It took 2 months for Agent Phil Coulson to officially return from the dead.
It was 2 weeks prior to his official release from medical, and subsequently his miraculous resurrection, that Clint 'Hawkeye' Barton had clambered through the SHIELD air filtration system to get to the room he'd been kept in. When Clint had climbed out of the tight air duct, he'd found himself in a stark white, sterilised medical room with a bandaged up Coulson laid on a medical cot. He'd been drugged up to the gills and placed in some semblance of medically induced semi-coma. It'd been surreal as Clint had made his way forward, wires and IV's linking Coulson up to all manner of state of the art medical equipment some of which was keeping him comatose. He'd placed his hand on Coulson's still arm and listened to the man's steady breathing, the elation that he was alive finally setting in. Gathering himself back together Clint radioed the team to tell them it was affirmative, Coulson was alive, all the while continuing to stare down at his handler. Clint had never been a religious man but for a small moment while he listened to the cheers on the other end of his comm he thanked whatever gods there were that the second scariest man in SHIELD, second only to their one eyed director Nick Fury, was alive and breathing.
But a week before Clint's confirmation of Coulson's mortality; Tony Stark, his AI JARVIS and fellow Avenger Bruce Banner were snooping around SHIELD's encrypted files. Both Bruce and Tony had agree that they didn't really trust their employers to tell them everything about any powerful alien tech they still had, so the only solution had been for them to go looking themselves. JARVIS had been breaking codes while Tony and Bruce where sorting the files when the AI had suddenly spoken up after hours of near silent work. "Sir, I believe you and Dr Banner may want to see this." They had stopped working and squinted at the spread of files around them, both faces registering the shocking truth revealed. Yet as they shared a glance, both with hard set eyes screaming anger and betrayal, they silently agreed to hunt for more information before they broke the news to the team, especially to Clint. Tony spoken first, beginning the hive of searching which would result in a weeks worth of ruthless lab work and sleepless caffeine induced nights. "JARVIS stop all searches for alien technology. We are now solely concentrating on the classified documents you have just shown Bruce and I. Look for all files encrypted, open or otherwise on Agent Phil Coulson."
That frantic week of searching, file hunting and code breaking had lead to the discovery that Agent Phil Coulson, the Avengers personal handler, was in fact alive. Various encrypted and fire walled documents had helped Tony and Bruce piece together the events in Coulson's life over the last few weeks. His current residence had been kept but had a new tenancy agreement for Roger Stevenson, showing Coulson's fan boy tendencies had not changed, and a lot of his files had been put under the BURN protocol signalling an out of action Agent. They'd found a set of official birth and death certificates as well as a terminated NI number yet his passport was still valid and a SHIELD wages account still active. But the reason Tony and Bruce had delayed telling their team had been that one file was missing. The file that told them where Phil was being kept and how he'd been resurrected after Thor himself had seen Coulson receive his fatal stab wound. That was the horrible gap stopping them from calling an emergency team meeting and rushing to the kitchen to break the news. They had to be sure what the weapons file had said was true. If only for their broken hawk's and dainty spider's sake...
It was 5:43am on day 6 of their caffeine induced all night search-a-thon when, just as Tony's eyes had drooped despite the vast quantities of coffee, Bruce had shouted hysterically from his tablet. "TONY! I've found it! JARVIS highlight that file and spread the contents out." Jolting awake, Tony stared at the pages around him which JARVIS was now combing through to find the relevant information. Every page was littered with small chunks of highlighted text which were relevant to their self imposed mission. Words live 'Coulson', 'alive', 'secure medical facility' and 'nano-surgery' were recurring throughout the documents leaving Bruce and Tony with no doubts that Agent Phil Coulson was alive.
Letting out a heavy sigh Tony finally spoke. "JARVIS, save all files and commence locations search for Agent Coulson, checking SHIELD safe houses first." Glancing across at a sleepy but smiling Bruce Banner, Tony let his own tired grin show. "Bruce, I think we should finally tell them why we've been holed up in the lab for a week with nothing but coffee and pizza." Bruce gave a tired chuckle and moved to follow Tony towards the lab elevator. Just before the doors shut Tony called out to his AI. "JARVIS, please wake the team and have them meet in the kitchen for early breakfast and make sure there is LOTS of coffee made"
"As you wish, sir. Meeting alarm will be activated once the coffee has been brewed. And may I make a suggestion sir?"
"Yes?"
"Yourself and Dr Banner may want to seek a shower and change of clothes before meeting the others." Bruce and Tony just shared a knowing smile before they both let out a tired laugh as the elevator climbed upwards towards the living quarters...
All these events stemmed from the one technology file about nanites. Which lead Nick Fury to the situation he was in now. 6 angry superheroes and a raging Pepper Potts stood in front of him demanding answers. But he knew it wasn't how or when answers they wanted, they had proof already, it was why. Why he'd let them think Coulson was dead. Why he'd covered the whole thing up for so long. Why he'd even bothered too. Fury sighed and glanced at a stotic Maria Hill standing next to him, expression hard and unreadable. She'd known, but only because she'd threaten to leave SHIELD and maim him if she was not informed why scientists, of all people, had Coulson's body. She'd also advised him to tell the Avengers predicting something like this would happen. Fury was starting to think he should have listened to her.
"Why, Fury? Why hide him from us?" Came the repeated question of a angry Clint Barton with a growl, Natasha Romanov subconsciously moving closer to the bristling hawk.
"Would you care to enlighten us with your 'oh so sound' reasoning so I can tear it apart piece by piece?" Tony snared when Fury waited to long to answer. He was furious that they'd been lied to. He understood why he and Rogers had been told Coulson was dead - they wouldn't have battled as well with out that lie. But keeping it up after he was dead? What was the point?
Fury just stared at the team, observing the quiet anger of Steve and Bruce, the snaring fury of Clint and Tony, Natasha's silent seething and Pepper and Thor's raging expressions. He look back at the file and rubbed his eye. "The reason, Mr Stark was that the council was worried you would fall apart if told. That the technology might fail Agent Coulson and they did not want to risk tearing apart the team with false hope. The reason, Tony was that we knew you were in our systems and would eventually find out. We'd just hoped it would be after Coulson was well healed and maybe even after his release."
"Well looks like you thought wrong." Clint spat back at Fury, giving a cold glare to Maria Hill and heading out of the room. Slowly each Avenger followed Clint's example but did not bother looking for the archer, they knew where he'd be. Bruce was the last one out the door, rough hands grabbing the metal handle. Before leaving he turned around to address Fury.
"You're an idiot, you know. Regardless of the council's reasoning or the SHIELD protocol you should have told us. Because though you thought you were 'protecting the team' you just lost your best card. Our trust." There was a click of the door closing and he was gone, words hanging heavily over Fury. Looking at shocked Maria, Fury broke the silence.
"Well, shit."