Regrets
He stared down at the steel table, his solemn, ragged face staring back at him in the lustrous shine of the sterilized metal. He wanted to wipe away that face, the face of a guilt-ridden man, of a man with many regrets. Of course, mourning was known for turning a person into their worst, but the weight that bore on his chest was heavier than he could ever imagine. This onus was greater than the one he bore when he left everyone back in 1944; at least then, when he left, he wasn't letting anyone down the way he let Phil Coulson down.
Nick Fury came in silently; his face visibly aged by the battle, by the loss of a friend, and moved to face the two of us that remained out of the five that had originally been assembled. Stark was sitting across from me, but his chair had turned away, and his eyes were glazed over, focused intently on the floor. We were the only two left now. Thor had been catapulted to Earth in a glass cage; Hulk had gone down with a plane, and Widow had disappeared, nowhere to be found.
Fury started speaking words I couldn't care to catch, that is, until he threw a dozen or so rectangular objects down on the table.
"These were found in Agent Coulson's pocket. Guess he never did get them signed." Fury said with his usual contempt, but today, the words stung a little more than usual. Maybe it was because of the sadness and disappointment that laced his voice as well.
They were cards, the cards Phil prided himself in collecting, the cards of his greatest idol, now smeared and stained in his blood. He stared at them for a good long while, just taking them in, and the waves of grief and shame and regret crashed down on him full force. He had to fight to maintain composure, but he felt so terrible that it was hard to calm down.
Fury talked on, but he barely managed to pick up a few words; his focus was entirely on the cards in front of him, the smiling 1944 version of him staring back as if to mock him further. He looked over to Stark once more, but the man had yet to even blink. He was so frustrated with everything that had happened, and he wanted to yell at Stark for being so unresponsive. He would've done something had he not known that silence was Tony's tool for dealing with everything. Knowing that, he assumed Stark must've been handling this far worse than he suspected.
Finally, Tony stormed away without a cause, and Fury looked as defeated as ever. Slowly, he left as well, leaving the Captain alone with the violent red cards and blood streaked table.
Struggling to comprehend his fate now that everything seemed to be lost, he picked up a card, feeling the stickiness protrude onto his fingertips. It was still warm. The thought of that repulsed him, but his grip on the card, that plain, unsigned card, remained firm.
Why couldn't he have just signed them? It seemed to be all Coulson ever wanted. He was his biggest admirer; he was the only person who could turn one of the most skilled agents on the field off his guard. All Coulson ever did was look up to the Captain, so why couldn't he have signed his cards? That was the least he could've done. Why did he have to shun his company like he did to everyone else? Agent Coulson was one of the people who helped bring him back to the living, so why was the Captain so rude to him?
He felt like such a terribly evil person for shunning him. He felt like he could never be able to make up for his wrongs to the fallen agent, like all his sins could never be forgiven. The Captain couldn't run down the hall and apologize, or go back in time to redo every conversation he was ever rude to him, which would be all of them. He would never get to see Coulson's smiling, elated face as he signed his most prized possessions that he spent such a long time gathering. He had even carried them around in his pocket for God's sakes! Like he was waiting for the right moment to ask. Thinking back, he already had. It was subtle, an agent's way of asking a question, but while he was bragging about the cards, the want was inquiry was present and the Captain had blatantly shrugged him off.
The Captain felt like the worst kind of person at the moment. He was beyond rude to Coulson, and he knew he would have regrets about him for the rest of his life. Perhaps he would see him again in his nightmares along with the swarms of faces he left behind. The Captain could never beg forgiveness from him now; he'd have to live with his blood on his hands, so now there was only one thing left he could do.
Since he couldn't save Phil Coulson, he'd be damn sure he'd avenge him.