2. Chapter 2

Recovering from a near-death experience was far, far worse than actually dying. Dying had involved physical shock and blood in his mouth and a dark yawning chasm of nothingness, whereas not dying consisted of living in excruciating pain broken up with bouts of intense agony. Phil was man enough to be grateful for surviving while still being bitter about the process. He also thought that doctors were far too cautious in prescribing morphine, and planned to send a memo to someone about that.

The first few weeks, which he spent mostly unconscious anyway, he was alone. Fury explained that he lied to everyone about Phil's death, and had kept lying when it wasn't too certain that Phil might just go ahead and die anyway. By the time Phil was complaining about surviving, Fury admitted that telling the Avengers the truth might end up being more of a liability to SHIELD than keeping Phil dead.

At one point in his life-before-death, Phil would have agreed with that. The mission would have been the priority, no matter the personal cost. That had been Phil's mantra for years as he listened to and sometimes even watched Barton get fucked in every position imaginable by people who weren't Phil.

Things had changed.

Phil was patient. He agreed with Fury and then spent three weeks behaving like the perfect SHIELD drone he had always been, doing what the unsuspecting doctors and nurses told him and taking his meds on schedule. He was in a private, mostly empty hospital ward somewhere in Pennsylvania, so it was easy to play at being a rich civilian and convince everyone that he was harmless. Once his mental clock ticked down, though, and he saw his SHIELD guard reduced from four to two to one, Phil made his move. He made it with a crutch and a bag full of pain pills, because he was no fool, but he had not lost his touch either: his guard, two nurses and a security night watchman would be waking up hours later, wondering what had hit them. The only other patient on his floor gave him a thumbs up as he walked out.

Phil paid the taxi driver outside the hospital with the cash he had pulled from the petty cash drawer at the nurses' station, and did not feel guilty about that at all.

---

What Phil had not counted on was JARVIS.

"Phil Coulson is dead, sir. I'm sorry to inform you of this fact, but he died during the Battle of Manhattan in March. Please identify yourself."

"Phillip Coulson." Phil leaned against the elevator wall, fruitlessly punching at the button for the 52nd floor, which would only work if the right identity key card was swiped in first. He knew that, but he was tired and his whole left side was throbbing and he was not sure how much longer he could keep going. He had popped a pain pill halfway through the long taxi ride and it was starting to mess with his head. He punched the button again. And again.

Suddenly the car jerked into motion and Phil braced himself so he didn't fall down. He expected to be dumped out on one of the office floors with a security detail waiting, but instead the elevator kept climbing, all the way t the 52nd floor. Phil smiled, his pain and drug addled mind grateful that JARVIS had decided to let him through, whatever the reason why.

The door opened and Phil blinked at the business end of one of Barton's arrows.

"Oh. Barton. Just the man I was hoping to find."

"Identify yourself, motherfucker, before I bury this arrow in your skull," Barton snapped.

"Hey," Phil grumbled. He was expecting a little bit warmer reception than that.

"Who are you?" Romanov appeared in front of him, her red hair flaming in the lights.

"Phillip Coulson. I'm…in a lot of pain. Could I sit down, maybe?" He stumbled forward on his crutch, heading for one of the couches in his line of site. Miraculously, no one seemed inclined to stop him, but Barton trailed him with his bow string held tight, ready to fire. Romanov kept her distance, pacing him as he slowly dragged his way along.

"Jesus, it really is Coulson," Stark said from somewhere.

"We don't know that. We don't know who he is," Barton snarled, his voice tinged with an edge of hysteria that Phil knew only he and Romanov could hear.

Phil finally worked his way down onto the couch and breathed out a heavy sigh of relief. Leaning all the way back, he tipped his head towards Barton. "I'm really tired of you having sex with everyone but me."

"I'm gonna, hey, let's go call Fury. Or Pepper. Or, you know, anyone. Let's go do that," Stark said, bustling other people out of the room. Phil didn't care.

Barton did not lower his bow. "Who are you?"

"Because I'm in love with you, and have been for years. I know you love Natasha, you make a beautiful couple, I've seen you two together enough to know. You love her, and you don't love me, which is just a shame, but I had to tell you. I'm tired of being dead, I want to be alive, and I think my big take-away from being stabbed by a god is that life is too short to live with that kind of regret. I love you, I hate seeing you with other people, and I think you're going to need a new handler after this."

The bow wavered and dropped, the string going slack and the arrow hanging limply from Barton's fingers. "Coulson?"

"What?"

"No, I mean…it's you. Agent Phil Coulson. It's really you."

Coulson huffed in annoyance. "I told you that."

"You're kind of whacked out on the good drugs, aren't you, sir?"

"No," Phil snapped bitterly. "No, the doctors won't give me any more morphine, those bastards. I'm on codeine now, and I'm in a lot of pain."

"You were dead."

Phil felt his eyes drooping, and wondered if Barton was just going to turn him back over to Fury. "No. Don't…don't wanna be dead."

Barton's voice was far away. "Yeah. That sucked. I don't want you to be dead either, sir."

They were talking around and over him but Phil had made his play, and he was exhausted. He closed his eyes and decided to deal with the fall out when he woke up.

---

Waking up happened slowly, drip by drip, as his brain came back online. Phil flopped his hand around and felt an IV attached to him, even though he was not feeling a lot of pain. More intravenous drugs, then, which probably meant his ass had been carted back to the hospital. Sighing, he decided to open his eyes.

He figured out quickly that he wasn't in the hospital. He had no idea where he was. He tipped his head to look around and came nose-to-nose with Clint Barton, who was awake and staring at thim.

"Hey, sleepyhead."

"Barton?" Phil peered at Barton, registering the fact that he was in bed with Phil. Or, at least, next to him. Barton was dressed in sweats and lying on top of the covers, but there was no mistaking the fact that he was curled around Phil protectively. "What are you doing?"

"Watching over you." Baron's voice was ragged and low. He stared at Phil for a moment, his expression guarded, then sat up and perched on the edge of the bed with his back to Phil. It gave Phil a chance to take in the room. It was clearly a medical suite, and he was raised up high on a medical bed, but it looked more like a high-end hotel and the bed was easily wide enough for two people.

"I…are we in Stark Tower?" Phil blinked at Barton's tense back.

"Yeah. Stark kind of flipped out when you showed up, and I think Fury actually managed to piss off Captain America. It was…well, it was pretty damn epic. You should have been awake for that. Short version is that you're being held under 'house arrest' at Stark Tower. Possibly forever, if the Stark-Rogers line up has anything to say about it."

Phil raised his hand, letting his fingers rest against Barton's lower back. Barton took a deep breath, sounding shaky. "You were kind of dead, sir. For over a month."

"Not my call."

"Fuck." Barton kept his back to him but did not move away from his touch.

"Barton—"

"God damnit, my name is Clint." He spun around and grabbed Phil's hand.

"Clint." Phil couldn't help but smile as he said it, and Clint's expression shattered.

"You meant it."

"All of it. I love you, and I'm a jealous bastard. I'm sorry." Phil tried to drag his hand away from Clint's hold, but he was as weak as a kitten. Clint rubbed his thumb soothingly over the back of Phil's hand, sending tingles up his arm despite the dull throb of the pain killers. "I should have told you a long time ago."

Clint's expression was still guarded. "Why didn't you?"

"I didn't want to lose you. If the closest I ever came to being with you was listening to you with other people…well. I'm sometimes not an honorable man."

Clint grinned, his smile breaking through like the sun. "Don't worry, sir, I'll keep your secret from Captain America."

Phil snorted and then spent a few moments trying very hard not to cough. Clint moved back up the bed to pull Phil into his arms, wrapping himself around Phil as if protecting him from the pain. When Phil was breathing evenly again, Clint nuzzled at his ear.

"I've been in love with you for a long time, asshole."

Phil held himself still. That was not something he had ever factored in. "How long?"

"Since you let me bring in Natasha. You did that for me, because I asked you. No one else would have taken that risk on my word. But you did."

"I saw how important she is to you."

"She is, not gonna lie. She is. But that's what made me love you: you did it because it was important to me. Fuck, no one has ever loved me that much." Clint tipped his head until their lips brushed, then pushed himself into the kiss. It was long and awkward and wonderful; Phil was not sure if the drugs were working in his favor or not. Clint nudged him back with his nose. "I always wanted you, but you weren't interested. You drove me nuts. I just…gave up hoping. But I was never going to stop wanting."

Phil sucked in a deep breath, cringing as his bad lung rebelled. Clint clutched at him a little frantically and Phil patted his arm. "I'm okay. I'm alive."

"I lost you. God, I lost you! Don't do that again, sir. Never, ever do that again."

"My name is Phil, actually."

Clint smiled at him, smirked, then kissed him before Phil could think of anything else to say.

"So, jealous, huh Phil?" Clint asked a little later, when Phil had shoved him back so he could breathe freely again.

"Very."

"I never noticed." Clint's voice was deceptively casual, but Phil heard the sharpness of the question.

"You had a job to do. It was always on a mission, and we're professionals." Phil sighed. "And I hated it."

Clint smiled again, this time with the lazy, predatory air of a stalking cat. "Good thing I'm an Avenger now, then. No more undercover missions for me." He looked around, frowning. "Hey, that means a lot less sex. This could be a problem, Phil," he said, turning back to Phil with a gleam in his eye.

Phil settled back into Clint's arms, closing his eyes. "In the short term, perhaps. But I have long-term plans for you so I don't expect that to be an issue."

Clint breathed heavily into Phil's ear. "Figures that you'd have a plan."

"Trust in me, Barton."

"I always have, sir. Always." Clint laughed, a warm vibration that lulled Phil back to sleep.