Follows on from 'Dying really screws up your routine'. I'm not as happy with this one, so any constructive criticism would be very welcome.
Warning, may trigger: mental health issues, issues with food.
I know very little about OCD, although Google has taught me some. I do know a little about issues with food though. Please let me know if I get something glaringly wrong.


He's been alive again for a whole week, and everything was still wrong. Coulson sighs. His routine isn't back on track, and he doesn't even have the regularity of the hospital to fall back on. Clint keeps looking at him like he's going to break, or disappear, or something. He's trying, he is, but everything is wrong, and he can't get control. Something needs to change.


This, Phil thinks, is how he would start if-when- he tells Clint.

It's a gift. And a curse. And Clint will laugh and say 'I understood that reference', and Phil will be able to...

No. Maybe not.


OCD, he'll say instead, is superstition taken to the extreme. And Clint will ask what the hell that's supposed to mean. And why are you talking about OCD anyway, sir?

Again, no. It's not right.


Maybe he could just make a file and leave it out. List the general effects of OCD and the medications for it. Clint would read it, because Clint can never keep his nose out. But then Clint would be on the offensive, asking questions from the get go.


Or what about approaching it like a briefing. He could make a powerpoint, with colour coded, informative slides, and accompanying files.

That might be easiest, he thinks with a rueful smile, but it wouldn't really make Clint feel at ease.


Maybe he'll start with his family. His Navy father with the alcohol problem who was hardly ever home. The mother who strove for perfection, because if it looked right then it was right. No one would see the cracks down below if the surface was neat and polished. He knows that's part of why he is how he is, even if they do say there's a genetic element.

But that's hard to talk about. Especially because talking about, thinking about, back then makes him feel like the weak little boy who couldn't even breathe properly. He's not weak. He's Phil Fucking Coulson and he's killed a man with his right thumb.


He needed to tell him. This was getting ridiculous and the longer he leaves it, the more upset Clint will be.

He's Phil Fucking Coulson, and he can do this. Maybe.