The Wizard and the Void - Chapter Twenty-One
Author: Milady Dragon
If, for some reason, Phil didn't come out of that Void Point again, at least Clint had finally gotten one kiss in.
Screw that. If Phil didn't come back out, Clint was fucking going in after him. After all, that was what Phil wanted, so he wasn't going to disappoint the man because he was trusting Clint to save him if something went wrong, and he wasn't about to betray that trust.
He watched, Daisy at his side, her dragon barely moving on her shoulders, as Phil Coulson walked purposefully toward a black smear staining the rocks at the very center of the cave, a deeper sort of shadow that didn't make any sense. That stain seemed to be breathing, and without a single ounce of fear Phil stepped right into it, raising his hands while turning back to face them, Lola sitting at her Wizard's feet like a bright sentinel guarding him from danger.
Phil's eyes were black, the black of the Void. Bands of darkness rose from the cavern floor, wrapping around his raised hands, as if it was being called.
Of course, it was, by the man who'd once already taken on a Void Point and had loved every minute of it.
"Are you sure he's going to be alright?" Daisy asked, her voice small and scared. He glanced at her; her eyes had changed as well, tiny golden flecks swirling in the brown depths. Even though she was Cardinal, she had to have been seeing more than Clint was; honestly, the only reason he was seeing the Void was because of a combination of his Elvish blood and the uncanny eyesight he'd been born with.
He reached out, taking her hand in his. He didn't like the way it was trembling, but she was in a hostile space, and her father was about to do what a lot of very powerful Wizards considered impossible. She was most likely scared and in pain. He knew her head was hurting, from the suppression of her magic by the Void Point, but she'd also been put through the wringer today and was most likely just ready to curl up somewhere and hide.
"He'll be fine," Clint reassured her. "He's done this sort of thing before, you know." Although, thinking on it, it had been a Void Point that hadn't been tainted by crazy Wizards who didn't care what they did or how it affected the warp and weft of magic.
"I always knew Dad was powerful, but this…" Daisy shook her head. "This is something else entirely."
She wasn't wrong.
"I know you know about Phil and his brush with evil." He didn't look at her; instead, his attention was all on the Wizard. He was moving his hands as if he was directing an orchestra, the Void dancing at his command. Clint could see the darkness, but he knew that Phil was seeing so much more, in tune with the magic he was manipulating. The Elf had always wanted to ask if the Void was really as dark as it appeared to him; if it had its own colors and contrasts that only Voids could see, but he'd never asked.
"Yeah," Daisy murmured. "He…doesn't really go into it a lot, because he's really ashamed of that part of his life. He once told me that he regretted paying more attention to his parents and not enough to his teaching Master. Because his Mom and Dad didn't know what Mistress Suzie did, and yet he'd believed them instead of the person who had first-hand experience."
Clint could see it. "I'll be honest: I never really knew that stuff about his folks until just earlier today, when Nick told us about it. But I always saw something in him, a spark that was buried so deep that I know he wasn't even aware that it existed. He was so angry…I don't think I've ever seen someone that angry at the world, and I had the shittiest childhood you could imagine." He wasn't going to go on about his Dad being an abusive asshole and how they'd all gotten kicked out of the Elven enclave they'd lived in, or how that bastard taken all that out on his Mom until she couldn't fight back anymore and until it had finally killed them both. And how he and his brother had run away, joining a traveling show, and everything that had come from that. Maybe he would, at some point, but today that wasn't what he wanted to get to.
"I wasn't enough to bring that spark out." And Clint would forever be disappointed, but he could certainly understand it. "You were. You changed him, for the better. He's the man he was meant to be, and you did that. And there is no way he's gonna leave you if he can avoid it."
Then he did glance in her direction. There was a small, happy smile on her pale face, her eyes shining. "I'd run away from four different orphanages when he found me. Each and every one of them had been horrible. I'd been hiding out when Loki and his army showed up, and I really thought I was going to be killed…and then this man found me. He looked like he'd been in the war himself, covered in blood and wandering about aimlessly, like he'd seen something horrible and was in shock. Of course, I didn't know at the time that he'd actually woke up in a morgue, but I just had this feeling that he'd take good care of me. I didn't even hesitate to take his hand and let him lead me away."
"I hope you don't mind me and your Dad trying to be together." Her opinion was important to him, just because Phil had chosen her. He loved her more than anything. Clint wasn't about to get in the middle of that, and if she told him no then he'd agree to it. He might not like it, but he'd leave on her say-so.
"Please." Even though he was back to busily watching Phil do his thing in the Void Point, he knew she'd just rolled her eyes at him. "My Dad has taken care of me since I was six, and it's about time someone takes care of him and he won't let me do it because I'm his kid."
Warmth curled seep within the archer's chest at her acceptance of him.
"But," she warned, "if you hurt him I will curse you."
"That's fair." Because the last thing he wanted to do was hurt Phil. He'd deserve whatever she dished out if he did.
They were silent then. Phil was almost completely obscured by the blackness, and while Clint was concerned, but he also knew that the Wizard was perfectly capable of doing what he'd said he could.
As the two of them watched, the Void suddenly flared upward, to the point where Phil was completely obscured by the dark. He felt Daisy jerk forward, but his grip on her hand kept her from going to her Dad; that could have been potentially deadly if she stepped into the physical manifestation of the Void.
"But, Clint –" she screamed.
"Just wait. Trust him that he knows what he's doing."
Time lost meaning as they stood there. Clint was holding his breath, not realizing he was actually doing it until his lungs began to ache a little from the lack of air. He inhaled as silently as he could, not wanting to let Daisy in on the fact that he was now just as worried as she was. The Void had formed a shield around Phil, almost like a wall, and it throbbed while at the same time was as solid as stone. Even if Clint wanted to go to the Wizard's side, he knew he'd never make it past the Void that had enveloped Phil.
Suddenly, cracks began to appear in the Void, like a mirror that someone had slammed something heavy into. The cracks began to whip around, just like the winds of a maelstrom, the center calm and clear. Through the breaks in the flying splinters of Void, the eye of the storm seemed to be empty, and Clint's heart seized in his chest as he realized that Phil was gone.
Daisy must have seen it as well, because she screamed again, this time wrenching her hand away and moving toward the vortex. Clint had to physically grab her in order to stop her. "You can't!" he cried out, pulling her against him in order to hold her still.
"But I have to save him!"
The girl struggled in his arms, but Clint held on, knowing that Phil would never forgive him if something happened to his beloved daughter. "Trust him!" he exclaimed. "Your Dad is powerful. He knows what he's doing!" But there was a small voice in the back of his mind that was whispering that he was gone, that Phil was gone, and that he needed to get in there to save him.
"But he's gone! The Void took him!"
"He's part of the Void! And he's been there before!" He wrapped his arms around her, careful not to dislodge Skye, who wasn't reacting to her Wizard's distress; that in itself was very worrying. "Just wait, Daisy. Trust your Dad to come back to you." To us, he wanted to add, but Clint knew that, no matter where their relationship may go, Daisy would always be Phil's number one priority. And he was perfectly fine with that.
The swirling Void began to slow, falling in upon itself toward the center of the disintegrating vortex. As they watched, the broken bits fell into a pile, and then melted into a pile of fluid Void, writhing and twisting as it grew smaller and smaller, compressing into less and less space.
Before it could vanish completely, it suddenly inflated once more. It kept going until it exploded outward, only to get sucked back into the Void Point all in a rush.
Kneeling where the eye of the storm had once been, was Phil, his head down, looking as if he was actually relaxed, Lola still by his side.
Cradled in his arms protectively, to Clint's surprise, was a man in old-fashioned looking armor, a shield resting on his chest.
That shield…the Elf knew it.
It was round, with a white star in the center, surrounded by a blue background and three circles, two red separated by a white one. Clint had seen that shield before…
On a piece of artwork on Phil's study wall.
"Shit," he breathed.
"I can't believe it," Daisy gasped. She ran toward her Dad, dropping to the stone beside him.
Clint let her, because even though he wasn't magic he could tell the Void Point was gone. That barely registered, though, as he also moved toward the kneeling Wizard and the man, who was perfectly still, Phil holding onto him as if afraid the Void was going to come back and take him away again.
Phil, once registering that his daughter was there, released his grasp on what appeared to be a dead man to pull Daisy into his side, burying his face in her hair. Clint wanted the Wizard to hug him like that as well, but they didn't have the time.
"We need to go," he said. "There will be time for hugs later, but right now we need to get the hells out of here before they try to get in here."
"You're right." Phil looked up. There were bruised circles under his eyes, which were slowly fading from the deep black they'd been, back to their usual blue. "I want to go home. And I really want to sleep for a week, but I doubt that will happen." He turned to Daisy. "You have the ring; let's go home."
"But Dad…" she waved toward the man who may or may not have been Sir Steven Rogers, the Paladin, who'd disappeared toward the end of the Century War.
"That's something we'll need to figure out, but not here." His voice was firm despite the exhaustion shadowing the words.
Daisy produced the ring. Clint knelt down with the two – three! – of them and the two dragons, making certain he was in the radius of the ring's magic, grasping Phil's bicep, not wanting to be left behind.
The ring's Teleport spell took a hold just as a loud banging sound came from the stairwell.