Steve was still asleep on the couch when Maria left for the airport around noon. By the time Maria got back from the airport with Pepper, he was no longer on the couch. On a hunch, Maria went to Barnes's room. She cracked the door open and was met with the sounds of sobbing and tortured screams. She threw the door open, hand going for her gun. Steve looked up at her from the floor. "He's asleep."

Barnes was in the bed, curled into a tight ball, his body shaking. He lashed out and hit the wall then curled up again, crying all the while.

"I can't wake him up."

"This cannot be good for your emotional health." Maria pulled the Captain to his feet. "There's nothing you can do for him right now. He's having night terrors. In some ways they're more like sleep walking than normal nightmares, when he wakes up he probably won't remember having had them. C'mon, help me get Pepper up to speed."

After Pepper was caught up, she stayed sitting at the kitchen island with Steve even after Maria left. She reached across the island and squeezed Steve's hand. "Are you okay?"

"People keep asking me that."

"Well, you're going through a lot right now. You've been going through a lot for at least a month."

He sighed. "Yeah, I'm not okay." He traced an old water ring on the countertop with his finger. "This whole thing is my fault. He fell—literally fell—back into Hydra's hands because I screwed up. I was in charge of taking Hydra out in the first place and that didn't work either."

"Steve, suped up as you are, you are only one man and, as I often have to remind Tony, one man can't be expected to do alone what reason says hundreds would be hard-pressed to do together. You did the best you could with Hydra, and it worked pretty damn well for an awfully long time. As for him ending up in Hydra's hands, I wasn't there, I don't know, but I highly doubt it's all your fault. Don't blame yourself so much. Everything I've ever heard about you tells me that all you ever do is your best. That's all anyone can ask of you."

He shrugged one shoulder. "That doesn't fix anything."

"Neither does you beating yourself up." She stood and opened the fridge. "Here, help me make lunch? I'm not much of a cook but I find trying can be good for stress."

#

Downstairs in the workshop, Tony, in all his flippant glory, was mostly unintentionally winding up an impatient Hawkeye. Clint smacked his hands on the surface of the work bench. "Stark, this is serious."

"I know it's serious, I'm taking it seriously." He turned away but kept talking.

"Look at me when you're talking to me!" Clint shouted.

Tony turned back around quickly. "I'm sorry, I am sorry. I forgot. Okay? I forgot. I suck at remembering people things. And I wander, especially when I'm working. And I am working, right now, on making hearing aids for you that are at least as good as what you're used to. This is not my usual field, I'm building upon designs I got online. It's been a day and a half. I'm working on it. I need maybe one more day. You've survived for a month, I think you can handle one more day. In the meantime," he held up a finger and picked a smart phone up off the bench and held it out, "I got all the data off of your old phone and transferred it to this one. Ought to be like nothing ever happened."

"Thanks," Clint said sharply, grabbed the phone, and made for the elevator. Once the doors had closed, he powered the phone up with a sigh. It lit up, vibrated, and probably chirped, not that Clint had any way to be sure. The lockscreen came up with his same old wallpaper: one arrow split clean in two by another, both of them sticking out of a tree. It wasn't a stock photo. He punched in his passcode. He had sixty-two unread texts, a hundred and twelve unopened emails, and twenty-seven missed calls. He frowned and stepped out of the elevator. Most of the emails were from listserves. Fourteen texts were from Natasha, all over a month old. Another seven were from Maria. The other forty one were from various panicking agents. He looked at his missed calls. One was from a number he didn't know. He stopped dead in the middle of the kitchen, causing Steve and Pepper to look up at him from their anti-stress cooking in concern. The other twenty-six calls were from Agent Coulson. He chucked the phone at Steve. "Call him back!"

"What?" Steve looked down at the phone he had easily caught. "Oh."

Anxious, Clint hovered around Steve as he hit the return call button and held the phone to his ear. The line picked up and Steve was treated to the muffled sounds of a room full of people being told to shut up before a tired, hopeful, and very familiar voice said, "Clint?"

"Steve Rogers, actually."

Clint was staring at Steve so hard Pepper thought the archer was going to explode. She put the lid on a pot.

"Steve?" The frown was audible in Coulson's voice. "Why do you have Clint's phone?"

"He threw it at me. He's here," Steve added hurriedly, "he just can't really use the phone right now because he can't hear."

"Where is 'here?'"

"The tower."

"Stark's?"

"Yessir."

"I'll be there in two hours."

The call ended abruptly. Steve looked at the phone then at Clint. "He says he'll be here in two hours."

#

A small, black quinjet landed on the tower's helipad. The back ramp lowered and Coulson, trailed by two slightly bewildered looking young brunets, disembarked. Clint broke away from the huddle he, Bruce, Maria, Pepper, and Tony had been in by the door, strode across the pad up to Coulson, smacked the older man across the face, then grabbed him by the tie and kissed him—hard. The jaws of everyone else on the roof dropped. Still standing in the ramp of the jet, Fitz, one of the two brunets, looked to the other in utter, dumbfounded confusion. "I thought he'd been seeing some cellist."

Simmons put a hand to her mouth then leaned into Fitz to answer him. "You play cello with a bow."

Clint pulled away, leaving Coulson stunned, then shoved him. "Don't you ever fake your death again, you sonofabitch!"

Coulson held his hands up placatingly. "I didn't fake it."

"You don't look very fucking dead."

"Well, not anymore." Coulson started signing as he spoke. "It's a long story, I—"

"It had better be a damn good story, Philip." Coulson started to sign something else but Clint grabbed his wrists. "Oh, no. You listen here. Three years. Three long fucking years I've thought—" He swallowed hard and let go of Coulson's wrists. "I thought you were dead. I went to your funeral, brought flowers to your grave every single time I had any excuse to be in the area! I have been grieving, Phil." He took a shaky breath. "And I didn't tell a soul about us because you asked me not to and you were dead and I was going to keep my word until I died out of respect for you. I oughta kill you myself right now!" His voice cracked, tears started falling, and he shoved Coulson again. "Why didn't you fucking tell me?! I wouldn't have leaked, you know that! Fucking hate you." He grabbed Coulson by the back of the neck and kissed him again, then stepped back and fumed for a moment before siezing Coulson's tie and yanking. "What the fuck is wrong with you?!"

Coulson took a deep breath. "Can we finish this in private?"

Clint hesitated, grabbed him by the arm, and dragged him inside. The group around the door parted to let them through. No one said a word. Maria let out a breath. "Barton is gonna kill me."

Pepper looked at her. "Why?"

"I knew Coulson was alive."

Approaching the group with Fitz by her side, Simmons gestured at where the two men had been standing. "Did you know about, well, all that?"

Maria shook her head. "Not a clue."

Tony put his hands in his pockets. "Well, there go my fantasies of Black Widow and Hawkeye breeding a race of super babies."

Everyone stared at Tony for a moment. He shrugged. Marria cleared her throat. "Anyway, Fitz, Simmons, you know who everyone here is; everyone, Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons. Simmons, you're a medical doctor, we have someone we could really use for you to take a look at."

Simmons blinked. "Alright, uh, where are they?"

"Inside with the Captain." Maria opened the door.

A/N: I don't ordinarily ship Clint and Coulson but I am, mostly just so I can have this fight. I also just read about half of the toasterverse fics, which is probably contributing to my shipping. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, I highly suggest googling toasterverse, the first few fics in the series are hilarious.
As always, reviews appreciated, questions welcomed.