brandingproblem | open post

"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."

"It does," he admits with a small sigh. "I know what it's like to lose you and I'd rather not experience that again."

Especially so soon after he got Clint back, even though he's broken and damaged from what Loki did. Phil still wants to be there for him it's just hard when he feels like Clint has one foot out the door.

"I'm trying to balance what you need and what I need so we don't break each other even more."

"I think," he says slowly, trying to wind himself back down, "we have different definitions of trying, and we should rectify that. I feel like--I thought I've been trying, but apparently not in the ways you need or want. And...I know I'm not great at this. I'm a far cry from perfect. We also probably need to adjust our boundaries."

Talking things out calmly and rationally is not always Clint's strong point. But Phil coaxes it out of him, a necessity. He takes a breath and lays his hand out on the table palm up. An offer. To make contact.

"I miss sex. And kissing you. And holding you and being held by you. Putting my head in your lap while you play with my hair and we watch tv? I want that back. It's gonna take time. I don't know how much. I can't--I need you to hear me on this, it's not won't, it's not don't want to, it's I can't give that to you or take it from you right now. I've been working on myself. And I know it probably...doesn't seem like it, but it's a lot of shit in my head, and obviously working on the stuff that kept me from my job was the pressing matter. I almost took us all down. Not him. It was me. Things I did with my own hands, things that happened because of my knowledge. I have to live with memorials for agents I killed. I have to live with civilians that died because I helped an alien army rip through a wormhole. I have to live with knowing I almost lost you for good, and I have to live with knowing it probably happened to spite me or punish me or hurt me."

It's tempting to grab his drink and down a lot of wine for that, but he refrains for the moment. Because this is important. This is the most important. "And it sucks knowing that working on the stuff that impacts my personal relationships takes second fiddle. I know. I can't deal with working on all of it all at once. I have to deal with working on feeling like I'm not an enemy to everything we've both worked our lives for. I have to deal with the bigger picture, first, before I deal with the...more personal damage that he did. I'm sorry. I don't ever want you to think I've given up. Because I need you in my life."

This might be what he needed all along. A lot of tension unwinds in him the more that Clint talks. Now, he understands and with understanding can come acceptance. There was still a little anger that Clint kept this all from him because they could have figured their shit out a lot sooner if he talked but it's not worth it. They made it this far and they can start really moving forward.

He lays his hand on top of Clint's and brushes his thumb back and forth slowly.

"Okay," he says simply. As sincerely as possible. "Then we deal with the personal side of things slowly. And professionally, the bigger picture, if you want my opinion on that or my help, I'll give that too."

What Loki did, taking Clint and using him and his skill, is very personal to Phil. The impact has been more personal, straight to his heart. He almost died. He almost lost Clint. He almost lost SHIELD. Every action Loki took went straight for Phil's heart. He might as well have run him through with a spear.

"We can start small. Weekly dinners? Since I don't need much help anymore but I do still want to spend time with you." But he also doesn't want to put too much pressure on Clint when he clearly has so much. "Anything outside of that we'll consider... icing on the cake."

"Weekly dinners. Maybe even a couple dinners a week. We can...we can do whatever you want. Within reason."

If Phil still wants to spend casual time with him, he'll take it. Absorb it like a fucking sponge. His social life has definitely taken a significant hit, so at the very least he can have uneventful dinners with the boyfriend he misses and frets over.

"I'm sorry your true love is a mess."

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