brandingproblem | open post

"I mean, I can talk to Thor without freaking out or anything, but we're also not exactly going to sit down and have a heart to heart about his brother. He loves his brother. I get that. He grew up with the prick. I mean I don't personally get it, but like I get it. So I don't know that we're gonna see eye to eye on anything on that front. He's also, y'know, hammer man. Feelings aren't his strong suit."

He grows quiet, pensive, stabbing at his pasta but not really eating it. Thinking through things. Thinking about the relationship and how it's straining. How they're trying. How maybe they should've been trying sooner.

"I don't know if he just didn't have any concept of personal space or if he didn't think us lowly creatures were worth having any." Is a thought that he starts with.

It doesn't take Phil long to realize Clint's talking about Loki. Thor he knew fairly well and knew he respected humans. He doesn't seem them as lowly or creatures anymore. He sees they're worthy. Phil knows that from how Thor treats every person around him.

He thinks the worse and hates Loki even more for it. If he put his hands on Clint... if he...

Well, Loki's simply lucky he's on Asgard.

There's a ringing godawful silence, and Clint thinks he made a mistake, that he shouldn't have shared that. Should've stuck with just talking about Thor. Stupid, fucking stupid, just leave it for fucking therapy you fucking asshole.

He regards his wine glass. Downs most of it in one go. It only makes his mouth feel drier.

"He knows about us."

"I know," Phil says, studying Clint a little bit. "He taunted me with it when I confronted him. Said he could see why you appealed to me but didn't understand what appeal I had. Such a boring human, he said, when you could have... well he implied himself."

He smiles a little bit, briefly. "I've heard it before. It was the wrong angle to make me lose focus. I'm not sure how he didn't know that."

Because Clint told Loki everything, right?

"It's one of your most devious qualities. Everyone underestimates you. Guess he found that out the hard way."

It's also something that's been circling his head for weeks, months. Wondering if the attack was deliberate, even planned, or simply coincidence. Not even Clint knew who exactly would've shown up, if anyone. The plan was to get to Loki and get him extracted after Thor was dealt with. It must have just been chance.

"My awful luck's starting to rub off on you."

"He did. I don't know why you didn't tell him to expect that." It's a little confusing. Phil was under the impression that Clint told Loki everything about SHIELD and the people there. Including Phil himself.

He rolls his eyes. "If I had awful luck I would be dead instead of having dinner with you."

"If Natasha hadn't intercepted me--" He abruptly stops that thought, because the what ifs and the never was-es and the terribly visceral nightmares are not helpful in the wake of what actually happened.

Focus on what actually happened. That they're both here and sharing a meal.

"If Natasha hadn't intercepted you, I would have." He considers Clint. "I'm not sure if I would've killed you, let you kill me, or tried to tase sense into you."

What would he have done still makes him wonder sometimes. Makes him afraid that he would've chosen SHIELD over Clint. Even though he loves him. Loves him a lot.

"It's been interesting wrestling with that when I can't sleep."

"I would've incapacitated you. I think. Depends on how the fight went. I didn't kill Fury when I could've. Natasha I tried to kill, but only because she was giving me an honest to god fight. If he had been there, I know what he would've had me do. To see if I would."

It definitely features in some of his dreams. Some of his waking thoughts, too. Maybe he wouldn't hurt Coulson knowingly, but what if he gets caught off guard, gets distracted, what if everyone is wrong and there's still some undetectable part of him that's got a switch just waiting to be flipped...

"We're dealing with Gods and magic... maybe I should've just kissed you." He pauses a moment. "True love's kiss."

Just in case Clint doesn't get what Phil's implying there. Because maybe true love's kiss had a magic all its own that could break through Asgardian mind magic.

Phil sighs. "I sound stupid, don't I?"

"Yeah."

Not like he's going to mince words on that front. But Coulson laying that out just like that has him staring into a middle distance. It's not the quiet panic of memory, but another kind of tentative fear rising. An uncertainty.

"Is that what we're calling this?"

Phil's mouth feels dry he takes a sip of wine.

"I had some very big revelations when I heard you got taken by Loki," he explains, something achingly tender in his voice as he looks at Clint. "Which I wasn't entirely expecting but made a lot of things clear to me."

Of course he loved Clint. Who else would he let into his life like he had if he didn't love him?

"You make it sound like I vanished for years instead of a couple days."

But with the awful possibility of losing Clint forever, even a couple of days must have been enough.

"I know we're boyfriends. I don't really use the word much. Think it, sometimes, but don't say it a lot. And we're not exactly people who let just anyone in." It hasn't always been easy. It's been real messy, too. But true love just makes a cynical part of him want to recoil. "Did I fuck this up?"

"I thought I might lose you forever. I thought I might have to make the call to put you down." Phil had a lot of time to think about what could happen. He had a lot of time to try to come to terms with his feelings versus his duty.

He shakes his head and reaches across the table to squeeze Clint's wrist briefly. "No, you didn't fuck this up. I'm still here for you and still want to be with you. I can wait if you need time."

He doesn't expect Clint to say it back or anything.

"If you ever have to put me down, don't feel obligated to do it yourself."

Wow, what a romantic.

He doesn't pull away from the touch, though as ever he simply allows it without any movement at all. "Please tell me something that you need, cuz I'm starting to get real sick of this being about how much time I may or may not need."

"I think I might have to."

Phil nods and thinks for a moment. "I'd like a kiss. If you think you're up for it."

Because he misses it deeply. He misses Clint's arms around him and his lips against his and the sense of rightness that came with it. How happy he'd been when they were together as themselves.

He licks his lips. It's more a subconscious gesture than anything deliberate.

"Be clear on this for me." Something else that Clint apparently needs, but he doesn't want to overuse the word. "You'd like it, but do you need it?"

"I don't want you to kiss me because you think it's something I need like help with laundry and getting the groceries," he says firmly, fixing his eyes on Clint. "I would like you to kiss me because you want to try and see if we can have that back in our relationship."

Phil doesn't want Clint to do things anymore because he thinks they're needed. He wants Clint to do things because he wants to try. Because he wants to fix this as much as Phil does.

"Okay," with a frustrated huff. "Then can we roll this back to you telling me something you need? I don't just mean chores, Phil, I mean like--fine, maybe I need time, and I need to not have a weapon in easy reach when I try to sleep, and I need you to be careful how you touch me. Like that. Anything like that."

"I need you to try," Phil says with all seriousness. "Sometimes I have doubts about how you feel about me because you... you aren't trying. That you're just waiting for it to end."

He hates that feeling, the doubt in his gut. The worry that Clint would end it between them. "I need you to tell me if you want to put this on hold or end it because the wondering is hard on me."

The flash of hurt is unmistakably loud and clear before he manages to lock it down to something less. Can't hide it all the way, but there's a veneer of anger layered overtop, a different kind of hurt.

Silently, he takes up his wine glass, gets across the dining room, and stops in the doorway to the kitchen, his free hand flexing. Apparently he makes a decision a few moments later and turns back, a sentient stormcloud, and takes up Phil's glass, too. And then goes into the kitchen to refresh their glasses. Too full. He does not care.

Probably stays there longer than he should, too.

When he does come back to the table and sets the glasses down, even he's amazed it isn't with enough force to slosh wine over the sides.

"What a fucking thing to say when we're finally making some progress. Sorry, am I ruining some imagined timetable? Were we supposed to be having a honeymoon in Tahiti by now?"

He regrets it, a little bit, hurting Clint. He always does. They've clashed before and it's been ugly but they've made it through. He is a little scared, yes, because all those times were before Loki took control of Clint for awhile. He can't let the fear win though.

"I'm working on partial intel," he says but not in the cool, controlled voice of Agent Coulson but more himself. "You wouldn't come see me. You wouldn't touch me and didn't want me to touch you. You don't flirt. You don't kiss. You won't get close. I only recently learned it's because you think you'll hurt me."

He let that all sink in for a moment. "What other conclusion was I supposed to draw from that?"

"I flirt." That is maybe not the thing he should focus on, but he's going to push back where he can. "Sorry if it's not to the same rapturous degree you're used to, but I've flirted with you since coming back into your life. Maybe, oh, I don't fucking know, maybe you were supposed to think that I'm scared and angry and tired after being a puppet on strings and then having everything inside my head get turned inside out by people I've worked alongside for a god damn decade."

He could probably turn this back on Phil if he really wanted to. Didn't reach out. Didn't push any of the issues. But that's petty, and it's cruel, and Clint's not interested in blaming anyone but himself for his own shortcomings. Doesn't, apparently, make him not angry at some of the blame he is getting.

"Maybe I just didn't want to tell you some of the shit going on inside my skull because I'm gonna sound like an insane person who needs thrown from duty and put in a loony bin. Maybe after having my body taken from me, I feel like a fucking stranger in my own skin, and maybe I'm starting to finally scrape the surface of the idea of people touching me not having anything to do with him with someone that maybe I won't chase off this time, but who knows! Maybe this therapist will find my situation too difficult, and maybe my boyfriend who I adore and give a shit about and have been with and have been helping with his needs and trying to make sure he's healing and taken care of is also gonna decide I'm too difficult now!"

He slams a hand down on the table, and that does spill some wine over the lips of glasses. "Damn it, Coulson, for this supposedly being true love, you sure don't have any fucking faith in me for anything, huh?"

In a strange way Clint's anger is also a relief. It's something when Clint has been so careful around him. It washes over him, hot, familiar, and clearly only directed at Clint himself as he usually does. It's the most passionate he's seen Clint in what feels like weeks and that's so damn reassuring he feels a little guilty. He shouldn't be relieved to see Clint like this.

"You're not insane," he says first before he's never been good at listening to Clint talk down about himself.

"And it's not a lack of faith, it's fear." Phil doesn't like to admit that. He doesn't like to admit any weakness and that is certainly one. "I'm afraid that once I don't need your help because I'm fully healed you'll disappear again. Not because I've told you to but because you've decided for yourself you're too difficult and you want to spare me the trouble."

The red wine is soaking into the table but Phil's ignoring it. His eyes never leave Clint's. "Because usually, once you think you're doing the right thing you stick to it. Rarely can anyone talk you out of it. And I'm fairly certain even if you love me you would disappear from my life if you thought it would protect me. I have faith that to save me you would do just about anything. I just got you back and I'm scared I'll lose you again but this time it'll be your choice."

Finally, finally Clint makes to sit back down, heavy, practically collapsing. He still feels hot and steaming from his anger, but Phil reading him for filth is starting to release that pressure.

"I think I'm gonna hurt you, but I haven't disappeared yet. That 'yet' really bothers you, doesn't it."

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