Man Out Of Time, Woman Out of Place
Chapter 2
If you only knew what the future holds
After a hurricane comes the rainbow
Katy Perry, Firework
As they proceeded down to the medical facilities, Steve thought, at intervals, Thank God. Thank God. He'd barely known Agent Coulson, really – saying he'd known him at all seemed like an exaggeration next to the years Agents Barton and Romanoff had known and worked closely with him – but it had been enough to like him. To appreciate the man's character. To find he hadn't been lost for good, well, Steve could only be incredibly grateful.
The junior agent assigned to escort them, who had a rather young-looking face and a soldier's way of moving, opened the main doors and once they all processed in led them immediately to the left. SHIELD Medical was brightly lit, almost painfully so, and to Steve the smell of antiseptic hadn't changed all that much from when he'd been a kid frequently in and out of the hospital.
To pass the next set of doors their escort underwent a second scan of one of his eyes, as well as a fingerprint check. Steve was a bit surprised by that at first, given how many layers of security they'd already passed through, but it made sense on further thought. This ward seemed to house the most severely injured or ill patients, and the medical staff wasn't required to have more than the most basic combat training.
Various doctors, nurses, and technicians roamed the hallway, which was lined with windowed rooms. Each room had a station out front with a computer screen and chair, and each of those chairs was occupied if the room was. As the Avengers continued down the hall, Steve couldn't help but peek briefly through the windows. Medical care in the 21st century seemed to involve a phenomenal amount of equipment, though the pieces he could identify were usually much smaller than their 1940s counterparts.
"Hello, I'm Priya… Agent Coulson's chief nurse." The voice called his attention back, to an Indian woman who couldn't have been over five feet tall and gave an impression of carefully contained energy even while seated. "It's nice to meet you all. You can go in to see him, if you want, but there are some ground rules. We're keeping him to one visitor at a time for five minutes each for now so he can rest. Secondly, if any monitors alarm and I or one of the doctors say to leave the room, you must do so immediately without arguing or questioning. Understood?"
The Avengers nodded or muttered a yes as they saw fit.
"I know it sounds harsh," she continued, not without sympathy, "but we really are trying to give him the best odds that we can."
There was an awkward silence, and Steve spoke up to break it. "Thank you, ma'am."
She hopped lightly off the seat and took Agent Barton by the back of the upper arm. "Why don't I show you in first?"
They disappeared through the door, and Steve finally allowed himself to look through the window at Agent Coulson. There was a skin-on-bone tightness to his features that reminded Steve, unsettlingly, of mummies and there were tubes and wires going everywhere, and a clear plastic mask over his mouth and nose. He was alive though, and looked comfortable enough considering. He even managed a small smile when (Steve was pretty sure) he recognized Agent Barton. Feeling a bit wrong about watching further, he turned his attention back to his other teammates.
Tony had leaned against a wall, one foot up on it, and crossed his arms tightly over his chest. "I am so replacing those fucking trading cards."
Steve didn't even bother to chide Tony for his language. "I'll sign them when you do." He wasn't going to be surprised if he wound up carrying out his half of the promise this very evening. Tony had obscene amounts of money, connections everywhere, and the impatience of a five year old when he really set his mind to something.
Bruce gave them both a mildly confused look for a moment before recognition dawned. "Oh, the… right. Yeah, nice idea."
Tony gave a small kick off the wall to stand properly. "I should let Pepper know, too… she'll have my head if she finds out I waited any longer to tell her." He fished his StarkPhone out of a pocket in his suit jacket, and drifted toward the closest thing available to a quiet corner, sliding down the wall to sit crosslegged before making his call.
Apart from their initial blowup at Fury they had all been remarkably calm, and Steve wondered whether that should worry him despite its convenience. Still, the news was good, if a shock, and there was no point in borrowing trouble. Enough of it found them. It was better to start planning; he made a mental note to ask about how long Agent Coulson was likely to need to stay in medical, and to ask the man himself if there was anything he wanted – a book he'd been reading, maybe. Little things like that helped make hospitalizations a little more bearable, he knew from experience. Steve considered whether there would be any real difficulties in store if they started spending more time here once Agent Coulson was allowed longer visits, and didn't think so. Communication was so much easier these days. Might Barton and Romanoff decide to move back to SHIELD, to be on hand?
His eyes drifted to the female half of the duo, and what he saw brought him out of his thoughts. It would have been easier to draw it than putting it into words, but more than just being distracted she seemed to have turned completely inward, and look smaller somehow. He had never seen her that way before, not in public. "Ma'am?"
She let out a breath, and focused her beautiful blue eyes on him. "Yes?"
"Are you all right?"
"I'm fine", she replied, and it seemed close enough to the truth. "Just thinking. I should have known something didn't smell right."
"Fury managed to dupe us all," Bruce said, an edge to his voice. "So, you're in good company at least."
That managed to get a small twist of the mouth that might almost have been a smile out of Natasha.
Not long afterward, Clint emerged from Coulson's room looking simultaneously exhausted and like a hundred pound ruck had been taken off him. Natasha clasped hands briefly with him, and then headed in herself.
oOo
After that life settled back into a routine dominated by training and trying to catch up to the modern world, with the addition of regular visits to Coulson. The agent improved steadily, as if his body had come to some firm decision to live after all. The Avengers threw him a small celebration when he was upgraded to one of the regular rooms, and a larger welcome home party when he was finally pronounced fit to go home two months after his 'death'. There had been decorations, an eclectic mix of food, and some of Coulson's favorite music playing just quietly enough to not interfere with conversation. All in all, it had been one of the best days Steve had had since being thawed.