Coulson fought to keep his breathing even as he stalked down the hallway of the Avengers' infirmary, hoping no one noticed that his hands were clenched into white knuckled fists behind his back. This couldn't be happening. It was supposed to be a simple reconnaissance mission, and Clint had always been so careful…

"Where is he?" he croaked. It was a credit to his self control, he distantly noted, that his voice was as smooth and inflectionless as it ever was, betraying only a slight thread of concern. Inside, he was screaming.

Natasha glanced up at him and winced, her pale skin flecked by what he hoped was someone else's blood. Unless it was Clint's. "Down the hall."

Coulson walked quickly towards the lit room further down the corridor, not bothering to look back and check if Natasha was following him. He needed to see Clint now. Opening the door brusquely, he took in the tableau before him in white lipped silence.

Steve, Thor and Tony stood talking in the corner, but Coulson's eyes were only for Clint. Clint, who was paler than Coulson had ever seen him, except for sickening splashes of blood painted across his skin. A bevy of machines and tubes clung to him; their wires trailing like spider webs from Clint's veins. It was as if he had already died and his corpse had been decorated by some macabre spider.

"He was hit with something. A neuron disrupter maybe, or some new paralyzing agent." Natasha murmured from behind him. "We aren't sure yet; the doctors are working on it. He just fell over. Stopped moving. We've tried everything. He won't wake up."

Coulson nodded wordlessly. All he could focus on was the pale stillness of Clint's face. He closed his eyes, remembering kissing that face over and over, as Clint carded through his hair and laughed against his neck.

Natasha took a deep breath, and Coulson knew with dreadful certainty that he wasn't going to like what she had to say. "He's…They don't think the outlook is good. You should… be prepared."

He was dying, she meant. One of the heart monitors beeped; the noise cut through the silence. Coulson twitched. He couldn't deal with this in public. Even now, he felt chunks of his control slipping away. He needed to be alone when it all inevitably fell apart. Setting his shoulders, he turned to face Stark and Thor, his best impersonally polite face firmly in place. "I need to be with Mr. Barton undisturbed for a minute, if you please."

Steve frowned. "Why? I'd rather stay with him."

"There are a few things I need to say to him. Alone."

Thor turned around to face him, discontent brewing in his eyes like storm clouds. "He is hardly awake to hear any of it."

Stark's lips thinned and he crossed his arms. "Just what do you need to talk to him about?"

Coulsin smiled tightly, his mind racing. They needed to leave; he couldn't keep up this calm façade. He needed to say what he felt; let his demons free before they clawed a burning hole in his chest. "Clint once requested that if he was badly injured and it was feasible to do so, I was to read him his will, regardless of whether I knew he could hear it."

It was a bad lie, but the callousness of the claim covered up any measure of incredulity in the assembled avengers.

Tony's face twisted into a contorted mask of fury. Reaching out with a growl, he grabbed Coulson's shoulder and shoved him into the wall. "You sent him out there," he shouted. "This is your damn fault, and now you want to read him his own goddamn will like he's already dead and you don't give a shit as long as protocol gets followed. Fuck you."

Coulson pulled away, his face a mask. "Your professionalism leaves something to be desired-"

"I'm going to fucking kill-"

Things might've spiraled out of hand if not for Natasha, bless her soul. Moving quickly, she shoved Tony out of the door, pausing only to lock eyes with Coulson. She held the gaze as Thor and Steve left, save for a quick glance at Clint.

She knew about them, Coulson was sure of it. She'd always been perceptive. He supposed he should be worried about their secret, but he could only feel gratitude that she'd quieted Tony. With a curt nod of thanks, he turned back to Clint as she pulled the door shut behind the exiting avengers.

The room was suddenly deathly quiet.

Clint looked peaceful, like he was asleep. Coulson closed his eyes and concentrated on breathing through his nose. He could still remember the last time he saw Clint sleeping, curled up in Coulson's bed. His quarters at SHIELD headquarters were sleek and bare; Clint's roughness had always stood out there. Coulson remembered how his sleep-tousled hair had mussed across the pillow, and how he'd twisted the blankets across his skin as they'd curled together.

Coulson looked back at the still body in the bed, trying not to take in Clint's sickly pallor or shallow breathing. Swallowing, he sat down heavily in the plastic chair someone had dragged next to the bed. He abhorred chaos, but he would take Clint's mess and disorder any day over this.

"I don't think you can hear me," he began, wondering what he was doing even as he spoke. This was counterproductive. Clint was dying; he should be out talking to the doctors rather than spewing out his feelings like a teenaged girl. But staring at the line of Clint's pulse on the computer screen, Coulson realized he couldn't leave. His carefully built façade of calm would break the minute Stark said another word to him, and he'd collapse into anger and fear like an unmannered child. Logical or not, there were some things he needed to say.

He took a deep breath.

"I am so sorry," he whispered. The words were soft, but cut through the quiet of the room easily.

Clint's heart monitor beeped and Coulson had to look away. "I sent you out there. You wouldn't have stayed behind, I know. But I sent you, and you went." He took a deep breath. "Blame is irrelevant. But if this is anyone's fault, it's mine. No matter what you'd say."

If the raid had gone differently, and if Clint had come home bruised but still standing and laughing, he would've scoffed at Coulson's guilt. He could almost imagine it now. This is my job; if I get hurt it's my own damn fault.

But Clint wasn't conscious, couldn't say any such thing. And he may have gone off of his own volition, but the order had come from Coulson. "It's horrible," he whispered to Clint's still form, "seeing you like this. Maybe you wouldn't blame me, but I care too much about you. I care… too much. More than I should, perhaps."

"You're a popular man. I never asked… if there was anyone else. Besides me." God forbid; the thought made him sicker than he already was. Sighing, he put his head in his hands. "You could've had anyone, man or woman, if you asked. It always seemed unfair of me, being jealous." He looked up at Clint, wishing he could catch his finger twitching or his eyelid fluttering open. But the body was still.

He took a deep breath. "I was. Jealous, I mean. Every day, whenever people looked at you like that." He smiled slightly. "Stupid of me, of course. You never seemed to care. And it was your business, of course, if you… if there was someone else."

He thought back to the way he would always grit his teeth when some young secretary at Stark Industry smirked and caught Clint's eye. The girls were never in short supply; Clint was gorgeous, all lean muscle and predatory grace. And Clint always smiled back.

No matter how silly Coulson's jealousy was, he couldn't help but seethe quietly beneath a veneer of pleasantry. On the nights after Clint ran into one too many flirtatious women, Coulson would slam him into his bed with a single-minded fury, claiming the archer as his, and his alone. He always tried to kiss away the memory of their lingering looks, doing his best to cover up his fear of betrayal with passion. Clint had laughed and gasped under his hands, loving the force of his attention.

Now though, all the passion had bled away, leaving Clint alone with his fear, clumped in his stomach like an unpleasant houseguest that refused to leave. "You might die," he whispered, staring at the floor. "And it's going to kill me if you do. Maybe… maybe I was just a bit of fun for you. A diversion. A more comfortable bed. Not for me." He sighed, willing himself to look up and face Clint. "I wanted to pull you from fieldwork. I wanted to keep you to myself, keep you in my bed, and cut out the eyes of the next idiotic secretary to look at you."

He laughed brokenly. "You can't die, Clint. I don't care if you get better and never look at me again, if you go off and marry one of Tony's fucking Ironettes, or whatever the fuck he calls them. You can't die. I need you. I love you."

If he expected that finally saying the words would change anything, he was disappointed. The room was as silent as ever in the wake of the declaration. Clint's pallor and stillness remained. Coulson let the silence surround him and made no effort to disrupt it. He was the director of SHIELD, had resources at his disposal that most people couldn't dream of. He would have traded every drop of power away for Clint's safety.

But he couldn't. Clint was dying, and there was nothing he could do about it. He would never wake up, and he would never know that he'd meant so much more to Coulson than he'd ever been able to admit.

Coulson stood abruptly and stalked out of the room, nodding with the thinnest veneer of courtesy as Stark and the others. "I have paperwork to fill out," he said without looking back. "Call me if his condition changes."

Later, locked in his rooms and surrounded by empty bottles of whisky, he finally allowed himself to cry.

Clint woke up three days later. It was out of the blue and against all prognostics, and even Coulson's raging hangover couldn't dampen his spirits upon hearing the news.

Walking into the hospital room, he nodded to the assembled avengers and smiled down at Clint with his professional aplomb. The blood had been cleaned away and the wires were gone, but he was still paler than Coulson had ever seen. "It's good to have you back. We all missed you."

Clint looked up with a raised eyebrow but didn't speak.

A twist of unease fluttered in Coulson's stomach; he quashed it with a smile and turned to face Natasha. Paranoia didn't suit him. "Strange that he woke up so suddenly, isn't it?"

Natasha shrugged. "It's been known to happen. I'd say the true mystery is why none of our machines picked up on his brain activity."

Coulson stared at her blankly.

"We thought he was in a coma," Tony explained, sprawled in the chair by Clint's bedside. "But he could apparently hear everything around him."

But that would mean... Oh damn.

He frowned at the beige walls like they'd personally offended him while desperately trying to figure out how he was going to spin this. "That's… interesting." Which was one of the least articulate responses he could've possibly come up with, but… damn. Clint knew. Clint knew.

Steve shrugged. "So I suppose it was good that you read him his will like he asked."

Coulson smiled weakly and nodded. Oh, this was bloody fantastic.

"In that vein, there are a few things I'd like to talk with agent Coulson about. In private," Clint said suddenly.

His gaze was emotionless, and Coulson couldn't help but wonder exactly how excruciating this conversation was going to be. Listening to Clint tell him exactly how wrong his emotional over-investment was sounded about as enjoyable as having his teeth pulled.

He tried to smile and succeeded only through years of practice at masking his feelings. "Of course."

With various murmurs of support at Clint, the other avengers filed out of the room. Coulson clenched his teeth. Of the two of them, Clint was not the one who needed help right now. Natasha seemed to sense this and hesitated for a moment to pat him on the arm, but left as well when Clint began to make rather obvious coughing noises.

The stillness was suddenly jarring. It was a harsh silence, accentuated by the sharp smell of disinfectant and the starkness of the fluorescent lights. Coulson shifted his feet.

"You've got a few things wrong," Clint finally said, his words deafening in the quiet.

"I'm not sure this is the appropriate time for a personal conversation," Coulson said, refusing to look at Clint. His breakdown might have been a gross error in judgment, but he'd be damned if he was going to sit and listen to Clint like a whipped puppy.

"Nice try," spat Clint with a sudden anger that took Coulson aback. "Spare me the pseudo-professionalism; we both know we're past that. And if we don't talk now you're going to go hide in a debriefing room for the next fucking decade. No. We are having this conversation now."

Coulson swallowed. Fine then. "I apologize," he began, "for everything I-"

Clint cut him off with a violent slash of his hand. "And this is what I'm talking about. You have no fucking idea. No clue."

Coulson glared back at him. "Then I'm sorry I can't comprehend the ridiculously complex life of a superhero. What do you want me to say? I thought you couldn't hear me. I wouldn't have said any of it otherwise. I know what you want from me."

Voicing the words hurt. He wasn't the sort of person that was inclined to hide from difficult truths, but it had been so easy to pretend, when Clint would laugh as they kissed and slide his hands gently across Coulson's skin, that their relationship had been something besides purely physical. He never should've lied to himself. This hurt too much.

"I think I should go," Coulson said quietly. "You need to rest."

"Sit your ass down."

He needed to bury himself in paperwork, put space and time between them until he could look at Clint without wincing. "I don't think that's-"

Clint's eyes flashed. "Sit down. Or I'll make you."

"Clint-"

"Now."

Coulson sat. He wondered if this was how Thor felt about Loki asking him for favors, this helpless dread that nothing good would come of it, mired by the knowledge that he would never be able to say no. But he supposed Thor wasn't desperately in love with his brother, so maybe the situations weren't too comparable after all.

"What do you want from me?" He'd meant it to sound pointed, but the words came out defeated and listless instead.

Clint scrutinized him for a moment. "I just want to know why you never told me," he finally said. "Why you just assumed that I was screwing all of Tony's bimbos during my lunch hour. And why you never told me you were…wanting more than that."

"Beggars can't be choosers. I didn't want to scare you away." Like I'm doing now, he didn't add.

His answer only seemed to make Clint more angry. "You're not a fucking beggar. You should've told me. If I'd known how you felt I would've-"

"-Left because you're a nice guy and you didn't want to hurt my feelings, I know."

"That's not what I was going to-"

"-then tell me exactly how you would have phrased-"

"-I love you."

Coulson looked over to see Clint gripping the starched hospital sheets hard enough to tear them. "I love you," he repeated, "And I'm fucking furious that you somehow felt like you meant nothing to me. Phil," he said, his eyes icy and unblinking. "Listen to me. There is no one else. There never was."

Coulson opened his mouth to say something, but no sound came out. Everything felt fuzzy and too-sharp at the same time. Was he joking? But no, he knew Clint's jokes, whispered with wry amusement in his ear when no one else was looking. The man before him was deadly serious.

And like that, something broken and afraid in his chest re-knit itself, and for the first time in weeks he felt like he could breathe again. "You're-"

"Getting tired of your emotional constipation," Clint said with a smirk. "Come here."

Grinning despite himself, Coulson edged closer, until he could lay his hand on top of Clint's. It was blessedly warm.

With a roll of his eyes, Clint grabbed Coulson's wrist and twisted him down so that their chests lay flush together and their heads were mere inches apart. "You're beautiful when you smile, sweetheart," he whispered.

This was a bad idea, this was a fucking horrible idea. "No. Not here, everyone's right outside-"

Clint snickered. "I guess you'll have to be quiet then."

Coulson definitely didn't flush at that. "I'd die of shame."

Clint bit his lip and looked up at him through his eyelashes, and that was not fair. "Did I mention I may have told Natasha to take everyone out to lunch to celebrate? Across town?"

"Oh." Coulson paused to consider this. "Really?"

Clint nodded.

Coulson swallowed. "Well, in that case-"

And suddenly Clint was kissing him. It was desperate and messy and so fucking good it hurt. Clint moaned into his mouth, his hands slipping beneath Coulson's jacket and massaging his chest. "I've been wanting this. When you were talking to me all I wanted to do was grab you and shut you up."

Gasping, Coulson began to arch helplessly into Clint's touches but stopped himself before he got carried away. "I don't want to hurt you."

With a laugh, Clint pushed one of his legs between Coulson's as his hands drifted lower, unhooking his belt and pulling his pants and boxers down. "Then don't stop," he murmured against Coulson's neck, laving the skin with filthy promise.

It was at this moment, his slacks tangled around his legs, that Coulson realized Clint wasn't wearing anything underneath his thin hospital gown.

He considered himself a fairly disciplined man, but there were certain things no human was made to withstand. Clint, hot, writhing, and naked against him, was one of these.

Growling, he buried his head in the crook of Clint's neck and rocked his hips sharply, pausing only to listen to the whimper it elicited. It was the best sound in the world and all he could think was that Clint was alive, and his.

He rocked their hips together again as Clint tore at his shirt and mouthed curses.

"-Would r-really like you to fuck me," the archer panted.

Coulson groaned at the spike of arousal that caused, but shook his head. "When you're out of the hospital. You can- take me to your room and do whatever you want."

That got him a moan and a particularly thorough kiss, heady and full of tongue. "Not even a bit tempted? I don't see how you're going to get me to come like this." Clint murmured.

In retribution Coulson ground his hips down lazily, with just enough pressure that Clint was keening brokenly into the pillows, but not nearly enough for satisfaction's sake. "Statement redacted," Clint muttered.

He was beautiful like this, Coulson thought, flushed and helpless and completely his. That Clint could've reversed their positions at any time only made it better. Clint could've had someone stronger, someone who truly did have the power to pin him down. But he wanted Coulson instead. The thought was electrifying. Maddening. Wonderful.

"I- appreciate that you find me hot," Clint murmured, "But for- fucks sake, you're killing me."

Breathless, Coulson laughed and kissed him. "What do you want?"

Clint bit down on a whimper that made Coulson consider dragging them both to his bedroom and never leaving. "More. Just- please, I need-"

Anything else he was going to say was cut off by the next grind of Coulson's hips, harder and harsher than the last. He threw his head back against the pillows with a wordless cry, his body pressing stiffly up against Coulson's.

Coulson almost came from the sight. Hooking his hand into Clint's collar, he pulled their heads together in a shaky kiss.

"Phil, please," Clint whispered. "I-"

With his free hand Coulson reached down and palmed Clint's erection; rigid and aching against his hand.

Coulson wasn't some teenager who came apart from a few touches, but Clint did things to him. It was all he could do not to cry out as he watched Clint fall apart beneath him.

And Clint did, his whole body going taut as he came apart with a cry.

The sight was too much; he felt himself falling after Clint in his next breath; everything brilliant and sharp and perfect as he shuddered through the climax.

They lay quietly together for a moment before Clint manhandled him to the side. "You're kind of heavy," he murmured by way of an explanation.

Coulson, still caught in dreamy lassitude, just nodded. "Should probably go. Other'll be back. 'Drather they don't see this." This of course being the two of them, half dressed and debauched in ways most definitely against patient care protocol. He'd move, he just wanted to rest for a minute…

As he closed his eyes, he heard Clint snort. "Fuck them. 'm not ashamed of you."

He slept with a smile on his face.

Epilogue:

"So," Tony said, munching on a burger. "That was a long discussion about his will."

Coulson arched his eyebrow. "There were several rather complicated legal clauses we had to revise."

"Hmm." Tony sat contemplating this in silence for a moment. "…you know the entire ward is under 24-7 surveillance, right?"

Coulson may or may not have twitched.

"Luckily for Clint's legal security," Tony said, finishing his sandwich with gusto, "There was a power surge last night and all the recordings were lost. Just so you know."

Coulson made a strangled noise. "That's good."

"On a completely unrelated topic, can I have the weekend off?"

"Yes. Now get out of my office."