Title: This Round's On Me

Author: Skyelah

Word Count: 2,582

Summary: Clint shares a drink with his oldest and closest friend. He's got a lot to apologize for...(sort of Fix-it fic. Clint-whump and general angst).

The mourners came at noon. A flock of them, coloured with grief and emitting wordless, silent noise. They huddled around a hole in the ground, hunched around the laden casket and the minister speaking, ignoring the sun's heat beating down on their backs and unaware of the man who stood yards away, watching them. Rows and rows of granite and smooth stone separated him from them, and that was how he liked it. A silent observer, and one who saw everything. It was his job to.

Clint ran a hand through his cropped, sandy blond hair, turning his eyes away from the funeral-goers in something akin to shame. His feet shifted where he stood, trampling down the new green shoots and muddy earth that had already been crumpled underfoot. Eyes downcast, they fell on the object of his visitation, the reason why he chose to spend his first free Saturday in months in such a gloomy place.

Phillip J. Coulson

April 1973 – May 2012

The valiant never taste of death but once.

Clint couldn't suppress a quiet snort. Fucking Shakespeare. Coulson was always spouting it, offering the Bard's words as wisdom, calling the members of the World Security Council 'flax-wenches' and 'canker-blossoms' behind their back and when only Clint could hear him... Julius Caesar was never his favourite; that high-held honour was reserved for 'Much Ado', followed by a fair few of Shakespeare's other comedies. Straight laced and stern as Coulson was, the man secretly loved to laugh. Anyone who'd known the Agent would have known that. Clint did.

"S'pose it's fitting, even if it's not entirely accurate," Clint mused aloud. There was no one in earshot, and even if there was... he was talking to a fucking gravestone. Coulson's gravestone. There was no one left to give a shit what he did. "'Never taste of death but once'... I seem to recall you waking up in medical more than a dozen times. Always beat it, though... Never let anything take you down for long..."

Except for this. Loki's scepter, through the chest and out the other side, was the one thing Coulson couldn't take. Clint hadn't seen the wound – the battle, the aftermath, a closed casket funeral – but he'd heard stories. Conversations whispered when he walked by the junior agents in the halls of SHIELD. Rumors, all confirmed when Clint finally worked up the nerve to demand the security footage from Director Fury. He hadn't made it through his viewing, slamming the laptop lid shut and hurling it across the room. It didn't even shatter on impact, damned Starktech. What good was technology if you couldn't slam your fist through the screen in a fit of violent, and righteous, anger?

That was months ago, a seemingly endless age of briefings, debriefings, missions, parties, and press releases. Events where he was expected to play nice with the public and all but kiss babies. Playing nice, Clint could do. He was a secret agent; he could fake it with the best of them. Feigning interest and smiles, pretending to care about the work they were doing to rebuild the city. Truth was, Clint couldn't bring himself to care about much of anything anymore. Not the missions, or the parties... Certainly not the briefings, but those had never held much interest for him in the first place. Nothing seemed to have a point to it, and he wandered aimlessly between days, until he'd woken up that morning and found himself driving here, of all places. To sit and talk to a dead man.

He told all this to Coulson's stone, speaking each word in hushed tones as if someone might overhear, sliding to the ground and leaning back against the granite angel on a pedestal behind him. He didn't even bother to look at the name. They were just hunks of rock, put there to make the families and friends of the deceased feel a little bit better about their loss. They didn't mean anything; anything that mattered about a person fled after death.

If he really believed that, why was he here?

"I've missed seeing you around," Clint admitted to the rock before him. "Sitwell took over your old office... He likes me well enough, but he's not all that keen on me crashing in through the overhead vent." A fond memory, a smile, of the days when Clint used to drop in and Coulson wouldn't flinch, just ask Clint if he'd brought coffee and donuts. He always had. "He's been handling my missions lately, when I'm given them. Came back from Mexico just last week, not a scratch on us. He's good. Almost as good as you were."

This is the part where Coulson would smile, dropping the careful mask he held around almost everyone but Clint, pleased to hear a compliment. If it came from anyone else, Coulson would brush it off, claiming it came with the job, but he always knew that Clint meant it. He knew that Clint's praise was rare, his honest compliments even scarcer, and he treasured every one of them. And Clint treasured every one of Coulson's.

"It was your birthday last week... 40," Clint whistled. "Knew you were getting up there, old man, but damn." You're not all that far behind, the snide commentary in the back of his mind reminded him. "I brought you something. Figured I'd carry on our typical birthday tradition." Clint reached into the satchel he'd been carrying since he'd left Stark tower that morning, pulling out two murky brown bottles of Coulson's favourite beer. "American, of course. That big-name macro brew shit you liked so much."

Another memory, of Clint's first birthday after signing on with SHIELD. He was young, barely passed 20, and having just flown through all his basic training in a matter of months. Coulson had been waiting outside his crappy apartment, crisply dressed and giving Clint his most disapproving stare. "You never mentioned it was your birthday," he'd said in what would have been a threatening tone, if his eyes weren't shining.

"It never came up," was Clint's retort, accompanied by a shrug and an eye-roll from Coulson. The older agent had grabbed him by the arm and dragged him down the street to the closest bar, where they stayed until last call. They talked, laughed, had friendly conversation; the first real conversation Clint had had in years. It became a tradition; every birthday that passed, one would drag the other to the closest bar, regardless of whether or not they were on a mission, and they would nurse a few beers and enjoy each other's company until they were kicked out.

Clint popped the cap of his beer, taking a long swig and grimacing at the aftertaste. He was more of a bourbon man himself... Or maybe living with Stark and, more importantly, his liquor cabinet, had spoiled him. The other bottle he leaned against Coulson's headstone, where it rested just beneath the Shakespeare quotation that some SHIELD lackey had probably pulled from Google. He would've picked something different... He should've...

"I just couldn't do it, after..." Clint's voice trailed away, and he choked back another mouthful. "I didn't want to do much of anything. Barely even made it to the funeral. If Tasha hadn't..." Dragged him out of the range, kicking and screaming. Sat him down and made him, forced him, to talk. Even slapped him a few times, until his red rimmed eyes refocused and he could see that, yeah, he probably should go to his boss's funeral. His closest friend's final send off.

"You have every right to be angry, Clint." Her voice had been soft, the tone she adopted when she was talking to one of her marks. "You're allowed to grieve. But you need to pull yourself together now. Even if it's just for a few hours. Coulson would want you to be there."

"I can't... I don't want to face this, Tasha." His voice, like his heart, was broken. "If I go today, if I see them lower that casket into the ground, then it's real. He's not coming back... And I don't know if I can handle that."

"You will."

She had sounded so sure of him, and he had laughed, the hoarse noise scratching at his throat. "I wish I could be so sure. I wish... Just wish I could rewrite fucking history, you know? Go back and change it all. Maybe even tell him-"

"He knew."

Then she stood, and her hand cupped his cheek in a rare gesture of affection. "You can't rewrite history, Clint. But hell if I'm going to let you ruin your future. You're going to go today, and you're going to stand with our friends as we say goodbye to the best man we ever knew."

"And then?"

"Y'know, I don't know if I ever told you that." Clint gestured with his bottle, the liquid sloshing inside as he gave a pointed glance to the words etched in the stone. "You were the best man I ever knew. Still are. Best damned friend I've ever had either." Some who knew him might protest, saying that, clearly, Natasha held that position. "It's not the same with me and Tasha. She's like... Like the kid sister I never had. Or wanted, really. We can read each other, we can share almost everything, but she doesn't always... Understand, you know? Not like you did."

Another pause, another swig of beer. "Did you ever wonder, though? What might have been? If the two of us could have just pulled our heads out of our asses and said what was really on our minds?" In Budapest, 5 years before? Afghanistan? Maybe it would have been as early as Iowa, and their first meeting, rediscovered after a few years of partnership – where Clint had been shooting under the Big Top and Phil had been standing on the fringes of the audience; when their eyes had met in the brief moment between Clint's final shot and him being hustled out of the ring... Or afterwards, where Phil admitted he'd lingered outside hoping to catch another glimpse of The Amazing Hawkeye. How many years had they missed out on, before it was too suddenly too late?

"D'you think it would've worked? You know how I am with relationships... I could barely make what I had with Bobbi last, and I thought we'd had something real..." Bobbi was a topic seldom breached by Clint and Phil, and yet the older man seemed to know everything about it without ever asking, dancing around the topic but never once hurting Clint... He had known everything there was to know about the archer, it seemed. "I would've tried to be as good to you," Clint swore. "I would remember anniversaries, and that you're allergic to shellfish... Your favourite take-out, the kinds of movies you would want to see..."

It would have been so easy between the two of them; easy as breathing and perfect. They already knew all there was to know about each other, and they had a level of trust that neither one had ever experienced. And yet Clint had chickened out last minute, every time. Takeout in Coulson's office would turn into mission report, dinner would result in some form of explosion, they'd both be called away on a mission and Clint would lose his nerve. Every damned time.

"I'm sorry..."

"I thought I might find you here."

Natasha's voice was quiet, as were her footsteps, as she approached Clint from behind. He hadn't even heard her approaching. She crouched down beside him, snatching the beer from his hand and sniffing it experimentally. "You have any more?"

"You hate American beer," Clint countered. Natasha nodded. It was her offer that counted, and they both knew it. "I was just getting some things off my chest... Saying what needed to be said."

"He knew." Natasha echoed their conversation from months before. "He always knew, Clint."

"Still, I should have said it. At least once, before..." Before he died. Before there was no one left to tell. Natasha nodded understandingly, though Clint knew she didn't completely get it. To her, love was for children; imaginative, but ultimately non-existent. He still held on to the hope that one day she'd find someone who could make her change her mind, but he didn't hold a lot of stock in that hope. It had taken him years to find someone who had changed his own opinions on the matter.

Together, though, they were on the right track to finding love, if not in its romantic form. Their team, the Avengers, at some point along the way had shifted into the realms of friendship, slowly blending into the form of a family. The six of them trusted one another with their lives and, more than that, with themselves. Their thoughts and feelings; the things they had never voiced to anyone before. Coulson would have liked that, Clint thought. His team, finally becoming a family. Clint, finally finding people who he could trust unconditionally, as he had Coulson.

"The team was getting worried about you," Natasha informed him. Her tone was offhand, but he could hear something more sincere in her voice, and see it in her eyes. She was happy, truly happy, with the life they were building with the Avengers. He could be happy too. "Tony wants to have a Lord of the Rings marathon, and he says it won't be the same without you there to make archer cracks at."

"Again?" Clint raised an eyebrow. He was already rising to his feet. "Didn't we just watch those last month?"

"Thor's home this time," Natasha explained. "He showed up on the roof earlier this morning; he hasn't seen them yet." She swiped Clint's drink again, draining the last few drops and tossing it into the satchel still on the ground by his feet. She left Coulson's beer where it rested, wreathed in grass and belying Shakespeare, and stooped to pick up the satchel herself. "Coming?"

Clint paused, glancing sideways at Phil's headstone. He nodded, stretching out a hand to feel the warm granite, bathed in the sunlight of an early spring day. "Yeah. I'm coming." His fingers trailed off the stone and into Natasha's outstretched hand as she led him out of the rows of tombstones and mausoleums. The apologies, the words he'd been dying to say for years, still lingered on the tip of his tongue, but Tasha's happiness and the thought of his team made him swallow them. I'll be back soon.

In the distance, the crowd of mourners began to dissipate, heading off towards their cars and to the wake that was to follow. Black fluttered as a sudden breeze picked up in the air, and one of the mourners slipped silently free of the crowd. He wasn't pausing by the newly dug grave, however; his gaze turned away. His black tie caught the breeze, whipping over the shoulder of his crisp suit as his eyes followed the pair that was leaving the cemetery. His mouth was a stern line, his hair receded on his forehead; an altogether unremarkable man but for his eyes – piercing gray and seeming to smile. They followed the sandy-haired man and his gorgeous ginger companion as they trekked, hand in hand, towards the parking lot. The man's composure faltered, his legs twitched with the urge to follow, and his lips quirked up into a small grin.

Soon.

I've been sort of absent for a while. If you've read any of my ongoing stories, I apologize, and I'm working on updates. If not… Well, you should! Because they're pretty great :)

I ship Phil/Clint so much. Not quite OTP levels of ship, but getting there. Usually I just dance around the pairing in my fics, so this time I tried something different and almost came right out and put them together. I've never really written slash before, but for these two, I might try it. Any thoughts on the matter?

Don't forget to review on your way out!