This was originally meant to be a one shot but then I had too many ideas for it and decided to turn it into a multi-chapter fic. I don't own anything to do with Marvel or agents of shield. Trigger warnings for mentions of suicide, self-harm, depression and eating disorders. Sorry if this is littered with mistakes, I wrote this on my phone and my auto correct can be a bit funny sometimes.
Dead
That one word echoed around his skull as he sat there, surrounded by heroes. People with suits and serums. Gods. He didn't belong there. He wasn't a hero; he wasn't even a good person. He was a villain, a bad guy. The exact people he tried to stop, he had become. He killed people. He killed Coulson. Coulson was dead. Gone. He couldn't think, thoughts racing around his head. He needed to leave. To get out of here. He pushed his chair back with such force that it clattered to the ground before practically running from the shawarma restaurant.
By the time he stopped running, he was dizzy and lightheaded. Leaning against a dumptser in an alley he caught his breath. He had only run for a few blocks, there was no way he was this out of breath. His stomach rumbled as he realised that he hadn't even touched his shawarma. How long had it been since he had last eaten? Taken a nap? He slid down the side of the dumpster until he was sitting on the floor. He ripped his aids out and threw them against the other side of the wall. His aids with his comms in. The comms on which he would never hear the voice of his handler again.
He sensed someone coming into the alley. "It wasn't your fault Clint." Of course she had followed him.
"Go 'way Tasha, I just want to be alone." He hated speaking without his aids, not knowing what he sounded like, how loud he was speaking.
"What we want isn't always what we need."
"Was it Loki?" Her signed back to her. She must have noticed his aids lying by the wall.
He noticed her breathing hitch before answering. She wasn't as in control of her emotions as she was showing then. "Yeah. It." She paused. "It was when I was going after you. He took on Loki alone. Thor was… there when it happened."
"So it was my fault then. I let Loki on the carrier. Without me, Coulson would still be alive, the hellicarrier wouldn't be down for the next few months for repairs, and none of this would have happened. It's all on me Tash." He would adamantly refuse the fact that there was a tear rolling down his face by the last sentence.
"It wasn't you Clint. You weren't in control and you didn't know what you were doing." She hesitated for a second before signing again. "Do you remember it?"
He scoffed. "Every last second. Watching as I hurt and tortured, watching as I shot at Maria, shot Fury. Screaming to be let out but being chained down by his magic."
"But you were fighting. That's what makes you a good person. You saw what you were doing and you fought yourself. And it worked Clint. You and I both know how paranoid Fury is; I reckon he wears his vest to bed. You could have shot at his head, or even checked to see if he was dead, but you didn't. And with Maria, with me. You're the greatest marksman in the world, there is no way you could have missed those shots, but somehow we are both still alive and kicking. Explain that."
Instead of answering, he looked up at her with despairing eyes. "He's gone Tash." His movements were jerky and barely understandable, hindered by emotion.
"I know." Her reply was no better, her attempts at clamping down her emotions failing. And so the two grieving assassins sat, leaning against a smelly dumpster in an alley, mourning their handler and most importantly, friend.
LINE BREAK
3 months later
The phone at the avengers tower rang, a screen appearing in front of the two resident assassins, showing the call was for them. Puzzled, Clint told Jarvis to accept the call. He couldn't figure out who it could be, anything S. H. I. E. L. D. related would come through the main connection or would have been talked about today. The TV paused whilst the call connected and when the screen came to life, it was most definitely a surprise. Phil Coulson was staring at them, an apprehensive expression on his face as the spies stared at him in shock. Natasha recovered first, and told Jarvis to shut it down thinking it was a cruel prank. However, Coulson heard this and immediately began to protest. "No no Natasha, listen to me. I'm sorry; just hear me out, please." Suspicious, Natasha nodded indicating that he should get on with it.
"I need your help. Fury would be having kittens if he knew I was doing this. In fact, he will have kittens when he inevitability finds out but I have nowhere else to turn. One of my agents is in critical, 2 GSW to the stomach. She's not expected to make it, but there is one more place we need to try first. And I need you to help me, please."
Both assassins were staring at the screen, eyes wide in disbelief. "What were my first words to you when you found me?" Clint felt a small bubble of hope rising up in his chest. Could it be…?
"Clint-"
"Answer him!"
Coulson looked taken aback by the demand from Natasha. He didn't know what he expected when he decided to call his old assets, but it definitely wasn't this.
"I had chased you down for over 20 minutes. We had lost the rest of my team ages ago and we were nearly out of the city. You had taken to the rooftops and I had, reluctantly, followed. I was nearly out of bullets and thought I was going to lose you, until I got lucky. One of my shots hit you left leg, just below your knee and you stumbled before falling from the rooftops to the ground below, which wasn't what I had intended. You were barely conscious by the time I got down to you and when you noticed me you came out with the jumbled slur of 'yuck fou'. I have never told anyone else that story, as you very well know, and we had decided that should anything happen to one of us that would cast doubts about our identities that would be the safety question." Calm and collected as always, if slightly puzzled, Coulson answered the question.
"It's really you. But Phil, you're meant to be dead!"
"... Fury said he told you. He said you knew."
"Knew what?"
"That I'm… you know, not dead."
"Do these look like the faces of 2 people who knew?"
"No. I'm sorry Tasha, I thought you knew."
"Explain. Explain how you're alive. You died! We went to you funeral! We mourned you!"
"And I'm sorry Clint. I promise, had I had even the slightest inkling that you didn't know, that you didn't know I was alive, I would have broken every rule Fury gave me and told you straight away."
Neither of the spies answered him, so he continued.
"I did die, Loki did kill me, but somehow Fury brought me back. I don't know how and I don't know what he did, but whatever it was, it saved me. He told me that the avengers knew I was alive, that you knew, but that I couldn't make contact with you for security reasons. That I have a new team now. He said you were pissed, and rightly so might I add, but had accepted it."
"He never told us, he said you were dead. What do you mean a new team? Don't we mean anything to you? Don't I? You said you would always be there for me, that you would never leave me. You can't just leave Phil! We thought you were dead, I thought I killed you! I did kill you! You can't just do this to us Phil! To me!" Both Natasha and Coulson watched as he fled from the room, leaving an awkward silence behind him.
"I'm going to kill Fury." Muttered a despairing Coulson.
"Afraid you're going to have to get in line for that. I can't believe it's really you Phil. I thought you were gone. How did you survive?"
"As I said, I don't know. The only thing that we do know is that a serum - GH325 - was pumped into me as a last resort, and I started to heal. We are trying to get the same drug to give to Skye, one of my new agents. She was shot in the stomach twice and the doctors say she won't survive. But I need your help. The only person we have been able to link to the drug is Karsa Lakatos."
"Lakatos?"
"Yup. Looks like he has once again got tangled up in drug dealing. Only this time it's slightly more illegal than your usual drug ring." He sighed, his eyes flicking to door from where Clint had made his hasty exit. "How has he been?"
Her expression hardened, her eyes turning dark. "Bad. There's going to be nothing left of Fury if I get my hands on him. 3 suicide attempts, self-harming, depression and his eating disorders have come back full force. He seemed to be getting better recently, finally accepting that what happened wasn't his fault. He blames himself, Coulson. You couldn't have visited him after the battle? Did you just get your new orders and forget about us?"
"Natasha, I only got out of hospital last month." Ignoring her rather scary mutterings about disembowelling Fury, he continued. "This whole team thing is new and different. Skye isn't even an S.H.I.E.L.D agent; she's a hacker who we recruited for the team."
"Who else is in this team them? Who are our replacements?"
"Natasha, it isn't like that. It's S.H.I.E.L.D, you get your orders and you follow them. And trust me, I do miss you. We've got 2 young scientists fresh from the lab, Ward, Skye and May." He chuckled at the scoff she gave at Ward. He really wasn't the most liked of agents.
"May? I thought she was off duty after...you know." May had been one of the agents' closest friends before the mission went wrong.
"I got her to join with the promise of a very big plane and plenty of flying time. She was originally just the pilot but I think she can't help herself joining in sometimes."
"Good old Melly."
A silence filled the air, it was the first time in a long time that the agents had felt uncomfortable around each other.
"So… will you help? Fury will have a fit but it's our only chance, you're the only one who knows Lakatos enough to have a chance at getting him to agree. And if that fails your skills will most definitely be appreciated when we blow the place to the high heavens. Both of your skills."
"It's a yes from me. I'll go talk to him, he might come around. And Phil, I'm glad you're alive."
He smiled at the rare show of affection from the usually cold-hearted assassin. "So am I, Natasha. So am I."
