Unlike most things in Ethan's life, falling in love with William Brandt had been easy and slow. He'd been in over his head before he'd even realized it and hadn't felt the need to come up for air. Theirs was not a whirlwind romance. It'd been filled with late nights in corner cafes in London, or sitting together in front of the fire watching an old movie in Germany. It'd been easy smiles, even easier kisses, and dancing in the kitchen as the fridge hummed along with the old radio that liked to turn on all on its own. It'd been going for jogs on the boardwalk or joining basketball games in the park.

Ethan might've even called it an average sort of love story if not for the missions to Albania, Czech or some Middle Eastern nation and all the firefights, IEDs, episodes of PTSD and deadly weapons hidden under pillows, tables, couches and everything in between. And Ethan had loved every minute of it.

"I've been out for how long?"

The doctor gave him a sympathetic look as she repeated herself for what must've been the seventh time. "Six months Mr. Barton. You're very fortunate to be awake and alert."

Clint swallowed loudly as he struggled to process what he was being told. Six months...wasn't that long in the grand scheme of things. The real issue he was having was with trying to remember anything that she was talking about. In his recallable life- which was admittedly pretty short at the moment, he'd never forgotten anything of importance to him. Not once. He could still remember his middle school locker combination. He could remember his mother's face in perfect detail; he had her eyes and lips. There were a few things he'd been learned to be proud of as a kid, his aim and his memory.

"You were in an accident overseas on a mission with SHIELD. You suffered severe brain trauma after taking a blow to the head."

What?...What?

"I- I can't remember any of this." He said, wracking his brain, not used to having to struggle to remember anything.

"Yes, well, that's to be expected." The smile made a reappearance and it was really starting to piss him off because as if she understood what he was going through. He doubted she'd ever been told that she couldn't remember four years of her life in which she'd apparently been recruited by some Men in Black wannabes and traveled to places like Sri Lanka in order to apparently get bashed over the head with rocks the size of footballs.

"I understand this must be disorienting, especially with the effect your injury had on your ability to retain new memories.

He gave her a look that obviously questioned her intelligence and forced himself to sit up. His arms ached a bit under the strain, but he could still feel the strength in his muscles which was more than he'd dared to hope for after six months of being static. His thoughts must have played across his face because the doctor smiled and called his attention back to her.

"We're very pleased with the lack of deterioration your muscles have suffered. We have a wonderful physical therapy unit here, so you can thank them for that," she said as she stood from the chair she'd been occupying and began gathering up her notes.

Clint wondered if that actually made any sense as he eyed her dubiously.

"Obviously you're still not up to your normal standards so it's been recommended that you rest for a few days and then undergo some basic training to get you back up to snuff before being reinstated."

"Re- reinstated?" he asked, twisting the sheets nervously in his hands. "So soon? I- I don't even know what the hell you guys do!" He couldn't even remember what that long as hell acronym that she'd mentioned meant. And it stung a little more than it probably should have. He could be dead or paralyzed and instead he'd just lost a few years and his eidetic memory. He should be thankful if anything, but instead it made his heart ache.

"Don't worry," Dr. Alison said with an idle wave of her hand as she made her way to the door. "We take care of our own here."

"It's not so much the taking care part, as much as the understanding what the hell this place is that I'm worried about. This reallydoesn't seem like a good—

She cut him off with another wave, her other arm clutching her folders to her side. "You'll be just fine. We were very worried about you, agent," she added.

Were these people crazy? Did common sense die while he'd been under?

"It'll be good to see you wandering the halls again." And then she was gone leaving behind one very confused patient in her wake.

Clint sat quietly for a moment trying to process what he'd just been told before giving up because clearly this shit made no sense. And the doctor might blame that on brain damage or residual side effects from various drugs, but Clint was pretty damn sure this would seem crazy to anyone sane enough to call Bullshit when they saw it.

Okay, coma, he got that. Straight forward enough. Having the last four years wiped? Sure, severe blunt force trauma tended to screw some things up. So yeah, he got that too even if it was like something out a deranged soap opera. But if it'd been six months since his accident, why the hell was there still bandages on his head? And what was with the huge rush to get reinstated? And- And wandering the halls? He did not wander. He wasn't the wandering type. He might not know the date, and he might not know what the hell had happened to him over the past four years, but if nothing else he knew what kind of man he was and he did not wander.

The world swirled around him for a moment and Clint had to wonder what exactly they were feeding into his veins as he lay back down until his vision stopped swimming. Shouldn't they be running tests or something? He tried to remember the last thing he'd ever learned about coma patients with amnesia, but while he'd always liked Sandra Bullock (she was totally hot in that everyday woman kind of way), he doubted While You Were Sleeping was medically relevant to his case, let alone accurate. And that had been fake amnesia anyway. Actually...Chinese food sounded amazing

He reached over and ripped his IV out with barely a second thought, trying to get back on track. Alright.Focus. Coma. Retrograde Amnesia. Spring Ro— holy shit he was so hungry—He glanced up at the IV bag, eyeing the innocent looking liquid dubiously. Stupid doctor could have at least unhooked him from the stuff before trying to explain something more complicated than Checkers. Clearly she wasn't the brightest bulb.

Wandering. Yeah, right. Wandering...cognate with the German verb wandern- He knew German? When did that happen?— Wander— Maybe...maybe he had been the wandering type? He tried to recall the effects of a traumatic brain injury and was pleasantly surprised to find that they easily came to him. Even if his ability to retain new information was shot, his long term was apparently in good working order. Personality changes were common... as were confusion and disorientation.

Well, he was definitely confused as fuck, and disoriented didn't even begin to cover it. Clint reached over to press the call button but suddenly thought better of it. He had some serious questions to ask and apparently his wayward doctor was going to be of no help whatsoever, so why the hell would the nurses be any different? With a breath to steady himself Clint once again forced himself into a sitting position and swiftly swung his legs over the side of the bed.

"Oh shit," he rasped, clutching at his aching head and trying to blink away the black spots in his vision.

Alright, so maybe this wasn't such a great idea after all.

Once he was sure he wasn't going to pass out he reached over and turned off the EKG before disconnecting it. He didn't need half the damn ward to come running because the machine thought he was coding.

SHIELD's newest agent glanced around the room, taking in the bland walls, ugly tiled floors, and noticing the lack of cards and flowers that would normally occupy someone's room.

"Well," he sighed, going to run a hand through his hair only to have his fingers scrape along gauze and bandages. "Guess I'm not exactly Mr. Popular."

He searched the cabinetry set into the wall next to the window and found a pair of track pants and a sweater both emblazoned with the crest of an Eagle taking flight that he'd come to associate with SHIELD. He tugged off the god-awful hospital gown he'd been wearing since he'd woken and carefully eased the sweater over his head, trying not to disturb the masterpiece that was wrapped around it. Getting the pants on was a task that almost toppled him over into a supply cart but in the end he managed to get them on without adding a concussion to his list of ailments.

Clint peeked out of his room, making sure that no one was coming before taking off down the hall. He hesitated in the doorway for a moment, something telling him he should stay put until he could balance properly and just gather information through the staff until then, however useless they were. But- but no! Screw it. If no one was going to tell him what was happening, he'd just have to figure it out for himself.

"The doctors say he's confused, which it to be expected, but he should be ready to start training with Romanov on Monday."

Fury nodded from behind his desk. "Good work, agent."

Coulson looked down to his file before shaking his head. He could already tell this was going to blow up in their faces, and probably sooner rather than later. He'd seen agents go on insane rampages for less than what Barton was being put through. They didn't need some nut killing anyone because they'd tried to mess with his head that had already seen better days.

"Sir, he's barely been up for six hours and he's already asking questions."

"Of course he's asking questions," the Director said dismissively as he resumed his work. "The man's been told he's been in a coma for six months and he's recently suffered a severe injury to the head. We can forgive him a little disorientation."

Phil sighed as he set the file down, wondering what the hell he must've done in his childhood to deserve a boss like Fury. "Sir, it's not so much disorientation as it is disbelief. The doctor was having some trouble convincing him that he'd ever worked for SHIELD, let alone been under for six months. And they're reporting some personality changes compared to the psychological profile the IMF gave us."

"After a hit like that, I'd be amazed if he came out the same man," Fury said. "But get inventive, this guy's not an idiot, with or without all that information he lost. Tell him his paranoia is a complication of the trauma. Common enough symptom."

"What if he begins remembering things?" Phil asked, trying to control his voice before it dipped anywhere close to a whine.

"I've got R&D working on something to help suppress any conflicting memories that would jeopardize the project. If he starts spilling out facts like some damn encyclopaedia and the IMF gets wind of it, they'll demand him back. If he remembers little things, that's fine, more for us. But if he starts recalling national secrets we'll have a problem. And I'm not going to spend all this time fixing him up out of the good of my heart. I'm not doing this so they can swoop in and grab him again. He's mine Coulson. And see that he knows it. I want him following my orders like a veteran agent within three weeks."

"Sir, wouldn't it just be easier to tell him that he worked for the IMF?" he asked, flipping open Barton's profile. "Tell him the IMF traded him off and that he's working for us now?"

"You've seen the profile Coulson," Fury said, finally looking up and gesturing towards the folder. "Says that he was close with his team and in a committed relationship- name redacted. That means he was probably having an intimate relationship with another agent. An agent who wouldn't be pleased with Brandt being traded off like some glorified hockey player. And if you were in his situation and you were told all these things, what would you do? You'd hightail it out of here and go looking for things that are better off left alone. The Secretary of the IMF disavowed him. You know how that works. He's dead. The IMF's William Brandt needed to disappear. And he did. Now, there's SHIELD's Clint Barton. This was a joint decision between the agencies. And that's that."

Phil finally relented with a nod and slipped the closed file under his arm. "Understood."

"And Coulson, I want all the information in his file from the IMF transplanted to an official SHIELD personnel one. Don't include his IMF service record but keep all the background info. I want no electronic record on our database of his career with them; IMF regulations. Destroy the hardcopy as well when you're done with it."

"Yes sir."

"Don't look so grim," Fury laughed, pounding away at the keys of his computer. "Things are looking up. The Avengers Initiative has been approved, funding is through the roof, and if Barton performs like his file says he can, Agent Romanov might just have another SHIELD operative to keep her company on the team."

Yes, looking up for you maybe, Phil couldn't help but think as he left. But in the mean time they'd ripped a man away from his life and were going to suppress his memories by using highly illegal drugs. All in a day's work really.

Now, Clint was no doctor. Give him a bottle of whiskey, a sharp needle and some string and he could stitch up just about anything (who knew learning how to sew up the holes in his socks as a kid would come in so handy?), but other than that, anything medical was generally out of his depth. Give him physics any day and he'd blow your fucking mind but ask him to explain cellular respiration and you wouldn't get much out of him other than what someone with a good memory could learn from watching an episode of House. Having an eidetic memory was great, but knowing about it didn't mean you understood it. And anatomy had never been his strong suit.

But looking at the state of his head beneath the layers of gauze and bandages, he didn't have to be Hugh Laurie to figure out it mostdefinitelyhadn't been six months since his accident. The staples looked just about ready to be removed which didn't fit in with the timeline he'd been given. They should've been out months ago if what the doctor had said was true.

He peered out of the bathroom he'd ducked into and was happy to see that the hallway was deserted, meaning that no one had noticed he'd escaped from his room- for a supposedly secret spook base, security here was shit. Well, not that he was complaining about that. He wasn't entirely sure where the hell he was going, but he figured that if worse came to worse he'd climb out the nearest window. He was only on the second floor. It would be an easy enough jump.

Coulson was tempted to ignore his vibrating phone and simply return to his downloaded episode of Supernanny, but the last time he'd ignored a message half of New York had almost been blown up and although no one had ever called him on it...So he gave in and checked his newest message, barely tearing his eyes away from the computer screen as he unlocked his phone. And what he found waiting for him was far from pleasing.

"Oh shit," he swore, setting down his coffee and taking off down the hall in the direction of Medical without even taking the time to click pause.

He found a few nurses and Dr. Alison waiting for him in front of Barton's empty room, all of them looking a little shamefaced.

"How," he growled, taking in the sight of the empty bed and ditched dressing gown. "Did you manage to lose track of him, when he's the only patient on this side of the wing?"

One of them looked ready to protest but Phil was already storming off to track down Fury's pain in the ass agent. He looked back to see them still standing around the door and he ground to a halt.

"Well? Are you just going to stand there while one of the most dangerous men in the world wanders around unsupervised while suffering from severe brain trauma?"

That got them all scrambling to check the adjacent rooms so he took off down the hall again, checking rooms as he went. This was great. Just great.

Meanwhile, Clint could hear personnel jogging through the halls, apparently finally having figured out that he was gone. Or, about to be gone. Seriously, he stood by his opinion about security being absolute shit. Finding a computer had been almost too easy and whoever's office it was had simply left the PC to idle instead of logging off and shutting down- a rookie mistake. A press of My Location on Google Maps had told him he was in New York City and he'd even had time to figure out that Chang's Chinese Restaurant was four blocks south and one block west (the review gave it two and a half stars out of four. Apparently the ambiance was great, but the service left something to be desired).

Considering the last place he remembered being was back in his apartment in Iowa, he'd come a pretty long way.

Clint rifled through the desk drawer, finding a gift Visa clearly left over from a Christmas present and shoved it into his pocket along with a stray subway token. The footsteps were getting louder so he pushed aside a flower pot, wrenched open the window and easily punched out the screen, watching as it fluttered to the ground before hoisting himself onto the sill. His shoulders ached under the strain but he ignored it as he swung his leg over, hissing at the sting of the cold metal ledge against the bare arch of his foot.

A parking lot was situated below him and he wasn't looking forward to the impact, but at this point he really just needed to get away. He had no idea what the hell was going on, but he'd rather not be around to find out. In his experience (and who knows? He probably had even more by now) it was always best to run first, ask questions later. From a safe distance. Preferably with a gun. Clint was about to push off when a voice suddenly stopped him.

"Barton, wait!"

He turned to find a man decked out in a suit and sporting the beginnings of a receding hairline standing in the doorway, looking more than a little harassed.

"Come back in, you don't want to do this," the man said calmly. Clint frowned for a moment, glancing out the window before turning back. No, no, he was pretty sure he did actually. And he must've spoken aloud because the next thing he knew Mr. Suit was speaking again.

"No, you don't," he said, as he began approaching slowly, his hands held out in front of him as if ready to grab Clint if he made a move to jump. "You're just confused."

"I'm thinking pretty clearly thanks," Clint growled, ignoring how the cold metal of the ledge was beginning to numb his toes.

The man shook his head and looked hesitant to move any closer in case he decided to do it. "Come back inside. Let's talk about this."

Clint blinked for a moment before it clicked. Agent K over there thought he was trying to off himself. "This is only the second floor, man. If I wanted to kill myself I'd go off the roof."

Death definitely wasn't on his To Do list. Finding a Chinese takeout place on the other hand? That was pretty damn close to the top. He sort of vaguely wondered if brain trauma caused cravings because holy shit, he seriously needed Spring Rolls something desperate. And noodles.

"Be that as it may," the other said quietly calling Clint back to the situation at hand. His voice might've even been soothing if he hadn't looked just a little on the wrong side of crazy. "Come back inside so we can talk this through. Come on, you know me."

"You see actually, I don't." And wasn't that just his whole damn problem in a nutshell?

"You do."

"I don't!" Were they really going to do this? Bicker like school kids while he hung out a window and K looked ready to pull the stun gun that was holstered at his hip? What's his face didn't have to put up with this shit in While You Were Sleeping, that's for sure. Things were shaping up to look a lot more like the Bourne trilogy than a Sandra Bullock rom-com.

"But you used to, Clint. Try to remember. Phil Coulson. I'm Agent Coulson. You can trust me."

Clint stared at the man, giving him a quick once over. He didn't seem like the joking type, but then again neither did Agent K, and he turned out to be fucking hilarious.

He sighed, but didn't move from the sill. "Trust?" he asked incredulously. "All you guys have done is lie to me since I woke up."

Phil closed the gap between them by a few steps. "Clint, we haven't been lying to you. You're just confused. The drugs and the trauma are messing with you. Think about it. What's one of the most common side effects of a traumatic brain injury?"

Paranoia. But no— he wasn't being paranoid. What they told him didn't make any sense.

"If I've been in a coma for six months, why the hell do I still have staples in my head?" he snapped. "They should've been taken out months ago!"

"You needed secondary surgery to remove skull fragments that had been missed in the initial procedure," Phil reassured him as he came ever closer. "We're not trying to trick you; we're trying to help you get back on your feet as quickly as we can. You've been out a long time, Clint. We thought that would be what you wanted. Just think it through," Phil said softly, his hand reaching out to grip his shoulder. "This is just the trauma talking. You can get passed it. Try to remember. I'm your superior officer; I'm your friend- we all are."

If he wasn't so positive this was some sort of Jedi mind-fuck, he might've actually been touched that Agent K was trying so hard to reach out to him. But yeah, he'd seen Star Wars, so screw that.

Clint shook off the hand on his shoulder, glaring at Phil Coulson with all his considerable might. "Look, you spouting bullshit hasn't gotten you anywhere, so why don't you just cut the crap and tell me what's really going on?"

Phil winced slightly and took a step back so that there was a respectable distance between them. He looked uncomfortable for a moment before he gave a sigh and shrugged. "Alright, the friend thing wasn't true. We've never gotten on. Truthfully, you drive me up the wall."

Clint thought for a moment, trying to place what was wrong with that statement. He didn't normally drive people up walls...did he? No, people liked him. Commanding officers respected him and his squad mates wanted to behim.

"You're annoying, cocky, you play tricks on the other agents, and you never submit your paperwork on time, if ever. So forgive me for not being your biggest fan," Phil continued, gaining momentum. "But that doesn't mean I'm going to let you jump out of that window when you're clearly disturbed and not thinking clearly."

"I..," Clint faltered, unsure and he felt the beginnings of panic start to rise in his chest, pressing down on his lungs and constricting his throat. His tongue felt swollen in his mouth and everything suddenly sounded so far away, muffled by the ringing in his ears. This man, Phil Coulson- he sounded so sure. But...but he wasn't really like that was he? No- no, he couldn't be...but...

"I don't know. I- I don't remember."

He couldn't seem to catch his breath, his lungs working uselessly as his heart began stuttering in his chest, tattooing an uneven rhythm against his ribs. Coulson was suddenly holding him up by the shoulders, supporting his weight as his body seemed to shut down.

"I've got you," he grunted, pulling Clint off the sill and helping him get his feet under him.

"Fuck. I can't remember!"

"It's alright."

"No it's not!" he yelled, beginning to border on hysteric. He couldn't- Oh God, he couldn't breathe. He couldn't fucking breathe!

"Calm down," Coulson told him as he sunk them both to the floor to lean against the wall. "Deep breaths."

What the hell was he going to do if he couldn't even remember someone like Phil, who apparently knew him so well? If he couldn't even force air into his lungs? Everything was a blank- there wasn't even a trace of SHIELD in his head. All he knew was that the last thing he vaguely remembered was coming back from his latest tour and he'd thought maybe he'd get a dog- and holy shit he didn't even know- did he have a dog? Was it off starving in some apartment he'd forgotten all about?

He could vaguely hear Phil talking to him, saying, "Breathe Clint. Breathe." And "Can I get some help in here?"

It suddenly hit him like a train. Or maybe like that rock that had started this all. Sudden. Blunt. He could feel it now; that distorted pain and longing that came with the realization that an integral part of you was missing. How hadn't he noticed before? I need him, he thought desperately. I need him. He needed him and he wasn't here.

"Need who Clint?"

Who? He didn't— He couldn't—He needed him in the same way he needed the air that his lungs just wouldn't take in. It was desperate and painful and all consuming.

Clint clawed at the sides of his head, ignoring how his ragged nails caught along the staples that perforated his scalp and tore them loose. He could hear Phil swearing and suddenly his hands were being held tight against his chest. He could feel the warmth of his blood as it rolled down the back of his neck and pooled in the shell of his ear.

"I need him."

He could feel it on the edge of his mind- almost- almost. Dancing on the precipice of recognition. He felt a small pinch on his arm, felt the coldness crawl through his veins as the sedative took hold and the darkness waiting at the edges of his vision crept forward until the entire world went black.

Almost.

Phil breathed a sigh of relief as the nurses carried the unconscious Barton back to his room, leaving him to close the window. Someone was going to have to wipe up the blood that was smeared on the floor and wall later.

He'd talked many people down during his years as an agent- hostage takers, suicidal agents, bombers, but he'd never quite had to deal with a situation like what he'd just went through. He was rather amazed, in a detached sort of way that he'd managed to talk Barton down by lying through his teeth like he had, but guilt had already reared its ugly head at the thought of how distressed the man had become.

He realized now that saying he'd have Barton ready for Monday might've been a tad ambitious of him.

He dusted off his pants as he climbed to his feet and reached out to lock the window. As he reached for the latch he noticed the dull red of Barton's blood coagulating under his fingernails, stark against the crisp white of the window frame. He quickly tried to scrape it out, only to push it deeper into his nail bed. With a huff he gave up, making note to grab some sanitizer from one of the nurses. He'd need a full report from Medical anyway before he went to Fury to tell him of the incident and hopefully adjust their timeline to something more realistic.

Dr. Allison was waiting for him with her clipboard firmly in a hand and a grim looking upon her face when he finally strode up, working the rubbing alcohol into his skin.

"How is he?"

"His behaviour isn't completely unexpected; paranoia, extreme anxiety and impulsiveness are common complications. And the stress of losing his eidetic memory wouldn't have helped either. That's something was a person really identifies with. It was an integral part of who he was and the way his brain functioned. We're putting him on some sedatives now to keep him calm. And hopefully in place," she added. "But we're going to have to restrain him until he wakes up and we can confirm that he's responding to them."

"Barton seemed to be trying to remember someone, he said that he needed them," Phil mentioned, eyeing the restraints the encircled Clint's wrists with distaste.

"Some recall is to be anticipated until R&D gets back to us," she admitted. "It might be best to closely monitor him and keep him calm until they can get him down there for some scans and run some tests."

Calm, Phil noted, was just another way to say drugged out of his mind.

"We're going to have to be careful for a few weeks regardless," she continued, checking the EKG after it let out a sharp blip and adjusting the settings before turning back to him. "Some patients develop psychological disorders after a traumatic brain injury, so we'll need to monitor him for symptoms."

Coulson once again adjusted his inner timeline and he could already tell Fury wasn't going to be pleased. But in the end, the Director would have no choice but to comply or risk his newest asset.

"Just have him ready as soon as possible."

"Will do."

It would take months rather than weeks for Clint Barton to be declared ready to begin training for service; two to be precise. Eventually R&D came through and was able to suppress almost all of the half remembered things plaguing Barton's mind until he could barely eat or sleep because of the ghosts dancing through his head; the muffled whispers in his ears.

As the saying goes: it's always darkest before the dawn, and things had certainly looked bleak for their newest agent before getting better. Clint's thrashing had rubbed his wrists and ankles raw against the restraints and there had been talk of a feeding tube being introduced for a few weeks because even if they managed to force him to eat, Barton tended to throw it right back up.

Acute Stress is what the doctor called it. Complete devastation was what Phil knew it to really be.

Every day he would check on their little Pet Project as Sitwell had taken to referring to Barton as over coffee every morning and every day after the drugs had been administered, he saw only improvement.

"We'll begin him on a regiment of twice daily doses," Dr. Alison had told him as she'd held up a container filled with a hundred small yellow pills. "This way we can stop the injections although they'll still be an option for rapid relief and for a longer lasting effect for missions, so we don't have to worry about him losing them and such."

Phil had nodded, his eyes skimming over the information sheet that R&D had sent up with the pills. The list of side effects had been daunting so say the least.

"Seizures?" He'd asked, trying to keep the worry from his voice. They couldn't have an agent have an epileptic episode of some kind mid-mission.
"Luckily enough most of those side effects would be due to a failure to take the proper dosages," the doctor had then assured him. "He'll need to take them regularly, and with food- they'll wreak havoc on his stomach otherwise."

"Temporary psychosis?" He had hissed angrily, still going down the list.

Allison had nodded shortly at that, a grim look upon her face. "We're messing with a man's brain chemistry. I don't need to tell you how dangerous that can be. Any sudden changes in the chemicals in his brain, say the Gamma-Aminobutyric acid levels for instance. The pills adjust these to make him more calm, more susceptible and accepting to what we're telling him. If these were to have a sudden change because the dosage was wrong or he hadn't taken them, it could cause anything from seizures to psychosis due to extreme panic. Altering any chemical in the brain this drastically could result in similar side effects."

"And Fury approved this?" he'd asked, wondering just what the hell must've been going through the Director's mind.

"Yes sir."

And so they'd proceeded as planned. As the memories were suppressed, as the pure driving desperate longing began to fade into the foggy haze along with everything that had been William Brandt, Clint Barton slowly became whole. The bruises under his grey blue eyes began to lighten and eventually the restraints were removed and the sedatives weaned away. The staples had been removed and his hair had grown back in, hiding the ugly pink scars that spanned the side of his head- the clear divide between what had been, and what now was.

So, almost three months after William Brandt's accident, Clint Barton was fully recovered and approved to begin training. He was smaller than Brandt had been, having lost a lot of weight and muscle mass, and he was sarcastic and reckless where Brandt had been nervous and careful. It was a startling difference when you compared the personality profiles on paper, and even starker in real life when faced down with what would soon become Clint's signature grin.

Like Fury had said all those months ago, William Brandt was dead. And Clint Barton had risen from his ashes.

Jane gripped his hand comfortingly as he twisted the key and the lock slid home. Benji was waiting for them in the van while they finished up and not for the first time Ethan was grateful that out of all the teams he'd work with, this one had stuck.

"Are you sure about this?"

Ethan nodded and bent down to pick up the duffle bag filled with his essentials. The rest of his things would be picked up by the movers the next day and shipped off to storage until he was ready to find another place for himself. The real estate agent he'd hired had assured him she'd have the place sold within a couple of weeks given the market, in demand location, and original hardwood floors. He'd signed all the paperwork so that she could accept whatever offer she deemed best without having to consult him first and wiped his hands clean of the place.

He'd tried, he really had, but he just couldn't stay there anymore. The IMF had taken Will's things; they were now long burned, their ashes scattered on the wind just like Will and it was almost eerie now.

"Yeah, I'm sure."

The apartment was empty without him there; lonely. Ethan didn't wake in the night, blindly reaching out across the covers, forgetting that Will wasn't there. He didn't turn around suddenly, thinking that he'd catch a glimpse of Will if he only turned fast enough. Will was gone. He wasn't in the walls. He wasn't in the dust motes that flickered in the sunlight on the edge of his vision. He wasn't in their room in the armchair they used to bicker over – never fight. Never argue. He wasn't sitting on the bench in the bay window reading. He wasn't there waiting for Ethan to come home to him.

And it hurt more than it should have.

He'd heard about people feeling their loved one's presence after their death. The lingering sensation of a touch, a tingle of warmth down their spine, the ghost of a breath in their ears; something. But instead when Ethan breathed I love you into the stale air of the place that had once been theirs but was now just his, all he heard, all he felt, was his own echo, his own loneliness.

I miss you. I love you. I'll never forget you. I love you. I'm sorry I couldn't save you. I'm sorry you were alone; that I wasn't there. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.

He chanted it like an endless prayer and sent out his love to the universe in hopes that somehow- somewhere Will would know. Would feel.

So part of this story has been thoroughly Jossed. Alas. But, it wasn't as if this was ever really even close to canon. Anyway, I've been posting this to AO3, so in fact, there are 8 chapters already written and posted. Sadly, I forgot about posting here because I'm sort of hiding out on AO3 while trying to get past some writer's block for the stories I've been posting on FF. But don't tell anyone. Everyone has their secrets. Thank you for all your lovely reviews! I'll post the rest gradually over the next few days.

ForeverFalling.