Anna jolts upright in bed with a start. Her left hand feels the other side of the mattress out of habit, but it's still empty and cold. Phil's first mission with the Avengers was supposed to end two days ago, but he hasn't come home yet. She hasn't heard from his since he left, but news coverage from half a world away makes it easy to understand why.
Her sudden movement as she'd snapped out of her nightmare had scared Felix from the room, and she flops back down onto the mattress. She knows she won't get back to sleep easily. Normally, she'd throw on sweats and go run or practice her cello. But she can't leave the building without alerting her new bodyguard, and she's pretty sure Phil sweet-talked JARVIS into alerting him whenever she spent too many hours practicing her instrument with her still-tender hand.
She feels caged, pent-up energy longing to escape but having nowhere to go. From the recesses of her mind, she remembers that Tony gave her access to the gym used by the Tower's residents. She hates treadmills, but it's better than nothing.
Anna expects the gym to be empty, but it's not. Apparently, three in the morning isn't a time that is kind to Clint, either. He's lying on a weight bench doing a circuit of presses while a droid built by Tony spots him. Once he's huffed his way through his last press, he settles the bar back in the holder and sits up.
"Here for the gun show?" he asks while toweling the sweat from his face.
The stupid joke is exactly what Anna needs at the moment, and she can't help but smile a bit. "More like I can't sleep and I need to burn some energy."
He stares her down for a second. She's found out already that his gaze can be too intense to maintain eye contact sometimes. "Bad dream?" She nods. "About what?"
"I don't know," she answers with a shrug. "I just remember feeling like I couldn't breathe, and I have plenty of stuff in my past to make me feel like that." He stays quiet, and she feels the need to fill the void with babbling. "Normally, I'd go running, but I didn't want to wake you. So I figured I'd just use the treadmill instead."
"Well, I'm obviously not asleep," he says as he stands from the weight bench. "So let's go running."
"If you want to go back to bed—"
"Nope," he replies, cutting her off. "I know exactly what my nightmares are about."
They make their way out of the Tower, and Anna reaches inside her hoodie pocket to wrap her fingers around her iPod. "You promise you have my back?" she asks. He nods solemnly, so she pulls out the device, jams her earbuds in, and starts up her trusty running playlist filled with angry-sounding classical pieces.
He keeps his word and sticks right by her side, eyes casually sweeping the area around them. Each step of her feet and note in her ears drains the tension from her body. Her mind is reduced to focusing on her breathing, a much-needed distraction.
Clint guides her up sidewalks to Central Park, and they're halfway through their loop in the green expanse when Clint stops and points up to the sky. Two clusters of pale blue lights shoot through the sky above them; the smaller set heads toward the Tower, while the larger—six lights that Anna can deduce are engines on a large plane—bank towards the left. She looks to Clint for confirmation and he nods.
Phil's home.
With renewed energy, they run back to the Tower. Anna leaves her earbuds out for the return trip, but doesn't start a conversation with Clint. Half because she wouldn't know what to say and half because she's not used to running this far this fast and she's worried she might keel over.
On the elevator ride up, Anna catches Clint smirking at her. "Shut up," she says between pants. "I thought it was your job to keep me from dying, not cause my death."
His grin broadens. "You're griping at me, so I'm pretty sure I've still done my job."
She rolls her eyes as she steps off onto her floor, waving goodbye. Her apartment is quiet and dark when she walks in, but she knows it's not empty. She recognizes Skye's suitcase, which is dumped over halfway between the front door and the guest bedroom. Felix sleeps peacefully on top of it.
Anna moves on to her bedroom, fully expecting Phil to be zonked out in bed. Instead, he's stripped down to his boxers reading from a tablet, glasses and a scowl on his face. She's proud of herself for no longer jumping or getting emotional at his scar. "Hi," he greets without looking up.
"Hey," she replies while removing her shoes and stripping out of her clothes. "You okay?"
He sighs and finally looks up from his work. "When I was just an agent, I used to complain all the time about how decisions were made. 'I could run things better than this' was something I apparently said a few too many times, and I'm pretty sure karma is rearing its ugly head."
"That bad?" she prods as she sits next to him wearing only her underwear and sports bra.
"You alright?" he asks, noting how her breathing isn't quite under control yet. She waves him off and he answers her question. "I'm not sure Stark and I can come to an agreement. I want to rebuild a strong foundation for the agency, and he wants to go after HYDRA. S.H.I.E.L.D. isn't big enough to do both at the same time. And he keeps leeching everyone away from me."
"Sorry," she apologizes.
"Not your fault. How's it going with Clint?"
"It makes me feel like I'm some uber-important concubine to a king," she tells him.
"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"
"Haven't decided yet."
He smiles and pulls her to him. "Well, I do think you're uber-important."
She plants a hand on his chest to stop him from pulling her any closer. "I need to wash sweat off of me—or at the very least brush my teeth—before we fool around."
"You'll just get sweaty again."
"I know, but—"
"Fine," he says as he lets go. "I'll finish this report. You go whatever."
She pads off to the bathroom to quickly wash up. After she towels most of the water out of her brown curls, she stops in the closet between the bathroom and the bedroom. It's been a while since she wore one of his dress shirts, and she knows what kind of reaction it will get. Using only the bare minimum of buttons, she walks out to the bedroom—where Phil is asleep with his tablet in his lap.
"Of course this is what happens," she whispers to herself.
Now that he's not in focused work mode, she can easily read the lines of exhaustion on his face and body. Gently, she pulls the tablet out of his grip and removes the glasses from his face. He stirs a little at that. "Lay down," she orders softly.
He complies, and she walks around the bed to curl up on her side of the mattress. Muscle memory takes over for him as he spoons up behind her. She grins into her pillow, breathes deeply for the first time since he's left, and falls into nightmare-free sleep.