The One Where the Rest of the Avengers Find Out (and Thor has magic apple juice)
Both Rodgers and Dr Banner had resolved not to visit Coulson that first evening. There were enough people hovering around his bedside, they argued, and they hardly knew the man. They'd just be getting in the way. In the end, that decision was the thing that stopped Stark from suiting up immediately and flying over as fast as physically possible. It took him a good fifteen minutes to cajole the pair of them into a car, which Stark had then insisted on driving to HQ himself, convinced that they'd turn straight around if he wasn't there to personally escort them.
The whole drama seemed a little excessive to John, especially since Coulson had slipped back into unconsciousness and seemed unlikely to wake up again that evening, but if it meant that Tony wouldn't appear at the poor man's bedside in full regalia, he wasn't about to complain. He just felt a little sorry for Thor, who had apparently spent those fifteen minutes waiting patiently in the car for someone with a driving licence to take him to Coulson's side.
When Stark, Dr Banner, Thor and Rodgers had arrived, there wasn't exactly anything for them to do. Stark had complained for a long time, and loudly, that the whole thing had been a hoax and John was just doing it to 'fuck with our heads!' until Miss Potts given him one of those glares that, while they didn't shut the billionaire up completely, did manage to reduce his shrieking to an embittered mumbling in one corner.
Rodgers managed to stand at the end of Coulson's bed for half an hour looking both humble and awkward before remembering the cards he'd signed and leaving them on Coulson's bedside table for him. He'd then gone back to his previous stance, looking a little less awkward and about ten times as humble.
Dr Banner had retreated to a corner with Coulson's chart and had ummed and ahhed over his read outs for a while, scowling at the last page, before replacing the chart and turning the machines monitoring Coulson, staring at them intensely as though looking for some impossible answer that they couldn't possibly give.
Thor had simply entered, announced his pleasure at Coulson's apparent recovery, and then happily entered into conversation with Barton about deserts. John was beginning to wonder about Thor and Barton's bonding over various foodstuffs, and whether it was something he should worry about.
About an hour after they arrived, Coulson woken again. He'd fixated briefly on the fact that Captain America was in his room and apparently cared about his welfare, and that could only mean he was either dead or having hallucinations, noticed Stark was also present, and considered the possibility it might actually just be a drug addled nightmare, before realising that Romanova, Barton, Miss Potts, and John were all still there.
"Oh," Coulson said, looking the most vulnerable he'd ever been (whilst conscious) from the moment he'd outgrown nappies. "Is this my life now?" he'd asked no one in particular.
"'Fraid so, sir," Barton had replied gleefully. "You can't bring together a bunch of misfit freaks, call them superheroes, then go and die on them without some sort of consequences."
"You signed my cards," Coulson told his bedside table with a warm, slightly delirious smile. "That's nice." Then he'd fallen back to sleep again.
"I like drugged up Agent," Stark announced to the room. "Drugged up Agent's fun."
Banner and Romanova had both scowled disapprovingly at Stark, but judging from the soft look Miss Potts sent his way, Stark's comment came from the emotionally constipated part of his personality that was incapable of processing feelings and loss in a normal way. The group had decided at that point that there was little else that could that they could do, and returning to their own beds was the next logical step. Barton and Romanova both stayed, which didn't surprise John, although he did tell both of them that they had to sleep at some point. He was almost certain they wouldn't listen, but he told them anyway. With a bit of luck they might take shifts.
It took John less than 24 hours to become suspicious about the timing of Coulson's recovery. Not that he wasn't grateful – of course he was – but considering just a month before it had become generally accepted that aliens and magic were real it seemed too convenient a coincidence that Coulson began to make significant steps towards getting better within days of the Avengers of being informed of his continued existence.
Now, since Stark was a technological genius but medically inept, Barton and Romanova were skilful at killing people rather than stopping them from dying, and if Rogers had been trained in medicine it would have been in the forties (and he hadn't, anyway), that left Dr Banner and Thor. John had every faith in Dr Banner, but the man had also spent the last year or so treating the penniless and starving in Calcutta, so unless he'd found a witch doctor who actually could work magic, John was putting his money on Thor being the culprit.
Luckily, as large and fearsome as Thor could be, he was not exactly known for his secret keeping abilities and was, as Darcy put it; "essentially a dog. He'll scare the shit out of the postman, but give him a treat and call him a good boy and he'll do pretty much anything for you." As such, it took very little persuading for Thor to admit to slipping Coulson a little something extra with his S.H.I.E.L.D.-prescribed medicine.
"There is an apple tree, from whence each of the gods does eat. And this grants us long, prosperous lives," Thor explained a little bashfully. "When I told my mother of seeing a warrior, much beloved of my newfound shield brothers, being killed before my eyes I begged that I be better equipped if another such situation should arise. She made a potion for me, that only a drop upon the lip could save the life of any mortal man. Your healers said that son of Coul might yet survive, but I felt I must do what I could not before. Did I do wrong?"
"No, Thor. I think you might well have saved Coulson from spending the rest of his life in a coma," John admitted frankly. "I know the doctors were hopeful but, well, his heart had stopped several times. The chances weren't good."
Thor came across as juvenile a lot of the time, and it was easy to forget that he was thousands of years old. But just then, his eyes contained the sorrow of centuries passed, of friends lost and destruction beyond the scope of a single human lifetime. "Then I am glad that one life might have been saved," he told John.
John reached across to him and squeezed his shoulder. "Your victory in the battle of New York saved more than just one life," he reminded him.
Thor stared at him a moment longer, before shaking off his sorrow like taking of a coat, his beaming smile back in place. "The son of Coul is recovering, then?"
"It'll take a while before he's back on his feet and he'll never be quite good as new, but he's definitely on the mend."
In fact, Coulson was recovering in leaps and bounds. The doctors had worried at first that there might have been some permanent brain damage when he'd been incapable of completing a coherent sentence, but it soon became clear that inability was likely due to the amount of painkillers Coulson was on, and the fact that he had literally only just woken up. To begin with he was only capable of staying awake for a few minutes at a time, but he was gradually staying awake for a longer and longer periods of time.
The majority of Coulson's physical injuries had had time to heal. Only the wound from Loki's spear was still healing, and even that was doing better than any of the doctor's expectations. Coulson would still be facing months of physical therapy in order to regain muscle mass after being incapacitated for a month, but John had no doubt that the man would rise to the challenge. If there was a single person on the planet who could walk away from being stabbed in the heart, it was always going to be Phil Coulson.
AN: Huh. My Doc Manager has lost the ability to underline things. Is glitching or is that just a me thing? Anyway, much love, hope you enjoyed etc xx