Phil was happy, sort of. He had a great team, a beautiful bus to fly around in and he was doing his part in making the world a safer place. He was happy, except something was off and he wasn't sure what. He had died, whether for eight seconds or forty, he still died and now he was alive. Something didn't feel right; he got Simmons to run a physical on him, telling her it was an order from his doctor. It wasn't, he needed to know if he was alright. The results said that he was, May said he was but he didn't believe them. Something was missing.
He remembered Tahiti, it was a magical place. And that's all he said about it, as if that response had been programmed into him. Why would he keep saying Tahiti was a magical place? He'd been to many magical places during his lifetime and as an Agent of SHIELD. New Mexico had been a magical place when Thor appeared, the Bifrost was beautiful. He had been all over the world; China, South America, Australia, England, Hawaii, Switzerland and yet it was Tahiti that was the magical place?
Then he was captured and shoved into a memory machine by the Clairvoyants people. He fought against it until Raina convinced him, until she spouted out a life that was both his and not his. He went into the machine again, this time trying to see past the illusion of Tahiti and seeing a lab with two doctors instead. There was a machine working on his brain, he was screaming, he didn't want this, he would rather die.
Skye found him, Skye stopped the memory, Skye held him as he cried. Tahiti wasn't a magical place. Tahiti was a lie told to him by Director Fury. A man he used to call a friend but not anymore, not after what he had done. Phil had wanted to die and Nick Fury hadn't let him.
The nightmares came after that. Every night he would wake from the memory of that machine playing with his brain and every night he would reach for something, for someone, who wasn't there. He didn't even know what he was reaching for, just knew that there was still something missing, something that was vitally important.
He started meditating when he had the time, digging deeper into the new and old memories to try and find what was missing. May was hovering over him, making sure he was alright. He was alright, he just wasn't complete yet. It was hovering near the edges of his mind but he couldn't reach out and bring it to the forefront, it either didn't want to come or there was something stopping it from coming.
Then HYDRA took over SHIELD and he didn't have time to think about himself anymore. The Clairvoyant turned out to be Ward and Triplett's SO, a man he called a friend. Someone he had freely let onto his bus, given him all the information he could possibly want. He, May and Fitz fought and won, Hand sent him to Fridge with Ward tagging along.
The Fridge was attacked by HYDRA, people held in the Fridge escaped and he had a new problem in his hands. The Cellist was in danger, he didn't even know if he knew the Cellist, his brain was telling him he did but could he trust his brain when his heart said the Cellist was using the wrong kind of bow?
It didn't matter at the moment, Audrey was in danger and whether or not she was the one he had left behind he would do all he could to protect her. She seemed to think of him fondly, his team pushed at him to talk to her but he didn't want to, she felt wrong. He still helped her, he still gave her comfort when she was dazed but he didn't let her see him.
Since then he had been dreaming of bows, the kind that sent a lethal projectile accompanied by a laugh he felt he should have known instantly but meant nothing to him. His nightmares expanded from simply Tahiti to include Loki, blue eyes that held no emotion and an arrow pointed straight at him. He woke up crying after every single one of them.
Ward was HYDRA; he had taken Skye so that she could decrypt the hard drive that had all of the data he and his team had collected. Phil was going to get her back; he wasn't going to let another person be stolen from him. SHIELD had been reduced to his team and Hill but it was enough. The showdown took place in New York, just a few blocks from the gleaming Stark Tower that was now the Avengers Tower. Ward was seconds away from killing Phil when an arrow buried itself in his heart.
The Avengers descended into the fray. Iron Man with his repulsors, Hulk with his Hulkness, Captain America with his shield, Black Widow with her deadly skill, Thor with his hammer and the arrows flying everywhere could only mean that Hawkeye was upon a rooftop somewhere. With the backup of superheros the battle was finished with his team victorious. Even warriors fuelled with centipede couldn't stand against the group that had fought and defeated Loki.
The aftermath was cleaned up by Hill and Phil took the opportunity to make sure his team was fine. FitzSimmons were shaken up but fine, May was stoically tending her wounds and Skye was crying in the backseat of a SHIELD vehicle. He slid in next to her, silently offering her the comfort of another living being. She gripped him tight, hiding her face in his shirt as she cried. He held her just as tightly and they stayed there until she wore herself out and drifted into an uneasy sleep.
They were on the plane now, his team all in one piece despite what had happened and he couldn't take it anymore. Everywhere he looked he saw Ward, he had trusted Ward with his life and Ward had betrayed him, betrayed all of them. Quickly Phil stood up from where they were all sitting and commiserating and made his way to the hangar. With a sigh he slid into Lola and left the plane behind, driving away from the memories.
He ended up at the Avengers Tower, his body somehow taking him there automatically. He stared up at it, that tower held the heroes that had helped save him and his team, the heroes that had saved the world. He even knew most of them a little, his death had apparently been what had caused them to overlook their differences and work as a team. He scoffed internally, he wasn't important enough for one hero to take notice of him let alone six of them.
His mind screamed at him as he stared up at the tower, obviously trying to tell him something but he couldn't hear it, it was being blocked by the same thing that had kept the missing something on the edges of his mind. He needed a walk, he decided. So he walked, left Lola parked near the Tower and walked along the surrounding streets both trying to clear his mind and understand it.
Phil had only been walking for fifteen minutes when someone dropped down right in front of him. The sudden appearance had him aiming his gun at the man. The man held his hands up to show he had no weapons, "Phil," he said.
Phil narrowed his eyes, "How do you know my name?"
"What do you mean, how do I know your name? Of course I know your name! Phil-"
"Don't come any closer," Phil warned, aiming the gun straight at his heart as the man dropped his hands and started moving towards him. The man frowned and the frown was so familiar that Phil almost let his guard down.
"Phil, it's me, Clint," the man, Clint, sounded confused. Phil's mind was yelling at him, telling him to trust the stranger; that the stranger wasn't a stranger at all. A flash of a bow and arrow being pointed at him stopped him from putting his gun away, perhaps Clint wasn't a stranger but that didn't mean he was a friend.
"I don't know you," this one simple statement seemed to shatter Clint, the man froze staring at Phil. The stare was what did it, it was so achingly familiar yet so foreign that Phil couldn't take it anymore, he ran away, briskly walking away from the man that he knew yet didn't know. A headache was starting to form and it was quickly making its way up to a migraine as Phil escaped the penetrating eyes.
Lola wasn't alone when he reached her; she was instead surrounded by the Avengers. Tony Stark in the passenger seat, Steve Rogers leaning on one side and Thor on the other, Natasha Romanov and Bruce Banner standing in front.
Stark was the first to speak, "Hey Agent, nice to know you're not dead. Birdbrain said you don't remember him so we thought we'd come to check up on you."
"Your concern is noted Stark but I can assure you that I am fine."
"Well that's great Agent but it's pretty hard to forget Barton and seeing as you've known him for far longer than any of us, apart from maybe Natasha, it's even less likely."
Steve stepped forward, "Sir, we just want to make sure that you're okay and Tony and Bruce want to check that you don't have a tumour or something in your brain."
"My brain is fine," Phil snapped, "just because I died and came back and had some stupid machine working on it does not mean that my brain is messed up."
"Machine?" Banner this time, "Coulson, you had a machine working on your brain?"
"Okay that's it, we are taking you home and you are going to allow us to check you over." Stark clapped his hands together, decision made and the Avengers gently herded Phil back to their tower.
"Tell us all about this machine that played with your brain," demanded Stark as he and Bruce leaned forward eagerly for their information.
Phil sighed and started his story, "The project that brought me back was called TAHITI, a project that was experimental and one that I advised be stopped. Anyone who went through it and survived became overwhelmed with the memories of what had happened to them, the only way that helped even a little bit was memory replacement. That's what the machine did, replaced my horrid memories with a pleasant one on a beach at Tahiti."
"A memory replacement machine? You think it could have accidently erased your memories of Clint?"
"If I really do know him, I suppose it's possible," was the answer Coulson gave Bruce which was when Clint dropped out of the ceiling.
"You do know me Phil! And I know you! Don't you dare do this to me, Phil, don't you dare." Clint's voice started out furious but dropped to a whisper by the end of his outburst. Phil's mind yelled louder than it ever had before and he found himself moving to comfort the distraught archer.
He had no words, he didn't remember this man, but he felt more real than the Cellist as if Audrey had been fake and he wasn't. Phil didn't quite know what he doing but he enfolded Clint into a hug and rocked him back and forth as Clint desperately whispered over and over again, "Don't you dare leave me again."
Phil looked at the two scientists and nodded once, he would let them play with his brain and try to fix it. He had had enough of not knowing what was missing and he had a feeling that Clint Barton could hold the answer to all his questions.
It had been a month and only now was the Banner/Stark duo starting to understand what had happened to Phil. He had agreed to move into the Avengers Tower so that they could observe him but only if his team could be with him. FitzSimmons were helping Stark and Banner where they could, Skye would chat with JARVIS and try to hack him while May had gone off with Hill to help SHIELD recover.
Clint Barton had become a constant in Phil's life even if sometimes he wasn't a visible one. Phil seemed to have a 'Barton radar' and could always tell if the archer was anywhere near him. The screaming in his head had progressively worsened as the month went. More often than not nowadays he would wake up with a migraine and go to sleep with one.
Everyone tried to avoid making it worse when they were around him; even Thor was quieter than usual. Clint was the one that saved him from the excited babble of scientists, sent him to bed when he was up to late, gave him aspirin and massaged his temples when he was too exhausted to move. The scientists thought the migraines were a side effect of the TAHITI Project, Phil thought it was due to the fact that his brain was constantly yelling at and trying to make itself heard.
Eventually the team found something that could help. It was Banner that found it; he had been meditating with Phil to try to bring the memories back. It had been him that had suggested Phil's mind had acted slightly like a trauma victim's, selective amnesia with memories that caused him pain.
His inability to remember Clint had nothing to do with TAHITI and everything to do with Phil's brain trying to protect him. Now that the danger was past it wanted to remember but he was holding it back. Not ready to face the pain that he somehow knew was there.
It was Loki that finally got him to remember. The god had been causing havoc, as usual, and the Avengers had been fighting him, also as usual. Only this time there was someone else present, Phil was watching over the battle through surveillance Tony had set up in the Tower and was helping direct the Avengers as he had done countless times on various ops with SHIELD. And then Loki approached Barton with a spear, pointing it straight at his heart as he sneered. The image brought up a new, older one of almost the exact same thing.
Loki, standing in front of Clint with his sceptre pointed at his heart, seizing control of the archer. The words "You have heart" flashed through Phil's brain and he ripped the earpiece out before huddling in the corner of the room in the tower as the memories washed over him.
Agent Barton complaining about the fact he couldn't use his bow on the op in Serbia.
Agent Barton making bets on what kind of shots he could make on the firing range.
Barton bringing him coffee when he dropped his roughly done paperwork off.
Barton snarking over the comms as they waited for a target to show themselves.
SHIELD Agents writing Barton up for insubordination as he changed nests and orders in order to save lives, including his own.
Barton falling asleep on the couch in Phil's office as he waited for Phil to finish working.
Clint dragging Phil away from SHIELD and forcing him to sleep when he needed to instead of when his desk was clear.
Clint looking after him when a mission had gone FUBAR and Phil had been unable to look after himself.
Clint kissing him desperately as Phil survived yet another near death experience that was a bit nearer than the others and whispering, "Don't do that again, sir."
When he came back from memory lane Clint was right in front of him and it was growing dark outside. It had been mid-afternoon when Loki had attacked; he had been out of it for at least three hours. "You okay, Phil?" Clint asked concernedly.
Phil whimpered softly and caught Clint in a fierce hug, there had been a time when he had thought Clint was lost to him forever, that Loki had taken his husband away from him. The archer held him back just as tightly murmuring reassurances though it was clear he didn't fully understand what was going on.
Phil Barton-Coulson hugged his husband tighter before kissing him and saying, "I'm more than okay Clint."
Clint choked on a sob before kissing Phil again, pouring all of the want, need, grief and love into the kiss before collapsing against Phil's chest sobbing. Phil cried too and the two of them sat there in the corner crying tears of relief as they hugged each other.
Phil was happy, completely happy. He had a great team, the Avengers and a home. He was happy; he had found what he had been missing during the year that he had been flying around in his plane. He had died, had been dead for days, and he had come back missing something. He had finally found it, and when he reached for Clint after a nightmare he always found him.
Phil was happy.