Title: forty-two, autographs, and a lily
Author: Endless-chan/kyrilu
Fandom: Avengers (2012 movie-verse)
Rating: K+/PG
Warnings: Fake character death, mention of minor characters' death.
Genre: Angst/Romance.
Pairing/Characters: Phil Coulson/Steve Rogers. Pepper Potts, Bruce Banner, mentions of other Avengers.
Author's Notes: SPOILERS for the entire Avengers movie. Don't read if you don't want to spoil yourself. Also: this is total, utter sap, mixed with angst. I'm going with Word of God that said that Coulson lived - please, please, be true. D: This fic is unbetaed and I actually wrote this out on my Kindle, which is not a proper keyboard AT ALL.
He's read Tom Sawyer once, when he was a kid. Attending your own funeral - wasn't it supposed to be a silly, satisfied feeling? Knowing that, yeah, you're fucking alive and you beat death. And everybody thinks you're gone but you're not.
Coulson has an unmarked grave. It's a numbered plot among the other officers who had perished; a pang hits the bottom of his stomach because he knows that he's a false sacrifice among the true heroes.
Coulson stops this train of thought, and huddles underneath the brim of the black hat, the high collar, the dark sunglasses. He's been hunching over, as to emulate an ancient elderly man grieving for a grandson, and the Avengers solemnly listen to Fury commerating the losses.
The Avengers. Well, what's left of it. Thor's in Asguard, Romanoff's on an urgent covert mission with Barton, Stark's fucking off to do all his rich shit...
Coulson finds out later that Stark was grieving in his on way. Which meant getting drunk for the entire day, wihout Pepper to stop him. Because, well, she's here. With Banner, with Rogers, with Director Fury.
"Avengers assemble," Coulson says, because isn't it ironic that he made them work together by dying, but they're separate during his funeral? He was the catalyst; now he's a symbol weathering away.
He just hopes it was worth it.
"We grieve for the men and women who laid down their lives," Fury finishes his eulogy. "We grieve for those who they leave behind. But let us remember: we did not lose. We won, and we won for the fallen. They have no names on their headstones, but our names are enough. We will live, and we shall fight for our country and those that died for her; I think that's the best we could ever hope to do. And I think that's the most they will ever ask of us."
Some of Coulson's co-workers died and he really didn't know them, but he's shaking and trembling, and Captain America's eyes have a streak of remembrance and pain, and Pepper's (she calls him Phil) is crying and Banner's comfortingly running a hand over her back and Clint and Natasha who he used to run & shoot & fight with are not even here.
Slowly, everyone begins to leave. Slowly, the sun swoops down from the sky and pink-orange sets in. He is staring at grave number forty-two, and he thinks Fury's trying to tell him something, but for the life of him can't-
"Hey. I understand that reference," a familiar voice from behind him speaks softly.
"Oh?" Coulson says. He shucks off his hat and tucks down his collar. He slides his sunglasses into his pockets. There's really no point now.
"Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It's a book," Steve Rogers adds.
"Think it was made into a movie a few years back," Coulson says, and Steve makes a noise in his throat that clearly means why is every book made into a movie in the future?
Coulson remembers Fury recounting on having to explain a lot of modern culture to the man, from an ipod to a Narnia movie chock-full with CGI. He fights a hint of a smile off his face.
Instead he bends down, and brings up the offerings left on his grave marker. Lilies from Pepper. Looks like she put down a can of beer from Tony. Then there's an envelope, flap open, and the cards spill out on his hand.
And this time, he smiles.
"You shouldn't have just left them here," he says, shaking his head, but that ridiculous awe is still coursing through him. "Signed, vintage mint-condition Captain America trading cards. What if someone stole them and sold them over Ebay?"
Steve's face is blank at the mention of the website, but it looks like he's got the gist of it, though. "Not with me guarding it, Coulson."
Coulson's glad that Steve doesn't mention the fake blood, but the relief is very obvious on the man's face. Captain America's seen many lives lost on the battlefield; he probably made speeches like the S.H.I.E.L.D. director did today.
This is Steve. Old eyes and a suit that Pepper must've shoved him into last minute, the sun glinting the gold off his unbrushed hair. He doesn't make speeches now, he stands here and talks about forty-two and trading cards and Coulson can see how like unlike he is to his Captain America persona.
"Thank you," Coulson says, and he means it with all his fanboy glee and because Steve knew who he was among the crowd of people.
"Forty-two is the answer to life, the universe, and everything," Steve tells him, and by this point, they're sitting down on the grass. Coulson's back is resting on the side of the grave with the number, and Steve's on the blank side. They'd be back-to-back if this chunk of stone wasn't in the way.
"Is the book good?"
"Yeah. Really funny. It has tons of jokes, and it's also science fiction."
Coulson tugs at Pepper's lily bouquet, idly winding white petals and green stems through his fingers. "Yeah?"
"There's a depressed robot named Marvin, there's an infinite number of penguins, there's terrible Volgon poetry," and it's just Steve rambing on in a low, steady voice as Coulson slides the lily back and forth, back and forth in his hand. The stack of Captain America cards is clenched tightly in his other hand.
"You're welcome, you know," Steve says after a while. "About the cards, I mean. I should've signed them and stopped stalling. It felt kinda surreal to have a fan again."
"Even though I died?" Coulson says bluntly.
Steve flinches. He says, "Yeah. But you're alive now."
And Steve's hands creep backwards and take hold of a green stem sticking from Coulson's hands by the grave.
Phil and Steve are almost back-to-back, the stretch of stone in between. They are not touching, but the lily connects them.