A/N: Thanks to dysprositos for her usual beta excellence. I keep thinking I'm done writing about Phil Coulson, but there's something about him that gets me right in the gut. Constructive criticism is helpful and welcome. Reviews are also delightful.
He could feel a calloused hand on his forehead, wiping the sweat away hurriedly, desperately, and he could hear Clint's voice in his ear – how ironic – telling him he was going to be all right, that he would get Phil out of there, off the roof, out of the sun, back to SHIELD. Phil didn't want to go back to SHIELD right now, though. He just wanted the burning sensation in his stomach to go away, the fiery tearing sensation was lighting up his whole body, making every nerve stand on end, making even Clint's hand feel too harsh, too hot, too much, and Phil wanted it to go away, away, away.
It didn't.
"Coulson, stay awake, please," Clint whispered in his ear.
Phil loved Clint's voice. It was a little bit nasally most of the time, but it always had a lilt, a lift, and laughter saturated it even if the situation didn't call for it. That's half the reason Phil would calmly tell him down the comms to shut up, keep quiet. The gorgeous, fucking sexy lilt in his voice was hardly ever appropriate on a mission and was usually a distraction Coulson couldn't afford.
There was no lilt in Clint's voice now, though. It was all quiet desperation, fear, and panic, which was entirely unlike the voice of the agent Phil Coulson trusted above all others.
Phil felt blood seeping out of his abdomen, felt one of Clint's hands pressed against his belly, deepening the razor-blade pain raging across his skin. He tried to find his own voice, the one that Clint seemed to love, the one he would beg for in the dark of Phil's apartment bedroom, the voice that Clint claimed could calm every flare of insecurity, guilt, pain that he'd built up through his hard life.
Phil sucked in a shaky breath, so he could reply, but pain exploded in his belly and he had to clench his eyes shut and breathe through his teeth to even keep from passing out. But he tried again. Phil tried to find his voice, to use it so that the desperation would leave Clint's voice and the laughter he loved could come back.
But he couldn't.
Now came a roaring in Phil's ears, and then a warning from Clint – "this is gonna hurt, Phil, but I gotta get you to a medic." And then there was screaming, a voice he didn't recognize filling his ears while nails were pounded into his belly, tearing the flesh, ripping it to shreds and leaving darkness in its wake. Phil listened to his own screams and then ushered the darkness in with a final, jagged groan.
And then there was silence.
He let the darkness wash over him, exchanging it for pain, exchanging it for knowing where Clint was, exchanging darkness for hearing Clint's gorgeous voice and for the disappearance of pain and fear, and he rode the darkness willingly. From time to time he felt knives piercing his back and stomach, felt nausea wash through his chest bringing bile and resignation to his throat, but all was quiet and forgiving, and that was what Phil Coulson needed.
He needed forgiveness. He had red in his ledger, too, though he didn't talk about it, didn't let many see it if he could help it. He'd killed a lot of people, had hurt a lot of people, and had lived a solitary life, denying so many access to his soul out of fear and embarrassment and necessity. There were men and women who had wanted to be his friend, colleague, lover, over the years, but he didn't know how to accommodate them and still be the man he wanted to be, had to be.
He was the one who planned the deaths.
He may not carry them out, and Natasha and Clint may argue that his red was a different color than their red, but to him it was red all the same. He decided whether the deaths that were registered in his agents' ledgers were necessary-and he hoped to hell they were-but he was fallible. He screwed up, and his screwups could cost a family its father or mother, a city its beneficiary, a desperate person their lifeline. It could be the wrong 'bad guy' taken down or it could be a botched plan that cost him junior agents.
Inevitably, though, when Phil Coulson made a mistake, people died.
So he tried not to make them. He was thorough. He made lists. He planned every angle and predicted every outcome. Other agents thought he was a tight ass who refused to take risks that others might call reasonable. They thought he didn't have emotions, that all he cared about was the job. This was partially true. He cared about the job and doing it right because doing it wrong always ended in death.
So Phil didn't allow any risk. He protected his own, took care of the agents he came to rely on, overworked himself so that everyone's ledgers could be free of red, including his.
Now there was red everywhere, though, covering his abdomen, soaking his suit, soaking Clint's uniform, and the darkness left him as he felt himself set down on the ground again, the rough, calloused hands of his best friend and sometimes lover raking through his sweaty, receding hair.
"Hang on, Coulson. Don't leave me. Please," Clint said, and Phil heard something new in Clint's voice. Yes, there was fear and desperation. He'd heard that before when Clint talked Natasha through an injury. He desperately needed his partner, and Phil would argue that she was the counterpart to Clint's own soul. So Phil had heard that voice before.
But this one, the voice that said 'please' like it was gold, like it was the currency of the gods who could give Phil back to Clint, this voice was new. Phil hadn't heard that one before and it puzzled him; he wondered where it had come from.
Had it been bred in the same darkness where Phil had found the one person who seemed to get him? Clint was the one who didn't think Phil over planned. He was the one who patiently listened to the third backup plan and then sat at the briefing table for hours and nitpicked the hell out of it, not because he thought it was bad, but because he truly understood its necessity.
Clint was also the one who sat on the couch silently drinking tea after Phil lost a 24-year-old agent to one slight miscalculation; Clint was the one who didn't try and tell him it wasn't his fault, who just sat without judging, and then waited on the couch for Phil's nightmares to come that night so he could be there to hold him as he trembled through his guilt.
Clint Barton knew about Phil's ledger. He knew that it was different than his own, but no less important, no less full.
This knowledge was what colored Clint's voice at this moment, so Phil opened his eyes and tried to get his own to work again. "Don't worry," he managed to whisper, the sound airy and light and not at all the voice he wanted to use. But it served its purpose.
"I will, though," Clint said in his ear, some of the lilt back, albeit clearly forced. "I'll stay with you and worry and keep watch while you fight, okay? So fight, Phil. Let me keep watch this time."
Phil did. He heard the sound of a chopper swirling through the air around him, and the sound drowned out Clint's voice, but he kept his eyes open, locked on Clint's dusty, sweaty, concerned face. He watched as Clint tried to talk over the noise, tried to reassure and still keep Phil from bleeding out on the dusty ground, and Phil tried to listen.
If he kept listening, then he would stay alive another day, get to plan one more op to counter the ones he'd gotten wrong. If he kept listening, he'd hear the laughter in Clint's voice again one day; he'd hear the trust and the need in the dark again, and it would make him whole. It would fill the dark spots on his soul with lilting reassurances and maybe, just maybe, a little bit of love, if he was hearing what he thought he heard as he lay there on the ground.
He would fight because Clint Barton told him to fight, and he was the one that could help take the red away from Phil's own ledger, and Clint's voice was the only one Phil trusted in his own ear.