Chapter 5
Phil watches Clint die on a nineteen-inch viewscreen, separated by lead walls that measure ten feet thick.
"...still can't believe I made that shot," Clint is saying, voice hoarse and thready. He's laying curled up on his side on the cot within the chamber, too weak to do so much as raise his head. The video feed only captures him from the waist up and isn't enough at the same time it's too much, revealing translucent skin pale and glowing softly through the blankets; showing once-bright blue eyes with no focus, the delicate cells ruined within the first few hours.
"Eleven at night in a snowstorm?" Phil arches an eyebrow, remembering the mission in question. "That was child's play for you."
"You forgot the moose," Clint chuckles, painfully; the humor on his drawn features twisting into pain as his diaphragm spasms. Blood flecks the white pillows and beneath the desk, out of sight of the camera, Phil's fingernails bite red into his palms. He waits, quiet, patient, as the tremors subside. Clint sags back into the pillows, eyes fluttering shut.
Phil waits, and he waits, and the silence stretches too long and he whispers, "Clint?" with hope and fear and desperation, his voice cracking on the single, simple syllable.
"Sorry," Clint mumbles. His lips barely move and his eyes don't open. "Just resting my eyes."
"Of course," Phil whispers.
The corners of Clint's mouth twitch upward in the ghost of a smile.
"Never did believe you when you said that in Beirut. Hell of an op. Only got forty hours of sleep the whole week..."
Phil listens as Clint continues murmuring. Wetness seeps into his slacks from his hands, fisting tightly against his thighs. He listens as Clint's voice grows softer, fainter, letting him talk through the pain and the creeping enervation.
Clint stops talking again partway through the Taiwan mission. Phil waits. He counts seconds and then minutes and then whispers brokenly,
"Clint?"
"...an' you thought a side approach was a good idea, even with all th' damn rose bushes..."
Clint talks and murmurs and mumbles and whispers, and Phil listens. He listens to every word, every letter, every inflection and subtle quirk of accent. He listens and listens and never wants to stop, the world standing still when Clint stops speaking again.
He waits five whole minutes.
"Clint?"
Another five.
"Clint?"
Another fifteen minutes of quiet and then Phil starts to talk. He picks up where Clint left off, follows his rambling tangents and adds in his asides about weaponry and ridiculousness and sly little innuendos. He mentions the technical points from a marksman's point of view and points out how Natasha would have done things differently, or how the shot that looked so easy actually was pretty damn difficult to gauge with distance and wind currents and the sun in his eyes.
Phil talks and he talks and he talks until three hours later Natasha walks into the small communications room and closes her hand over his shoulder. Her eyes shimmer in the dim light and when he looks at her she shakes her head. He looks back to the screen, where Clint lays silent and still.
It's too quiet.