Vigil
Things are starting to be clearer and stick with him for longer. Sometimes he stays awake as long as an hour or two, and mostly remembers it all the next time he wakes up. At least he thinks he does – he supposes he wouldn’t really know if he’d forgotten. But people’s expressions seem to be less troubled when he opens his eyes and starts talking, so he takes that as a good sign.
Phil sighs. He’s supremely bored of this room already. They won’t give him a tablet or a phone, but they’ll let him watch television, which makes him suspect that there are things going on that they don’t want him to know about. (Nick tells him that they’re not hiding anything; that it’s for his own good because they know if they give him a computer he won’t get any rest. There’s probably some truth to that, but he’s suspicious anyway.) And there’s no DVR so watching television means having to actually sit through commercials. Commercials! He hasn’t not fast-forwarded through them in years. Not to mention that Medical’s cable package is awful and don’t even get him started about the inanity of the morning ‘news’ programs. Ugh. The only thing keeping him from losing his mind has been Clint, who, more often than not, is sitting by his bed when he wakes. He’s always enjoyed Clint’s company (probably more than he should).
He’d felt near-overwhelming relief the first time he’d opened his eyes to see Clint, sitting in the chair next to him, leaning forward, elbows on knees, staring at the floor with hands steepled in front of his mouth as though in prayer. The last he’d known, Loki had apparently possessed him somehow, and his agent was running the demigod’s ground game. At first sight, he’d wondered if it was some kind of strange, hopeful dream. But no, Clint looked terrible, so it probably wasn’t that; If Phil’s subconscious was going to conjure up a Hawkeye to be standing vigil over him, he wouldn’t look so wrecked. Clint was gaunt, there were dark smudges under his eyes set off in stark relief against his grey pallor, and he had visible healing cuts and fading bruises all up and down his arms, and on his neck and face. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days and quite frankly looked as bad as Phil felt.
And then Phil had had the disturbing thought that Clint might still be Loki’s puppet, and he was their prisoner.
“Are you back with us, Agent?” Phil had croaked. He barely got the words out, which made him suspect that he’d been in the hospital bed for quite a while. But he’d felt a wave of relief when Clint jerked his head up and Phil saw his green-blue eyes, clear, and just the way he remembered them. But he also saw in them a heartbreaking combination of sorrow and relief that had Phil catching his breath, almost afraid to ask what had happened. Clint’s face had shuttered quickly, though, and then he gave Phil a sit-rep, monotone and blank-faced, taking the blame for everything that Loki had done. Of course he did, the idiot.
Clint’s been here ever since. He seems… strangely devoted, and Phil’s a little perplexed by it, to be honest. Not that he and Clint aren’t friends. They are. Very close friends, even. You don’t live through life and death situations as often as the two of them and Natasha had, and not form some deeper-than-average bonds. But still. Clint’s been here nearly every single time he’s woken up in the last week since he’s come out of his coma, and while Phil appreciates it, he’s starting to think that maybe it’s a little bit of overkill, especially since the doctors have declared him to be out of the woods.
But for the moment, Clint’s not here, and Phil’s grumbling at the television as he flips through the channels when his door opens slowly and a blonde head pokes itself in. It’s Audrey from Purchasing. Phil perks up and smiles. A while back they had gone out on a couple of dates that never went anywhere, but they remained friendly and Phil genuinely likes her.
“Hello, Phil. May I come in?” she asks tentatively.
“Of course,” Phil answers brightly, muting the TV and working to sit up a little higher, then stopping as sharp pain lances through his chest. “It’s good to see you,” he says, trying to smile rather than grimace.
“It’s better to see you,” she says, also smiling, but looking very relieved.
Phil huffs. “I’m fine.”
“You weren’t, though,” she says as she steps close to his bed. “We were all very scared for you, Phil.” Her smile falters and her eye fill with tears.
There’s an awkward silence in the room and Phil wonders if Audrey knows about how he had apparently actually died for a couple of minutes, very nearly died several more times, had been in a coma for two weeks, and now faces months of tedious rehabilitation.
Phil clears his throat. “Well, it is good to see you Audrey,” he says, moving them past it. “I haven’t had many visitors.” Besides Clint, Natasha’s been by a few times and the Avengers had each poked their heads in. Other than that, it’s only been Nick.
Audrey cocks her head in a familiar way that makes her look rather adorable. It was the same gesture that made Phil take notice of her and prompted him to ask her out in the first place; it’s very endearing. Phil tries to remember why things never worked out for them.
“Oh, that’s because Agent Barton won’t let anyone in to see you.” She looks quickly over her shoulder at the door. “But I was down in the lobby a little while ago and I saw him leave so I thought I’d chance it.”
“What do you mean, Agent Barton won’t let them in?” Phil gives her a quizzical look. “I understood that I wasn’t allowed visitors, except for… the Avengers.” Come to think of it, that is sort of strange.
“Really?” Her head cocks in the other directions and Phil suddenly remembers that things didn’t work out between them because he’d started to think she looked a little bit like a bobble-head doll.
A moment later he realizes that he’s staring at her head and shakes himself out of his distraction. “Oh, um, yes… something about clearance?”
Audrey shrugs. “I don’t think what happened to you is classified. There was no keeping the media out of a story like this so it’s been all over the news. Not to mention the SHIELD gossip network? Everyone knows what happened.”
“They do?” Phil asks, puzzled. Hadn’t Clint told him his situation was classified? His memories of the first day or two that he was awake are kind of fuzzy, but he’s sure that’s what Clint had said.
“Yes?” she says. Or asks. It comes back to Phil with sudden clarity that another reason he hadn’t asked her out on a third date was her aggravating tendency to make declarative sentences into questions.
“So, you were able to just… come in?”
“Yes?” she says/asks again. Phil uses nearly all of his rapidly depleting reserves not to wince at the ‘question’. “But like I said, only because Agent Barton left.”
Huh.
“Well, thank you for visiting. I admit, I’m getting a little bored. How are things going out there?” he asks. Commercials aside, Phil has been watching as much news as he can stay awake for, but three weeks after the battle, it’s mostly devolved into brief summaries and human-interest stories surrounding survivors.
A cloud passes over Audrey’s face. “Things are still pretty bad. I would have tried to sneak in sooner but we’re overwhelmed working day and night requisitioning things for the clean-up and repairs?” Phil can’t stop his face from twitching at the question.
“I can imagine,” he answers soberly, wishing he could be of some use instead of stuck in this damned bed.
She cocks her head again and looks like she’s about to say something when Clint pushes through the door. When he sees Audrey, he scowls, and Phil finds himself almost laughing at his expression.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Clint practically snarls at her.
“Sorry, Agent Barton,” she squeaks and darts for the door.
Phil stares in mild shock. Clint likes Audrey, and she likes him; she bakes him cookies and processes his requisitions before anyone else’s. Phil’s never seen him snap at her like that. It’s so out of character for Clint that he has no idea what to make of it. “Was that really necessary?” Phil asks, but Clint ignores him and starts fussing with the blanket on the bed, tugging it up and tucking it around Phil.
Phil makes a wordless noise of complaint (honestly, people have to stop treating him like he’s fragile) and weakly bats Clint’s hand away. “So, Audrey told me there are no restrictions on my visitors,” he narrows his eyes at Clint, scrutinizing him. “What’s going on, Agent?”
He sees Clint stiffen. “You need to rest,” he answers, avoiding Phil’s eyes at all costs.
“I am resting. All I’m doing is resting. I don’t see how moving my lips at Audrey or anyone else is going to tire me out any more than moving my lips at you will, and you seem to have no problem with sitting here all day talking to me.” As soon as the words are out, Phil’s eyes get stuck in the down position for a few seconds but he forces them open again, wanting some kind of answer for Clint’s odd behavior.
But Barton’s face has that shut-down expression he gets that Phil knows means any meaningful response is off the table. He’d worn it a lot when he and Bobbi were in the throes of their marriage difficulties before their divorce - when Phil had tried to be a friend to Clint but Clint hadn’t wanted to talk to him about it. Phil’s still waiting to hear what kind of deflection Clint comes up with when Nick walks through the door.
Before he even says hello, he’s honed in on Clint. “Goddammit, Barton! Stop terrorizing my God damned staff!” he barks as he marches up to Phil’s bed.
Clint ignores the censure. “Sir, Agent Coulson is tired. He needs to rest now.”
Phil rolls his eyes. If he had more energy he’d take issue with the way Clint seems to think he needs to speak for Phil.
Nick slowly turns toward the man. “Oh, really?” he asks with a terrifying smile. “Thank you, Agent, I’ll be sure to take that under advisement,” he says, and pins Clint with his one eye, a clear invitation for Clint to leave.
Clint stands his ground and darts his eyes toward Phil and then back at Fury. He hesitates.
Fury narrows his eye. “Is there a problem, Agent?”
Clint actually glares at the Director – something he’s never seen his agent do - then shoots a conflicted glance over to Phil. “No, Sir,” he says after a moment, then turns sharply and leaves the room.
Nick curses under his breath and Phil picks up words like ‘watchdog’ and ‘crazy motherfucker’.
“What’s going on, Marcus?” Phil asks, suddenly very tired.
“Your boy needs to get his act together.”
“First, I wouldn’t ever let him hear you call him ‘my boy’ if I were you, because I’m not sure I’d even try to stop him from putting an arrow through your good eye,” he tells Nick reproachfully with a scowl. “And second…” Phil sighs and closes his eyes. “…I have no idea what’s going on with him so I wouldn’t even know where to start,” Phil says, then inhales a deep yawn.
“Really? No idea?” Nick says, with a hint of that aggravating amusement that says he knows something you don’t know.
Phil opens his eyes and cocks his head, then thinks of Audrey and immediately straightens it. “No. No idea. What do you know, Nick?” he asks, suddenly suspicious again.
Nick watches him for a moment, then gives Phil a slightly different version of his scary grin. “You know, Cheese, when that doctor comes back, maybe you should ask him to check your eyes.”
Phil gives him a perplexed look. “What does that mean?”
“Get some rest, Phil. Barton’s right. You need it,” he says before he glides over to the door and disappears.
“Everybody’s gone mad,” Phil mutters to himself as he closes his eyes.
**
Phil’s already asleep when Clint slips back through the door ten seconds after Fury leaves. He takes up his station in the chair beside Phil’s bed, and stares at the other man, trying to unknot the tangle of thoughts in his head.
It’s been three weeks since Nat released him from Loki’s hold, they’d saved the world, and gone out for shawarma. Three weeks since they walked out of the Middle Eastern restaurant and Nat told him about Phil. As he took in her words, and looked dazedly at the wreckage all around him, his legs finally gave out. Nat’s voice was there in his ear immediately, telling him over and over that it wasn’t his fault, it was Loki, that he wasn’t to blame and couldn’t take this on himself. But none of her words could stop him from folding in on himself right in the middle of the sidewalk, the full weight of what he’d done bearing down on him.
He’d shot Fury, tried to kill Hill – twice - and almost single-handedly took down a helicarrier. Hell, he’d nearly been responsible for the destruction of the entire city of New York. And Phil. He’d killed Phil.
He still has no idea how he got to SHIELD Medical, but when he woke up, Nat told him, first, that he’d been out for two days, and second, that Fury had lied to them and Phil wasn’t dead after all: he was one floor down in the Critical Care Unit. Clint had gone there immediately, growling at the medical staff when they’d tried to stop him, remorselessly taking full advantage of their trepidation after the role he’d played in Loki’s melodrama. He’s been either here or out trying to clean up the mess he made ever since.
But the thing is, they don’t do this. He and Phil and Nat are close. They care about each other and worry if one of them is hurt. Of course they do. But all three of them are pragmatists and realists, and none of them believe sitting by someone’s bedside can alter the outcome. So they never do. Instead they focus their energy on trying to make the world a little safer so that, hopefully, nothing like it will ever happen again. They visit, when their cohort is awake and needs company, but there are no bedside vigils between them.
But this time… this time, Clint stayed. And he prayed like he’d never prayed in his life – silent mantras to every god he could think of - and then one day, two weeks later, somehow, miraculously, Phil woke up. The doctors say he’s going to be okay, but Clint keeps coming back, keeps staying until Phil wakes up one more time. And he has no idea why.
Admittedly, his mind is still overwhelmed with the sheer magnitude of his guilt as he walks through the City and takes in the destruction he caused, and walks through the halls of SHIELD and is reminded of the human toll. The red in Natasha’s ledger’s got nothing on his now. It probably doesn’t help that between helping with the clean-up until his hands shake too much to continue, and then returning to sit with Phil, he’s running on virtually no sleep and only the barest minimum of calories. He knows his protectiveness is unnecessary and bordering on ridiculous (okay, not bordering on, it is ridiculous), but he can’t stop whatever it is that pulls him here day after day.
He’s exhausted, and he can’t concentrate long enough to think it through. He’s just holding on. To life. To guilt. To Phil.