"Another long winded debriefing," Steve thought. He couldn't wait to get out of here. Every time he stepped inside S.H.I.E.L.D. he felt like he couldn't breathe. He saw in every agent's face condemnation. He knew they all blamed him and the others for Phil Coulson's death. He couldn't look Fury in the eye anymore; all he could imagine was those bloody cards in his hand.
He only realized the meeting was over because he saw Fury and the other agents headed out the door. He gathered his things to quickly follow them and get the hell out the building when he heard a voice behind him.
"Cap' sit down." Steve turns to find Agent Barton is still seated in a chair in the furthest corner of the room, the best vantage point, as always.
"Agent Barton this is not really a good time, maybe…"
"There is never going to be a good time, Cap'. You need to sit down and deal with this before it crushes you." Steve looks startled. What could Barton be talking about? Maybe he knows about the guilt Steve was carrying. He immediately dismissed the thought, there has been too much going on for anyone to notice, and they had their own problems. Reluctantly, Steve pulls a chair from one of the tables and sits down, positioning the chair so that he is face to face with Barton.
"Okay I'm sitting, what do I need to deal with that is so important?"
"You're guilt over Phil's death. Don't look so shocked, we've all seen it, just thought you would work through it. Obviously you're not, so I was elected to talk to you. Okay, actually I volunteered. Phil meant a lot to me and his death hurt, a lot."
"I'm not a very modern man Barton; I'm not good with all this emotion stuff."
"Do I look like the touchy feely type, Steve? Sometimes you just need to talk things out with someone who understands. Don't worry about the emotions, if they happen or not it's doesn't matter. That's what Natasha has taught me."
"I don't know if you'll understand it all. But you said Agent Coulson meant a lot to you, so I guess that's understanding enough."
Clint chuckles, "Thanks, I think. So what's wrong?"
"I don't know, I guess I'm really mad at Agent Coulson for dying and then I'm mad at myself for being mad and it just doesn't make sense."
"It's called grief Steve."
"Soldiers don't have time to grieve, I'm not grieving."
"No of course not, they just get PTSD."
"P T what?"
"Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, I think they called it Shell Shock in your time."
"I don't have shell shock or what the hell ever you called it."
"Really? Then what is wrong Rodgers?"
"Nothing," Steve snapped.
Clint looked down at Steve's hands, "Then why does it look like you are about to pummel the hell out of me?" Steve looked down at his hands as if they were someone else's. With great effort he was able to unclench them.
"I'm just trying to figure out why? We are trained for this, why did he think he could take on a so-called god? He's supposed to handle us, not do our jobs."
"Well we were all otherwise occupied."
"Then he should've laid low," Steve snapped his voice getting louder with each word. "He should've just let Loki go."
"Phil couldn't run away from Loki, Steve. He's always been less of a handler and more a mama bear. And right then, I think mama bear thought he was protecting the rest of his broken children; he had already lost me. And Phil did love all his broken little children, even Stark."
"I am not a broken child…"
"The hell you aren't. Just cause you are all shot up with superboy serum and brimming with honor and duty doesn't mean you aren't just as fucked up as the rest of us. I mean let's start with the fact you are a 90-something year old man in a 20-something body. Then there is the whole "pre-superboy" time. You put the sick in sickly my friend. You are not just one of Coulson's broken children I think you were his favorite son." If Clint thought that would make Steve feel better he was very mistaken. Steve just kind of deflates in the chair, collapsing under the weight of the guilt he was carrying. Finally, he just drops he head into his hands.
"I should've signed the damn cards for him. He didn't want much from me and I couldn't even give him that."
"He wanted you to be happy Steve. Those cards weren't for him, they were for you. He was trying to show you that you still had someone who cared about you since all of your old friends were long gone."
"And I reacted so badly."
"Don't be hard on yourself; I did too at first when he was nice to me. I figured he wanted something, hell at one point I thought he was coming on to me."
"He told me he watched me while I slept."
Clint almost fall out of his chair "He what?"
"I think he meant after they got me out of the ice, but when I first heard it I thought he meant like now."
"I would've paid to see the look on your face." Steve and Clint laughed for a while.
"Agent Coulson was a good man, wasn't he Clint?"
"Phil was the best. Hey let's get out of here and go have a drink to his memory." Clint holds out his hand "Fellow broken brother?"
Steve considered Clint's hand for a moment then reached out and shook it, "Brother."
Walking down the hall Steve stops and turns to Clint. "If we are all Agent Coulson's broken children then should you and Agent Romanov be doing…?"
"It's just a metaphor Steve."
He felt a little better after the talk with Agent Barton. He actually slept a good part of the night, got up the next morning and set about doing normal things again. After dinner that night, he got the motorcycle out and explored the city. This time it was different, he wasn't dwelling so much on how he was out of place with it but looking for more ways to become a part of it. He noted places that he would want to come back and visit when they were open. Steve wished more than anything he could show Phil that he was changing, that he was accepting his fate and moving on. But he couldn't, Phil was gone. Steve would just have to take comfort that in the heaven he believed in there was a place for Phil and he was looking down on him right now.
Steve got back to his apartment to find a package propped against his door. There was no label just "To: Cap' From: Hawk" scrawled across the middle. Steve opened the package while closing the door. He let the wrapping fall to the floor and it took everything in him to not follow suit. Inside a simple black frame was a photo of him at some press conference, to his right was Agent Phil Coulson looking up at him and smiling.
Steve dropped his keys barely on the table; his jacket completely missed the chair, one shoe kicked off outside his bedroom, the other just inside. He took of his pants with one hand because he wasn't going to let the picture go. Sitting on the edge of his bed he stared at the photo for another minute or two before setting it up on his night stand, turning off the light and laying down.
"Good night, sir," he said to the heavens and allowed the tears to fall.