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Phil considers, for a moment, pushing Clint's feet off his desk. This desk, however, is much better than his desk at SHIELD. There's room for Clint to put his feet up without putting his boots on paperwork or knocking his pencil cup over. So, he chooses to let it go.

"Now that you've said it, you've jinxed us." Phil takes the beer and sits back in his chair. No feet on the desk. His lower back can't handle that.

He lets the silence stretch for a moment. They can sit quietly together very well. Phil has patience and he genuinely likes the quiet. There's no air of expectation here. They can drink quietly together or they can talk. Phil's door is open to Clint for many, many reasons. That's one of them.

"Can't sleep?" he asks after those few beats of silence. He takes a sip of beer, swallows and after a moment it doesn't make him dizzy or feel strange. Things that effect his mind, which is already messed up, are an unknown now. He isn't sure what will unlock or what might get twisted.

Nightmares are not uncommon around the tower. All of them from Phil to Steve Rogers have seen terrible things. They've done terrible things. No one sleeps easily every single night in this building. Phil has had some good late night conversations with everyone. He finds Dr. Banner to be a good listener and funnier than most would assume.

But this is Clint. Phil knows some of his nightmares. They share some nightmares given their long history of missions together. It might be one of those shared nightmares.

"Oh no," drawled out unhurriedly, "jinxed us with more work, how terrible."

This quiet isn't too quiet. This is companionable. This is not alone. He probably could've gone down to one of the labs, see if Tony or Bruce were still up, asked if it was okay if he found a place to perch and watch. He knows that can be unnerving, and it's not like he'd understand all they were doing anyway.

And, hell, he doesn't really want to bother people. He barely wants to be here bothering Phil as it is. But he's pretty sure if he goes back to his room, he won't get much sleep. Will probably deal with the feeling of not quite right until he wants to rip his skin off, then go back to the gym and run and punch things until he's two seconds from collapsing.

Doesn't know what's got him all beside himself tonight. If he can't dig it out of himself, maybe Coulson can. Or, if nothing else, they'll both feel better just spending time together. Quiet companionship.

"I like it better when everyone's here buzzing around working on shit. Or playing beer pong in the living area."

Phil nods a little as he sips as his beer again. He reads between the lines of what Clint isn't saying, understanding that there are times he can't say what's really on his mind or what he really wants to talk about. This isn't particularly hard to figure out, not after knowing him for so long. He thinks the rest of the Avengers who don't know Clint that well could figure it out.

"You need a distraction," he says, eyes fixed on him to read his expression. "From what's going on in your head?"

That he understands more and more. His thoughts wander too easily to his resurrection and death if he doesn't have something to distract him. He's taken to leaving the news on at night for the background noise. Or working until he couldn't keep his eyes open which Clint has interrupted without knowing. Or maybe he does. Clint sees and understands more than people give him credit for.

"Talk to me, Barton." He doesn't order but suggests, offers up a sympathetic ear. They can, perhaps, untangle some of those knots that have twisted up their thoughts.

He's in the middle of a sip but points at Coulson. Need a distraction. Need something or he's going to be too alone with himself, and that isn't such a good thing anymore.

He's safe. He's pretty sure he's safe. SHIELD figured he was safe, and that's good enough for him. Or it used to be. Now it doesn't really matter what happens to him, does it, if Fury can flip a switch and bring him back from whatever.

And he knows that Coulson needs distracting sometimes. Yes. This isn't just for him; he really does think that the man needs a break, and sometimes that comes in the form of a friend bearing drinkable gifts. "Maybe what's going on in my head is wondering what's going on in your head."

It's a cop out and he knows it. They both do. But it's also not wholly incorrect. So instead of focusing on himself, he focuses on something outward. "You got all this space, and you barely use it. You play desk jockey all day. I'm serious, world's not ending if you take a break. You're not wasting your time if you aren't working."

Phil gives him a bland look, unimpressed by the obvious redirect. Clint came to him to talk and is now trying to get out of that. They're not going to focus on Phil all night just because Clint struggles to talk about his own problems.

Pot. Kettle.

"I like working," he reminds Clint. Phil genuinely does love his job and the good it lets him do in the world. That doesn't mean his hands are clear or that he doesn't have regrets about calls he's made but he does enjoy the work and the purpose it gives him. "And there's a lot that people want the Avengers to do which means there's a lot I have to look through."

They pick their own missions but Phil is the one who brings the missions to them first, already picking out the garbage.

"But... without a distraction sometimes thoughts about my death are all I can focus on." Phil frowns at his beer, thumb picking at the corner of a label. "It's not an enjoyable way to spend my time. And besides that spending time with all of you is hard. Some of you still treat me like I'm a walking ghost."

It's not often but it happens. Someone is surprised to see him. They look stunned then relieved and then remember he's been 'alive' for awhile now. Long enough that he feels no one should be surprised anymore.

Yeah, Coulson doesn't need to say it. His looks have always spoken very loudly as is. They'll circle back around to Clint Barton's Fucking Problems eventually.

But he's not the only one with problems.

Of course death is going to be a thought close at hand. There's really not going to be any stopping that, unfortunately. There are always going to be too-quiet moments too wrapped up in oneself, and Phil's got something huge to fall back on, constantly.

"You kind of are," Clint points out. "It...shouldn't happen now, and it sucks that it does." Does he do that? He's not sure. And now everyone knows, that this is tech that's out there, that if SHIELD could figure it out, maybe someone else (like Stark, Banner) can, too.

It should scare the shit out of everyone.

"Maybe it's a sign you need to socialize a little more."

There used to be a standing poker game between himself, Sitwell, Hill, and May. They don't play anymore because of a number of reasons but it used to be the way Phil socialized. He has not talked to the cellist because what could he say? It makes him very tired to think about reviving that relationship.

"I don't want to intrude on team nights," he explains with a small shrug of his shoulders. "It's important that you become friends, not just coworkers."

The Avengers would probably welcome him. Phil's at least somewhat confident they wouldn't resent him if he sat down to watch a movie or two with them. He feels like he's intruding because he's the ghost in the room. His relationship with these people has been strictly professional for years before his death. Crossing that line is... difficult.

For Phil. It might not be for the Avengers.

"And before you say anything about that I know." He doesn't need Clint to give him the lecture he just gave himself. "Did you like to socialize after you first came back from Loki's control?"

Socializing doesn't feel quite right when Phil doesn't feel quite right with himself. He wishes Banner and Stark would discovery some answers on what was done to him so he could stop wondering all the time.

"Fuck you." It isn't sharp, no fire behind it, but it does come near automatically to the question. Which also works as an answer.

He stares out the wall of windows instead, turning the bottle in his hands. "Point made." Clearly. Being social is hard when you're under heavy surveillance, sure, but even when his restrictions got lifted bit by bit, it was hard to feel like he was wanted or welcome, like he could let himself.

Of course, if there's going to be any comparisons made to that particular time of his life, it means he's going to worry about where Coulson's at. He's been doing great work. And he's got a strong disposition. But if he's suffering without any real outlet for it... "Anything you can think of I can do to help? Besides coming up to be a pain in your side uninvited. Drag you out to some bars? Fill your wallet full of ones and shove you at a strip club?" Joke answers. (But also don't put it past Barton to do it.)

He doesn't even blink at the answer. He knew it when he asked the question. Even though Phil was somewhere in a SHIELD facility getting his own mind twisted up he knew Clint well enough to know how he would have handled it.

There's a pointless surge of guilt for not being there for him. Phil was dead. There was nothing he could do. He pushes the emotion away and focuses on how he can be here for his agent and friend now instead.

"Please, no strip clubs." Phil makes a face, just a hint of a frown, which explains how he feels about that particular idea. "Stark will invite himself along and drag Captain Rogers just to embarrass him. And I don't know what Thor would do with that particular Earth custom. I don't need a spectacle to keep myself entertained."

Phil's not sure he'll ever want to try dating again. "Answers would help. You know I don't like unknowns. Now... my existence is an unknown outside of wildly experimental medical technology. I am relieved I'm not an LMD."

Stark's tests had proved that Phil's body was his own. SHIELD hadn't made a copy of him and his consciousness. He's himself... but he also doesn't feel like it all the time. "I might have to come to terms with the fact I may never get an answer besides what reports I was able to find when I first got suspicious."

"You really could use some company, Phil. What about that cellist? Invite her out, have a nice dinner, see where things go."

No, he doesn't think that line of questioning will get anywhere. Coulson's too unsure of himself in a physical sense; he's not going to subject someone outside of SHIELD's sphere of influence to his particular brand of weird unknown.

"Can't help you with answers," which they both know, unfortunately. "It's just gonna be up to the geeks downstairs. Unless you want to infiltrate our own people, see what we can dig up. Someone's got some data stored away somewhere. Has Stark been trying to hack in again?" They need certainty where there is none. It fucking sucks. "You really might have to live with it. But hey, you're alive to live with it. That's not nothing."

"I don't know if SHIELD told her about my death or not." Phil hadn't listed her as anyone who should be informed. Their relationship was still somewhat new when the invasion of New York happened. "It's just as likely that I stopped calling her for months and she's very mad at me with no idea of what happened."

Which means that relationship is another lost to his career. It might be the last if he can't figure out this disconnect between himself and his body. It's still his but he doesn't know how it's changed so it doesn't feel like his.

"Do you think Fury recorded anything of what was done?" Phil's genuinely asking. He would guess the possibility of records is low. If there are records they'd be heavily redacted. This level of experimental treatment is not something SHIELD writes down. Not until it's out of the extremely experimental stage and into reality.

He sighs before he takes a drink of beer. "I'm not ungrateful for that but... it's uncomfortable not knowing."

"Then you should call her and see if she's mad at you, and then you'll know. That's an unknown you can control. Don't know what you'd tell her, but that'd be up to you. Go be happy. Go try to be happy." And if it's lost, it's lost, but if it isn't...he's got a second chance.

But maybe that isn't the point, right now. Maybe Coulson has to figure himself out first before he can figure the rest of his life out. And what if that never happens?

Clint nurses the bottle and then straightens in his seat some. Not taking his feet off the desk yet, because he likes this casualness. But he's thinking about this. About what might or might not exist. "Far as I understand it, it's not really science if you don't write it down somewhere. Have a record of it somewhere. You need data, you need to understand how and why something happens, especially if shit doesn't work. Might not have any of that shit on SHIELD servers; whatever data there is, it's locked up real tight and probably spread over a lot of places. We're talking heavily redacted, eyes only, Level Ten kind of access if that. But you don't just fuck around with the human soul and not have things recorded, even if just a written account and some numbers I'd never understand."

"A relationship built on lies is not a relationship," Phil counters. It would bother him. How would he explain the scar on his back and chest? Anyone with any sense in their head would know a scar like that wasn't survivable. There would be questions he couldn't answer and that would cause resentment.

"Let the cellist go. I have." The ease at which he did that probably said a lot for that particular relationship. He understands, though, that Clint's worried and trying to help in a way that's tangible and real. He's always been good with direct action.

"It would be Director level. His eyes only." Phil agrees with a small nod, like they're planning any other operation. If Natasha had been there it would be like any other mission. "I assume that Stark is looking for it. The man is as brilliant as he says. And stubborn."

He makes a pained face to admit that even though he does occasionally like Tony Stark. He will never admit it to anyone. "If he can't find the answers in the samples he's taken, he's going to go to the source. That AI of his is hard at work combing every file it can and attempting to hack what it doesn't yet have access to. I'm pretending I don't know any of that."

Because if he did he would have to step in and put a stop to it. Stark would be looking through highly classified documents that could, if they leaked, cause a lot of international incidents. "I still don't think he'll find anything. If Fury wrote it down, it's on paper locked up tight somewhere. Not digitized. Not where someone like Stark could find it."

Okay. Let it go. Will he really? Maybe, maybe not. It's a physical, actionable thing. It's going to surprise the team, later, probably, when they all start figuring out that Clint's not a bad hand at the emotional stuff, too, in his own sense. But it's true that he prefers something to do. Something he can get his hands on.

There's an argument to be made that the relationship doesn't have to be built on lies, but he knows that's a very different situation.

"Yeah, wouldn't look good to more or less declare open war on your own people." A sentiment that's going to age very poorly in a few years. "Stark's already got a track record of digging up SHIELD secrets; it's expected, and he wouldn't want anyone else to take the fall for it when it blows up in his face. Hard to blacklist Iron Man. A lot easier to levy repercussions on the man behind the curtain."

International incidents, and probably interpersonal incidents. Clint...hesitates, a small furrow to his brow. But it disappears in a moment. The only people who know about the Bartons are Fury, Coulson, and Natasha. That's not anything that would be digitized anywhere in Fury's files. Probably not even a physical file. Personal intel and a promise made long ago. (Not that he thinks Stark would do anything with that information. There's far more potentially damaging and much more damning in Hawkeye's personnel file, mission reports, psych evals than that. But it's what's most important to him.)

"And Fury knows now that that's what he's going to do, go poking around. He'll have the best on his end re-encrypting and moving things around. Digital cat and mouse. It'll go on for a while."

And if Coulson's particular intel is hard copy only, then it'll all be for naught. It'll mean trying to find the breadcrumbs of where that kind of research would be. Backtracing any potential places where the experiment took place. Careful physical raids. And that, beyond some grey hat hacking, would definitely be a declaration of civil war.

"Maybe I should go bat my eyelashes at Fury and ask him pretty please."

"SHIELD is an organization built on good intentions. We know where it leads." Phil believes in the work SHIELD does and the work he's done over the years. His hands are just as bloody as Clint's or Natasha's. Often their hands are bloody because of his call. He's aware of just what sacrifices he's made and the choices he's made. Clean is not a term for SHIELD agents at any level.

Stark is protective in his own way. His own very grating and annoying way. He could tell him that digging wouldn't do any good but that wouldn't stop the man. He wants answers and will not be stopped until those answers hurt someone. Phil's not sure if those answers will hurt him or not.

He catches Clint's frown even though it's short and barely there. He can guess what that's about but he won't press. Clint will bring it up if he's really worried.

"I doubt even your eyelashes will do anything," Phil says in that same dry but weary tone. "I asked him and he won't tell me. It's my life and he won't tell me."

Not the full details, at least. Fury's answers had simply been that Phil's life had been worth saving. He was worth an Avengers level response. That's something he's still coming to terms with. He's never thought himself that important before. He's no Captain America, no matter how much he wanted to be as a child.

He pinches the bridge of his nose for a moment and then lets it go. "If Fury doesn't want us to know, we won't know. It's how he's always worked."

"It's smart." Something Fury has in god damn spades. The spy. At least twenty steps ahead of everyone.

(And Clint and Loki had been one or two more steps ahead of that. Maybe set that thought into a little box of its own, shove it under the bed.)

"Too powerful to risk letting it fall in anyone else's hands. If he's not sure he can trust it, then it never has to get used again. If he does have faith in it, it's only gonna come back out when one of us does something stupid and shuffles off our meager mortal coils. Whatever it is, he's waiting to see what happens to you. Means if he has to, it can get thrown back together in a hurry. And probably dismantled just as fast. If it's mechanical, anyway. If it's chemical, there'll be one sample stored somewhere, because the alternative is synthesize some up in a hurry and at that point it implies it's simple enough to synthesize in a hurry, which means someone else would've stumbled on it by now."

But they have Stark, and they have Banner, and the power of those two together will figure something out. Clint pulls his feet from the desk at last.

"I haven't really talked to him about it anyway. Know it won't change anything."

"All he needed was a guinea pig."

It's perhaps more cynical that he should be considering Fury is one of his oldest friends but it's because he knows Fury that he believes it. Fury will do what is best for SHIELD and Fury. He could risk an agent before he had to risk an Avenger. Whatever was done to him they're all watching and waiting to see if it goes horribly wrong.

Resurect an Avenger. It did feel good when Fury said it. It took him awhile to figure out what it truly meant, the underlying reason.

If it does, the method will be destroyed and Fury will try to find another way to keep the dead from resting peacefully.

"There's not one sample," Phil argues with a little frown. "There's more than one. Fury has backups of backups. He's not going to leave it to one sample. What if something took out all of you at once?"

At least six to seven samples of whatever the wonder drug is. Phil would prefer a nice round number like ten but it's hard to say if Fury wants that much sitting around. The more that exists the more likely it was to fall into enemy hands. Smart. Careful. Paranoid. That's Nick Fury.

"It won't," he agrees with a nod. "If you need to just do it when I'm busy so I can pretend like I didn't know what you planned."

"If it's some chemical wonder-drug," Clint reminds, because they don't even know that much for certain. "And you know even if it goes wrong," Coulson dies in some horrifying way, probably, "he'll keep one sample on ice, just in case."

Fury is a man of just in case.

"No," with a light scoff, waving the idea of talking to Fury about this whole thing off, "I'm not gonna get into that with him. I know Tasha already tried to rip him a new one; the man's unrippable. The fact that the man trusts me enough to keep me a high level agent is more than enough goodwill. Not gonna push that."

"It's a drug. None of me is mechanical. Stark and Banner confirmed that." Phil almost gestures to himself, hand twitching on his bottle of beer. He is his own flesh and blood. It has to be a drug. Whatever Tahiti is, it's a drug of some sort. That's the only thing that makes sense. "Unless you're suggesting that Fury has some sort of... flesh knitting machine."

Another statement that will be ironic in a few years. Natasha had certainly tried very hard to get answers. She took Fury's meddling with his memories personally, as she would given her own history.

The facts as they know them is that Fury brought him back with something called Tahiti and messed with his mind to make sure he didn't remember his death. Until Phil started to remember and went looking. All he'd been able to find is what Fury wanted him to find and when confronted had only said it was necessary.

"Barton," he says seriously. "I need you to keep an eye on me and make sure I don't... change. Physically. Mentally."

Phil can't shake the bad feeling he has about what was done to him. He doesn't know why because he doesn't know the exact details of what's happened to him. There are few people who know him as well as Clint does. If he starts to go wrong, Clint will notice.

"And if necessary..." Phil looks at him and waits for Clint to get his meaning. If he denies it, Phil will say it out loud. "I'm going to tell Romanoff the same thing."

"Okay."

It's easy to say. He'll know there are changes. He'll be the first to see it. And if necessary--

Well, that part won't be easy, and they're going to have to have a conversation about at what necessary means in this case. And Nat will also do it. Clint normally would be able to. Not easily, but he'd do it.

But now...

There is a sharp comment locked behind his teeth about how anyone that needs SHIELD agents put down should just come to him; he's already got experience in it.

"And we won't let anyone touch you ever again."

Clint and Natasha are the ones Phil trusts not only to recognize the changes but also know him well enough to make the call when the time comes. It's his mind he's most scared of losing. The memory tinkering is really... Phil is deeply unsettled and he doesn't know what else might have gotten lost.

"I don't think Fury would try it again." If dies the second time. "Unless he'd try an LMD."

Phil groans and pinches the bridge of his nose again. "Probably downloaded my consciousness while he was altering my memories. Don't know how I didn't think of that before now."

SHIELD even owns his mind, that's fantastic. Phil's pretty sure that wasn't in his contract but he's skeptical. It might be in there somewhere. It's been a long time since he read his actual contract.

He looks at Clint. "Has any of this made you feel better about your own situation with Loki?"

Because they still haven't touched on that. They need to get there. Clint has demons to exorcise just as much as Phil.

Clint sets his bottle down with a sharp sound. "Well, fuck, Phil, I'm sure if Tony stumbled on a whole human consciousness in his deep dive, we'll just delete it."

And while it is both plausible and crazy at the same time, it definitely seems like Coulson's deliberately winding himself up. With shit none of them can do anything about right now. "Trust that if there's ever another you running around, we aren't going to play the game of which one's the real one. We'll know."

And then turns it back around on him. Does it make him feel better? Does it make him feel any fucking better? Well, it doesn't alleviate the ball of guilt heavy in his gut. That all of this is happening because of him. Because he didn't fight the control hard enough. Because he didn't fight Natasha hard enough. Because he was too smart for his own fucking good.

"I feel like this needs more beer. Or something harder." Something that'll make his skull feel like it's got a jackhammer to it in the morning, which will be nice and distracting.

Phil gets up from his desk and walks over to the living area that's been provided. There's a very stylish couch and a very small bar because of course there is. Tony Stark had input on the interior design. It is also fully stocked with some of the best alcohol money could buy.

He gets a bottle of something expensive and twenty years old, grabs glasses, and then goes back to his desk. He pours for both of them and pushes a glass towards Clint.

"It's not your fault I died," he says, fixing Clint with a look. "We trained you to resist a lot of torture and interrogation but not magic. You fought in all the ways you could."

Phil chose to go after Loki. He put himself in that situation. That's not Clint's fault. That was his choice. They can't get caught in this argument. Clint needs to let go of some of his guilt. At least, over this.

He watches Coulson with careful eyes. He knows nothing's going to happen. And this is a man he can trust. And he's talked (and talked and talked and talked) about what happened until he was Tesseract blue in the face before.

Hasn't talked about it with Coulson, save to have the knowledge that he isn't blamed. Still feels like there's a sickness prickling at his senses in bringing it up.

Dulled enough he can sleep more nights than not. Managing the nightmares feels like just a matter of time and distance. Managing the dreams that ought to be nightmares but don't feel like one, well. That'll probably just be time, too.

"I know," but he says it with a frown, with enough of a pinch in his expression to suggest he doesn't wholly believe it. Stares at the glass. He flexes a hand under the desk before he reaches for it. "Monsters and magic." Like Nat had told him.

"But you still think there's more you could have done." Phil can read a lot from that frown and the troubled thoughts flashing, very briefly, behind Clint's eyes. "I'd like to hear how you think we could better prepare out agents to fight that sort of interrogation."

He could present the evidence. Clint missed shots which he never does. He did not fight Natasha as hard as he could have. Phil knows their skills and they are equally matched. He did not give Loki the location of his family. He kept plenty of secrets and fought back in many small ways.

Yes, his actions killed agents. It opened the door to Loki capturing Thor and thus the confrontation that led to Phil's death but if he's hanging onto that for his guilt it's a weaker argument.

"Do you have a ledger now that needs balancing?" He's aware of Natasha own idea of how she needs to atone. If both his best agents have ledges Phil's going to have to start making a spreadsheet. There's no way to eliminate all their guilt but he hopes they can find some peace with what they've done.

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