A/N: I've decided to upload all my fics into a single account. eye of the beholder until let the walls break down were originally uploaded to my AO3 account, callingthequits. Then I went back to my roots and thought, "Hey, why not post it on Fanfiction too?" so here I am.

For a prompt on Avengerkink: Don't get me wrong, I think that they'd all be relieved that he's alive, but I want at least one person in the group to also be mightily pissed off at Phil for letting them think he was dead for so long.

"It's not ideal," Hill says, and he resists the urge to roll his eyes. It's not ideal because she doesn't approve of it, and that's always been the way it's been with her. Cold as steel Maria Hill, who always likes to take her time analyzing her variables until it calculates to the equation she wants. He appreciates it, but that doesn't mean he likes it.

He looks at her indifferently. "Of course it's not ideal. But they've been kept in the dark for too long, I thought I'd level up their clearance."

And he knows that if she had it her way, he would've been left recovering in Shield Medical with a big, red, "UNSTABLE" stamp on his dossier. That she would look at him pityingly from above his hospital bed, but that she would never let him go back in action. That he would've lied alone in that blinding white room, living a life where he wished he'd have died instead. Not out of malice, per se, nor out of any personal grudge; but because Hill likes being in control and he is unpredictable.

Hill didn't particularly dislike him, and he didn't dislike Hill. They just clash too much for them not to.

"And you think this is the right way to do it?" She asks in disbelief. "They are unstable, Coulson-", he fights to keep a smile off his face, "-you know this very well, and you think they won't destroy New York when you pull that stunt like you did with Ward-"

"On the contrary," he interrupts, "they saved New York when they thought I was dead. I don't think I have to worry about much here."

There is a small silence in which Hill frowns disapprovingly at him and Phil smiles easily at her, and in those few seconds he wonders just how discreet Hill thinks she is with this headache she must be having with him.

Finally, her fingers leave her temples, and she says, "Don't die again, Agent."

He stands up, smiles at her one last time as she glares distastefully at him, and says, "If I do, don't pretend you don't miss me."

She gives him a small twitch of the lips for that, because if anything, she's still human enough to give him proof of it. No, Phil doesn't like Hill, but that doesn't mean he doesn't appreciate it.

...

"What the hell?" Steve breathes, eyes panicked and face pale. Behind him, Bruce looks like he just saw a ghost. They are all in the Avengers Tower, where all of the Avengers have relocated after a few months when it became evident that supervillains existed too.

Modok sucks.

End of story.

"I know it's a bit of a shock-" Phil says, but Tony just shakes his head.

"The hell it is, Agent," he bites out, and for the first time in years Phil has to suppress a flinch. "Do you have any idea how much your so-called 'death' affected us, you fucker, and this? This has got to be the first time in years when someone turning up alive instead of dead is a tragedy and aforementioned someone is not a serial killer or something; whoa, hey, can anybody ring up Ripley's Believe It or Not! for me, because I'm Tony Stark and I can't believe this-"

Steve puts a hand on Tony's shoulder, effectively putting his screaming to a stop. And suddenly Phil aches, because so much has changed while he was gone. And he aches, because he wasn't there to see any of it.

He ignores it and keeps the smile on his face.

"Agent," Bruce says, a hand on his chest and heavily breathing, "maybe this wasn't the best course of action to take, despite any elation we might feel right now. Nevertheless," he walks over to Phil and gives him a shy, almost timid, hand on the shoulder, and smiles. "We are glad to see you back."

"Glad to see you back, my ass," Tony mumbles, crossing his arms. Steve chuckles, and Tony puts his arms up in the air, saying, "All right! I admit it, maybe I don't want you dead, Mr. Boy Who Lived, but don't you dare think that means anything, you MIB wannabe!"

"Did you know he pushed all of his meetings and appointments just to attend your funeral?" Bruce whispers to him, a trickster smirk on his face. "There may have even been some tears, if you can believe it."

"Funeral?" Phil asks, while Tony trudged to the kitchen proclaiming he needed some coffee. Fury didn't say anything about that during his debrief, although there may have been no need to. However, he does think he'd like to know if he merited enough credit for an actual funeral.

Steve shakes his head, though he's smiling. "Tony's idea. Said he wanted to give some closure to the people that missed you, even though there wasn't a body."

Despite everything, Phil couldn't help but wonder if Tony wanted to give some closure to himself too. "Was it in the press?"

Bruce moves away from him and gestures to a seat, sitting down in a chair across. He smiles when he says, "No." Phil takes the seat and feels weirdly unsurprised. It's Tony Stark, after all, who's just as unpredictable as he is. He tries to hide a smile of his own, as Tony flops down to a seat beside him, pouting, and silently offers him a mug.

There's a small tap on the door, and Steve, the only one in the group still standing, goes up to get it. When the door opens, immediately, Thor's booming voice fills the room, almost drowning out the laughter accompanying it.

Almost.

Phil feels his eyes sting in gratification as he sees his favorite shade of red, and the familiar shade of purple he's long since missed. And god, he still remembers writing their files, remembers bringing them in, remembers all the years they've spent together. He remembers the shady man that talked too much but never actually said anything, remembers the aloof lady that did everything too silently, remembers the both of them not sharing much of anything except their tendency to hide in the shadows and the demons that accompanied them, and he remembers them bloody but grinning on the streets of Budapest, the first time he ever saw them smile. He remembers it, and he remembers them, and for all the pain he's experienced, he can't help but think that dying doesn't feel as bad as this.

Because immediately, as Clint and Natasha catch sight of him, they pull up their weapons and aim.

"Who are you?" Natasha hisses, her eyes feral.

"And if this is some kind of joke, god help me, I will shoot," Clint growls, deadly cold.

He tries to stay indifferent, tries to smile, tries to relax; but all he feels is pain.

So he doesn't notice Tony suddenly sit up straight, Steve take a step forward in defense, or Bruce widen his eyes. Even Thor's crow of delight is lost on him. Because all he sees is the sudden distrust these two-his two agents, god-pin on him, the overwhelming weight it puts on him. And he hates the training Shield missions have instilled in him, so he can see the clench in Natasha's jaw when she gets particularly wrathful, he can see the moisture in Clint's eyes that he always tries to hide, and the sudden strictness in both of their bodies that mean they are in serious assassin mode.

In any other situation, he would have been proud; but all he feels right now is numbness. He thinks about how ironic it is that the only thing more painful than pain itself is not being able to feel anything at all.

Thor looks at him, and at the two agents, and his eyebrow furrows. "I do not understand; were you not good friends before?"

Tony laughs uneasily and says, at the same time as Steve: "Maybe not the best time for this, Thor."

"Besides," Clint murmurs, pulling his string, "he could be an imposter."

"Scratch that," Natasha dismisses, angling her gun, "Coulson's dead. He obviously is."

"Don't you think we could all just talk, or something?" Bruce asks, "Talking is good, helps elevate the nerves, and has even helped some people with their issues-"

"Yeah, what Bruce said," Tony adds, hastily, "Why don't we sit down, have a drink or something, we'll talk it out, be mature about the situation-"

"I do not believe you have the right to talk about maturity," Thor says, a little too loudly, also trying to help elevate the tension in the air.

Steve laughs, and everyone knows it's fake.

The silence that stretches between them all is ridiculous.

Finally, he decides he can't take it anymore, and stands up. Automatically, all eyes are drawn to him. And through the numbness, Phil smiles, even though he doesn't feel like it.

"I suppose I'm done here, then?" He says, and through the wary looks and aura of distrust, he somehow finds it in him not to let his voice break. "I'll just be at Shield HQ, if anyone wants to bother looking for me."

"Wait," Clint stops him, but he doesn't stop aiming the arrow at him either. Phil turns. "I'll give you one last chance to prove yourself."

"How about I give you one last chance to prove you're the uncompromised Clint Barton?" He says, briskly, pinning him down with the stare that he uses to terrorize the junior agents. And in the second it takes for Clint to catch that stare, the pieces click together and he visibly falters. Natasha watches them, eyes Clint's reaction, and stares at him with her grip on the gun loosening. "Because the real Clint would know that the last time I felt this heavy was when I thought we couldn't locate you in Budapest."

"I swear, one day? We are going to find out what happened in Budapest," Tony grumbles.

"Oh god," Clint chokes out, and just like that, all of his walls crumble. "I didn't, I wasn't, you're not dead because of me? I mean, I thought, since I was controlled by him and all, maybe he would've forced me to-"

Thor looks at him sadly.

"You are Agent Phillip Coulson, of Shield, and you have been reported as dead ever since Loki's invasion of New York," Natasha says crisply.

"I confirm," he says, "that I have only been reported as dead. And to everything else."

Natasha smiles at him, and before he has the chance to smile back, she punches him in the face, effectively knocking him over.

"Nat!" Clint shouts.

"I-" Phil groans.

"Um," Bruce says.

"Who saw that coming," Steve raises his hand, deadpan.

"I," Thor proclaims.

Tony sips his coffee and puts his thumb up.

"Do you have any idea how much you put us through, you fucker?" Natasha growls, suddenly sitting on his stomach. "For the first week, I had to try to console the idiot over there that no, I wasn't lying to him and no, he didn't kill you. I had to convince Steve not to go all out and sign all the Captain America merch you have, because you have a lot and do you know how hard it is trying to demotivate the single-most determined man in the whole world? I had to talk Thor down from going straight-up to Asgard and get a healer just to bring you back after seeing how badly your so-called death affected everyone else. How it affected me.

"Because I had to help Jarvis talk Tony down from having a panic attack, because he couldn't stand and is literally scared of innocents dying on his watch, and I had to hold Pepper while she was crying because the brief time you knew each other, she really did like you. Because I had to keep Bruce from guilt-tripping himself from backing out, because he said that if he didn't Hulk out, maybe you would've still been alive.

"I was scared, Coulson, that I've lost one of the few people that I've grown to care about. And do you know how much that hurts?"

Phil finally opens his eyes to look at her, and above him, Natasha has her fist clenched and angled in a way that ensures she wants some teeth to fall out. But she's shaking, and her eyes are shining, and she's breathing heavily in a way he knows she's trying to conceal.

"I was scared," she says, quietly, and it's not deadly; it's just a quiet confession of something that's true. And all Phil does is smile at her, and she punches him again, not anything too hurtful, not out of malice, but just because he deserves it.

Clint kneels down next to him, and says, "Permission to shoot, sir?" His smirking face on Natasha's right.

Phil laughs, weakly, and he hears a soft clunk before Tony's grin is right there with Clint's. "This might be the only time I'd listen to your orders, Agent, just say the magic words."

"I know not of Midgard's magic, but I would like to partake in it!" He only sees Thor for a moment before he is being scooped up in a big hug. "Welcome back, Son of Coul," Thor says, his voice rumbling in his chest, and then he puts Phil back on the floor.

Bruce chuckles, and shakes his hand. "I wouldn't say no to punching you in the face either, you know," he says with a wink.

"Neither would I," Steve says, and pats him on the back. "But it's nice to know we haven't lost a good soldier."

"Yeah, well," Phil says, and smiles. "Welcome to Level 7."