any renewed strength he may have felt during his impromptu eulogy has dissipated. He’s near stupid, desperate tears when Natasha appears next to him, and together they shut the casket. Tony, Thor, Steve, and Bruce join them as the remaining four pallbearers, and the Avengers carry it out of the room, out of the building, toward a small cemetery.

“Legolas,” Tony hisses behind him, and Clint thinks he’s going to start in about the stolen shield, but then Tony says, “there was never a cellist, was there?”

A laugh dies in Clint’s throat. “No, Stark,” he says. “There was never a cellist.”