Chapter Text
Tuesday: 4:17am
Waldorf-Astoria: Room #726
Phillip Coulson, aka Richard Temritt currently, woke with a start, automatically reaching for the other side of the bed. But his hand met a rumple of sheets and the edge of a pillow instead. He sat up, quickly, searching for someone, only to realize when his brain caught up that there was no one else there.
Again.
It wasn’t the first time this had happened. When he had been married to Clint, they had gotten so in the habit of waking to each other’s nightmares, that sudden noises or movements in bed caused both of them to jolt awake and check on the other.
Except that had been two years ago. And Phillip Coulson was still alone.
He sighed, and tried to settle back into bed. He tried to force his mind to stop thinking about Clint. It would do no good. He knew from extensive experience.
But it had been hard enough to fall asleep the first time. He was having more trouble than usual pushing the memories back so that he could close his eyes. It certainly didn’t help that this was the very hotel he had used to propose...
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Tuesday: 6:35am
Waldorf-Astoria: Room #726
Coulson checked and double checked that the codes were hidden in the safe, and that the special preventative lining was still in place. He also lifted the rug by the door, and checked under the one by the safe to make sure the markings were still painted on the floor.
All was in place. His drop tonight was important. He was pretending to be a terrorist, in order to get to a certain man. His agency had reason to believe this man was in charge of a large force that was getting ready to target their country. They were sending out some of their best agents, though their two best were otherwise occupied for something apparently bigger. (And wasn’t that a terrifying thought—that there was some other threat currently on the country than what Coulson was being sent in to deal with? He wasn’t used to that.)
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Tuesday: 2:00pm
Waldorf-Astoria: Lobby
For a split second, he thought he saw Clint across the lobby of the hotel. But it couldn’t be. Clint wouldn’t come for him here. Not after all this time. He could still remember the last time he had talked to his husband, a year and a half ago.
“Stay away from me!” Clint yelled into the other end of the line.
Coulson flinched, almost dropping the phone. “But Clint, I—”
“Why couldn’t you stay dead?” Clint shouted, almost pleaded. “I didn’t want this!”
Coulson swallowed to keep from breaking down in the middle of a luxury hotel lobby. He continued on his way, briefcase in hand, to turn it in to the other STEALTH agents. They would need it for tonight if everything went according to plan.
This wasn’t the time for personal issues.
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Tuesday: 5:07pm
Waldorf-Astoria: Banquet Room
Coulson was searching the room for anyone who looked as out of place as he felt. He knew that Stone’s goons would be coming to collect him from the gala at any moment, but he wasn’t sure how long he could stand to wait if he had to keep mingling with these atrocious socialites. He was in no mood for this. He had already thought he spotted Clint twice more that day, and it was wearing on him enough that Donner had asked him if he was all right. If even Donner noticed he was off kilter, then Phil was not all right.
So he forced himself to settle under the old guise of Phillip Coulson, SHIELD badass, and straightened his posture as he passed by a small group of socialites there for the gala.
A few minutes later, he sensed someone’s eyes on him. He felt sick, because he suddenly realized who was watching him.
Phil turned.
Clint was standing there, face as blank as possible, but eyes almost bleeding with pain.
Phil took a step towards him, without even meaning to. And then Clint was turning and heading to a side exit. Phil knew he should stay. Knew he couldn’t leave lest their country get overrun by the worst things of his nightmares. But he couldn’t help it. Clint was there! Clint was there, and he had to go talk to him.
He slipped through the doorway, and found Clint standing with his back to the door, trembling. He moved to take something from his ear—an earpiece? Was he on a job? With whom? What was he doing now?
“What’s going on?” Clint asked, his voice rough.
“I’m undercover for a branch of the government related to SHIELD,” Phil answered truthfully, not willing to lie about anything at a time like this. “How did you find me?” He couldn’t figure out why Clint thought now was the best time to finally seek him out. Especially if they were both working. Not that he was complaining.
“I didn’t,” Clint answered. “My team was sent to intercept you. We were expecting a terrorist.”
Phil swallowed. So he hadn’t come to see Phil... He just wanted to get to the terrorist that Phil was pretending to be. “Sorry to disappoint,” he said after a long moment. And then he couldn’t help himself. “Are you...still mad?”
“Still mad?” Clint asked, spinning around in a furious fashion. “What the hell are you talking about? Of course I’m mad! You fucking died! You died, and now you’re alive, and how was I supposed to know? Were you ever going to tell me? Or was I only part of your persona as Phil Coulson, badass SHIELD Agent?”
Phil’s brain choked on that accusation. “But, you...when I called, you didn’t want to see me.” Ever again, his brain tacked on what his mouth refused to.
“What are you talking about?” Clint growled.
“I called you, from the hospital,” Phil ground out between his teeth. “I spent six months in a bed, begging to tell people I was alive. But Fury told me my identity was being burned by SHIELD and that I couldn’t contact anyone. He told me the government would shut me away if I so much as contacted one of you from the team. But I risked it all to call you. It took forever, but I finally tracked down a way to contact you, and you didn’t want to talk to me.”
Clint didn’t say anything for a long moment.
Phil ground his teeth. “You told me you wished I had stayed dead.”
Then Clint paled. “Oh, god.”
“Clint?” He reached for the man, but stopped.
Clint took a step back, studying him with those eyes that saw so much. Then the next thing he knew, he was being pulled into a rough kiss by Clint. And he lost himself in it. It was harsh, and their teeth scraping together, but it didn’t matter because it was also the best kiss in the world.
Until he felt the needle prick his arm.
Phil started, and looked at Clint in shock. He swallowed, but he could already feel the drugs kicking in. “Why’re you dr’gging me?” he accused.
But the world had begun to spin, and he felt himself going down. He only hoped Clint would still be there when he woke up.
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Tuesday: 6:02pm
Waldorf-Astoria: Room #624
Phil woke to the ever-familiar feeling of being secured against a chair. He made no move or sound to show that he was awake though. Better to figure out what was going on and whom he was with first.
“Eh, something’s wrong, guys,” a voice said, sounding worried.
Phil tried not to flinch.
“What now?” another man said. It sounded like Stone, Phil’s mark, but there was something off about it too.
“He’s not popping up in the database,” the first voice announced. “We have nothing on him.”
“I thought you—“
A third voice, female this time, broke in. “That’s what the man said. I never saw it. I just saw the record entry.”
“So what now?” the first voice said.
Where the hell was Clint? Was he even there? Phil couldn’t stand to sit there and wait any longer.
“Is there another record we could hack to figure out this guy’s story?” the first voice continued.
“Afraid not,” Phil said, lifting his head and opening his eyes. “I prefer a certain level of...anonymity.”
Clint was there, with his back turned, looking stiff and upset.
“I’m afraid, Mr. Temritt,” the second voice said, a familiar face, “that you are being detained for just a bit. You see, you have something I want. And I think we can work together.”
Phil mumbled a Cristo, under his breath, but it seemed like no one even caught it. He stared at the man before him, and knew this was bad. This man had the right face, but he wasn’t right. There was something all wrong in the way he held himself. Phil could see it now.
“What are you talking about?” he risked asking of the man.
“The codes,” the lookalike said. “I want them. You know how to get them.”
“It doesn’t mean I’m going to hand them over,” Phil said. “Here’s a surprising fact of the day, Mr.—“
“Mr. Stone,” the man supplied.
“No, you’re not,” Phil retorted. “But that’s fine if you want to stay in character.” He was starting to figure this out. If Clint was involved, this was probably a government op. Either this wasn’t Mr. Stone, or the real mark had left. “What you should know though,” he continued, “is that I am not actually planning to use the codes, except to reel in Mr. Stone. I don’t even have the authentic ones with me.”
If Clint was working for a government branch, it would be best that his coworkers realize Coulson wasn’t actually a terrorist—since Clint had likely not bothered to mention it, based on the current situation.
The lookalike paused. “Why are you doing this?”
Coulson shrugged. “Because I work for a government agency called the SSIA.” It didn’t matter if they recognized the name, few did.
“Never heard of it,” the man said.
Coulson tilted his head in understanding. “We deal in a...very select area of work.”
For some reason, that was what finally got Clint to turn around. “The SSIA? As in, Rufus Turner?” he asked, naming the head of the branch.
The lookalike glanced at Clint and took a tiny step back.
Phil wasn’t sure what to say. “I didn’t know you were cleared...?” When had that happened? Very, very few people were cleared to be in the know-how on the SSIA’s operations.
Clint looked upset. “That’s the most dangerous branch of the government I’ve ever heard of. What the hell are you doing working with them?”
Clint was...worried for him? He didn’t even know what to do with that. So he looked away in shame. “Well...my life hasn’t exactly,” he hesitated, but knew he had to be honest. “It hasn’t been too worth caring about in the last year, so I thought I’d at least do something different.”
“God...” Clint whispered.
“Why do you care what I do?” Phil dared to ask.
It was like Clint refocused his brain on the other matter at hand. His whole stance changed as he forced himself to calm down and hide his thoughts from Phil again. “Tell my team what they need to know about the codes.” He took a step closer after that, as if daring Phil to do otherwise.
“And if I don’t...?” Phil questioned.
“If you don’t, I beat you to a pulp.” Clint’s voice was cold as ice.
Phil felt a shiver run down his spine, but he ignored it, keeping his face calm. “Somehow, I’m not sure you would do that,” he said slowly. He wasn’t sure, but he also had to admit it wasn’t out of the realm of possibilities he could imagine.
Clint was suddenly furious. “Right now, I don’t give a rat’s ass what you feel sure of. When I’m mad enough, I can do a hell of a lot of damage.”
How could Phil forget that? There was no need to be reminded.
Phil considered his options. “I must admit, I’m a little surprised by these events.”
“Oh, you’re surprised?” Clint all but yelled. “How do you think—damn it!” he shouted, breaking it off before he could say it. He fixed Coulson with a deadly glare. “Stay there and shut up for a moment,” he ordered. “You want to know what I printed not five minutes before you woke up?”
Phil waited as Clint dug through a bag for a manila folder. He brought it closer to Phil and opened it for him to read.
Phil felt a pang in his chest that rivaled the pain of being stabbed by Loki. Clint was holding a set of divorce papers in his hand, open for Phil to read. The blank spaces left for the Spouse A to sign was a haunting image, with Clint’s name printed beside it.
He looked up at the man he had given his heart and soul and body to nearly six years ago. “Would you really...?”
Clint’s eyes ran cold. “If you refuse to help, I’ll sign them. I’m as serious as I’ll ever be.
Phil could fell his heart cracking in his chest. “I’ll tell you what you need to know,” he said. “My team’s exact operation is not a part of that though. If Clint’s team didn’t know what the SSIA did, it would be better for everyone if they kept their innocence.
“Just help them get the codes,” Clint said in an exhausted tone. Then he closed the folder and dropped it on Phil’s lap, leaving the room silently.
For a long and painful moment, no one moved. Phil barely even breathed. But then he couldn’t help looking down to stare at the folder on his lap. He heard the motion before he saw the lookalike draw near and take the folder.
“What is it?” the other male voice asked from behind him.
The lookalike opened the folder. “Divorce papers.”
“Divorce papers?” the woman squawked. She hurried over to have a look, as did the tech guy. Then they all turned to stare at Phil.
He sighed and looked away. “It’s a long fucking story,” Phil ground out, not wanting to go there. “Suffice to say my death was faked—against my will—and then when I tried to tell him I was okay, he told me I should have stayed dead.”
The team looked at each other awkwardly.
Phil shook his head. “Untie me, and I’ll get you the codes you need. I just need to make a phone call to my boss.”
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Tuesday: 6:58pm
Waldorf-Astoria: Room #624
“He’s next door,” Benji told Phil, once the codes were accepted and authenticated.
Phil looked up. “What?”
“Brandt. He’s next door. Six-twenty-six.” Benji nodded his head in that direction. “You should go talk to him.”
“And what makes you think he’ll want to hear from me just now?” Coulson asked tiredly.
Benji studied his face for a moment, before grimacing. “Because he woke up screaming for you last night at four in the morning.”
Phil froze. “Wait, six-twenty-six?” That was the room right under his own. Was that why he’d woken up last night?
“Yeah, man. First door on your left. He still cares about you. And granted, I know almost nothing about your situation, like at all, we’ve never even officially heard of you from him. But...I’ve heard him talk to you in his sleep before. It hasn’t been too uncommon really. And I know how he feels about you. I don’t know what it is, but there’s still gotta be something there.” Benji reached into a pocket and pulled out a room keycard.
Phil tried to find any hint of untruth in the man’s eyes, but Benji seemed to believe every word he was saying.
“I called him, a year and a half ago,” Phil argued. “He told me he wished I’d stayed dead.”
“Are you sure the situation is so simple?” Benji asked.
What had Clint said earlier...? “You were fucking dead, and now you’re alive! And how was I supposed to know?”
Phil pushed out of his chair, taking the out-held keycard. “I’ve got to go talk to him.”
Benji nodded and waved. “Six-twenty-six.”
Phil let himself in to the room next door. Clint wasn’t on either of the beds. He also wasn’t anywhere in sight. But something told him to check the bathroom.
And there he found Clint curled up on the floor, head on his knees, the room smelling vaguely of puke.
“It occurred to me,” Phil began, “just a few minutes ago, that maybe we had a big misunderstanding.”
Clint sighed and looked up. “I don’t remember you calling. Why the hell didn’t you come see me in person?”
“SHIELD was watching me,” Phil said, though that was hardly an excuse. “I’d only been fully awake for two months, and I was still in the hospital when I managed to figure out how to contact you.”
Clint swallowed visibly. “If you called when I think you did, I was in a bad spot. I was sent on a mission to protect someone, and she...she died. And I couldn’t take it. I’d been ignoring everything for months, telling myself that if I just kept it boxed up, I could go on, but when she died, it just, it almost killed me.” He paused to shrug. “I guess it was when I finally started realizing you were really gone.”
Phil sighed, and moved to settle in the floor of the doorway, though he knew better than to move any closer. “You sounded so upset when I told you I was okay...” he began.
Clint shook his head. “I was probably also high out of my mind on anti-depressants the psych department was putting me through.” Clint hesitated for a moment, then added, “I have a five week blur in my memory still. Everything was a little grey at that time.”
Phil remembered his own drugged-up months in the SHIELD hospital ward. “I know what you mean.”
“Why didn’t you try to contact me again?” Clint asked quietly, but not accusingly this time.
Phil looked away. “SHIELD found out about the phone call. Naturally, they couldn’t do much because they had burned my identity and I was only going to be with them until I was mostly healed. But they threatened things. Said they wouldn’t allow it to happen again. And I thought...well, even with the way the conversation went, I somehow kind of...expected you to come get me.” He was pretty sure he wasn’t keeping as much emotion out of his voice as he had aimed for. “When you didn’t....”
Clint looked down then. “The drugs I was on,” he said quietly. “They had me hallucinating sometimes. Not often, but enough that I knew it was happening. I saw you and heard you so much during those weeks, you wouldn’t believe it. But you were never there for long.”
Phil felt his heart breaking just a little bit more, at that.
“I talked to you, and I let you brush your hand through my hair, and I yelled at you, and it never made any difference. You were never there when the haze of each round of pills started to lift.”
Phil couldn’t be blamed for the sound he made. He also wasn’t ashamed of the tears in his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered when Clint looked up. “I didn’t know.”
Clint watched him for a moment, as if measuring. And then he began to stand. Phil wiped a hand at his eyes, and watched him come closer. He let Clint help him up from the floor, and let Clint move him closer to the doorframe.
For a moment, they just looked at each other, drinking in each other’s face.
Then they were leaning forward into a kiss. And Clint was pressing him into the doorframe like he would never let Phil leave again. And that was better than anything in the world. So much better than the kiss outside the Banquet Room earlier. It was like coming home.
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Tuesday: 9:34pm
Waldorf-Astoria: Room #626
Phil pulled Clint a little closer against him as they lay in Clint’s bed. The skin-to-skin sensation was so comforting, so safe, after two years of missing it like air. Clint hummed contentedly against his neck, from where his head had become tucked against Phil’s shoulder.
They had already gone over their respective stories, telling each other what had really happened in the past two years. Then Clint had spent a long time remapping every inch of Phil’s skin. Now they were just lying there, comfortably, without a care in the world other than to not move any time soon.
Phil felt his mind drifting, but he was too tired to care. If he fell asleep, he knew Clint would still be there when he woke up.
Until a thought came to mind, and he couldn’t push it away like all the others.
“What?” Clint huffed, breath running across his chest.
Phil kissed his forehead.
“What?” Clint repeated. “Stop stalling.”
Phil could hardly explain how happy it made him to know that Clint still knew him better than anyone in the world. “I was just...thinking.”
“About...?” Clint asked. “If you could hurry this up, I’d really like to fall asleep on my super hot, super not-dead husband sometime soon.”
Phil swallowed. “The...divorce papers?”
Clint sighed, and lifted his head to meet Phil’s eyes. “I wouldn’t have ever signed them. Not in a million years. Not if you faked your death all over again. You’re mine, dead or alive.” He kissed Phil deeply then, to drive that point home.
When they finally paused for breath, Clint leaned back again, smiling sadly. “I didn’t know if it still mattered to you, but I wanted you to know I was serious. I couldn’t think of any other way.”
“Okay,” Phil said, nodding his head. “Okay.”
Clint let himself move back on top of Phil, tucking his head against his neck again.
Phil waited for a moment, not sure if he should say anything else. But he knew he had to. “I never...I mean, I took our vows seriously six years ago,” he said quietly. “I never broke them, and I never stopped honoring them.”
Clint ran his thumb against Phil’s chest, tracing the scar. “I never did either,” he admitted. “Not even though I thought you were dead. You’re it for me, Phil. There can’t be anyone else now.”
Phil closed his eyes in relief, and gratitude, and in a sheer overwhelming sense of peace. He pulled his husband closer to him again, if possible, and set about running his hand up and down the man’s arm until he fell asleep.
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Tuesday: 10:42pm
Waldorf-Astoria: Room #624
“What do you mean you can’t get your flash-drive?” Ethan asked, sounding completely annoyed and stressed out. “Your room is right next door. Grab it and we can do the drop.”
Benji winced. “Brandt’s in there with his husband, man. I’m not interrupting that. I don’t need to see that!”
“Benji...”
“You go! I don’t need to see that!”
Ethan huffed, glancing at the door as if debating going himself. “Um, we can...Carter?”
She shrugged. “Yeah, sure, I mean if we really need to get the flash-drive I guess I can—”
Ethan cut her off there. “I was just going to ask how long we can delay the drop actually.”
She cleared her throat. “Ah right. Well, we uh...we can probably wait another hour or two if needed, before we get underway. The flight isn’t for another four hours.”
Ethan nodded. “Okay. We wait. Go uh, go take a break or something. We’ll reconvene at half past midnight.”