/ A Lot of Speculation \\\ 05 – Dad and Aunt Helen
Four a half weeks later, he was sitting in the back of an ambulance, a brightly coloured blanket the only thing keeping his modesty in tact and a throbbing headache beating behind his eyes. Clint was guarding him because Nat had been laughing, which was worrying, and Bruce was trying to remember how to speak so he was being watched closely by Tony, Thor, and Steve just in case the other guy showed up. He couldn't remember how he lost his clothes but he did know that there would be video and photographic evidence so he'd be able to work it out later and for now he just wanted Clint to hit him so he could escape the pain but he knew the archer would never agree. So, when the paramedic told him they were taking him to a S.H.I.E.L.D. hospital, he nodded and hoped for the good drugs before Clint climbed into the ambulance with him.
Two days later, when he could look at a screen without wanting to vomit, he bit the bullet and got onto tumblr and assumed he was looking at some very good photoshopping. He certainly hadn't kissed Clint…especially not like that, and not one of the people who had debriefed him since the incident had mentioned it. Then he found the video and realised that it was certainly not photoshopped and just as Clint was pulling back from him the creature they had been facing snatched Phil away and then Clint was running after the creature. Phil put the tablet down and looked around his rooms – Tony had had his cleaners go through the room before he'd come home and there was no cleaning to be done, but he looked at his book shelves and decided to reorganise it based on genre but then remembered he'd done that before and it would be too easy to replicate so he cast his mind around and decided to order it based on the author's place of birth…country only since he might need something very involved when he went and spoke to Clint the next day.
JARVIS made the whole exercise easier than Phil wanted it to be but once he'd started thinking about the fact that there was no reason for him to have kissed Clint except wanting to he found it too hard to organise the books on his own. He'd lost his clothes to the thing he'd fought because otherwise he'd have been covered in acid burns and the head wound was what you got when a giant beast hit you in the head and you flew into a building. He really did think he might be getting too old for field work especially when his team consisted of a god, enhanced humans, and Tony Stark whose body might be older but whose brain was twenty-one. He couldn't get the image of him looking at Clint like his father had looked at his aunt and he wondered if maybe…maybe…he…he thumped his head into the bookcase in front of him and then groaned and then swore because he was still one giant bruise. If he had feelings for Clint he was even more repressed than he would have allowed up until now and with that thought he had no choice but to call his sister.
"Phil?"
"Hello Jenny," Phil said, sinking to the floor next to his bookcase.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing."
"Liar."
Phil sighed. "There is this tumblr."
"AgentHawk," Jenny said, doing that thing she did where he was fairly certain she was actually a spy as well except she was an accountant who still lived in Maine with three children and a husband who worked part time as a teacher and was mostly a stay at home dad with a carpentry shed where he made things he sold online.
"You know about that?"
"You've stopped being a spy and have become an Avenger so of course I have my spies on it."
"James?"
"Exactly," Jenny said. "She's having a lot of fun tracking her uncle and his superhero boyfriend."
"We're not dating."
"I know."
"But…"
"But you look at him like Dad looked at Aunty Helen before he left mum and caused a scandal."
"I saw that."
"How long ago?"
"That photo from Boston."
Jenny laughed at him. "Oh no, you've been looking at him like that for a long time. I saw it when I came to New York last time."
"What?"
"You're the most repressed man in the universe," Jenny pointed out. "Which I understand because between DADT and being a Ranger and the thing we don't talk about and being a spy, if an inability to recognise when you're in love is your biggest issue then I'm happy and it's miraculous."
"I'm not a spy."
"Phillip James Coulson, do not lie to your sister."
"I'm not a spy; I'm a special liaison with the Avengers and an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D."
Jenny huffed down the phone.
"Nat's the spy."
"She knows you're in love with Clint too."
Phil picked at the hem of his polo shirt and held in any verbal reaction to that he wanted to make.
"Phil, don't do that stupid control your body and clothes to deal with the things you can't control thing," Jenny told him. "That is your problem; you've supressed everything for so long you don't even know how to fall in love with a hunk without being so deep in denial that people on the internet work it out before you do. And, this is why you called me, because I will call you on your shit and there is no rank involved."
"What am I supposed to do?" Phil asked quietly.
"Decide if it's worth letting go of that control a little and then go and kiss Clint."
Phil let out a long breath. "Clint's…"
"Uncontrollable and unpredictable, and unwilling to be handled."
"I was his handler; I handled him all of the time."
"Fine, fine, unwilling to be managed by you which means he's not going to just fade to nothing like most of the people you date."
"Fade to nothing?"
"Either they are overly accommodating and you work until they disappear or they are mad about how much time you give to work and you choose work."
"There was Audrey."
"Who moved to a different state."
"And Hamish."
"Who was also in the army and also couldn't ask or tell so that was never going anywhere which was exactly what you both wanted."
Phil let out a sigh before he could hold it in. Jenny let out a giggle of a laugh.
"You seem very sure of your intel."
Jenny's end of the conversation got muffled but Phil could still hear her yelling for James and moments later his niece was on the phone.
"Hey Uncle Phil."
"Hello James."
"What's up?"
"How is uni?"
"Good, good, I'm waiting for the results from last semester but I'm feeling good about it."
"Are you still coming in the summer?"
"Will you still introduce me to Bruce Banner?"
"Of course, what kind of uncle would I be if I didn't introduce you to your science hero?"
"Uncle Phil," James said, laughter in her voice. "We've talked about the breakthroughs he's made in astrophysics and molecular biology, if I could pick his brain for just five minutes I'd learn more than I could learn in a classroom over an entire semester…maybe a year...maybe my entire degree."
"And that is why I will organise you to have at least an hour to fangirl at him."
James made an indignant noise. "It's not the same when it's about science…and I've seen your Captain America collection."
"You remind me of your mother."
"You used to be my favourite uncle."
"And I will be again when I introduce you to Bruce."
James laughed. "Now, are you going to ask me about the whole AgentHawk thing?"
"No."
"You're pretty cool, Uncle Phil, I think you should go for it – you deserve someone if you want them. If you don't then know that that's okay too."
Phil smiled down the phone. "Thank you."
"Sometimes people act like being in a relationship is all there is."
"I know," Phil said, thinking about the number of years he'd been single in his life. He hadn't lost anything by not being in a relationship.
"Good, Nana can be so old fashioned about that stuff. I swear she thinks I'm going to be some sort of spinster with a thousand cats because I'm over twenty and not in a long term relationship."
"Don't let the grandparent get you down, Jay."
"Okay, Uncle Phil. Will you introduce me to Hawkeye when I come?"
"If you like."
"Even if you aren't going to act on the way you look at him."
Phil looked up at the ceiling with exasperation. "You seem very sure of yourself."
"If some person looked at me like that, Uncle Phil, I would…well, I suppose it depended on the person but I would certainly look at them seriously."
"I really look at him like that."
James sighed dramatically. "I'll send you some pictures."
"And send me the dates for your trip – I will do my best to make sure I can spend some of the time with you. And if you want, you can stay with me."
James's voice took on a high note. "At the Avengers Tower?"
Phil smiled into the phone. "I know you're too cool to want to stay with your boring old uncle but…"
"I'll think about it."
"Okay, are your brothers home?"
"Nah, they're at basketball with Dad. Are you still calling on Sunday?"
"Yes, tonight was just to speak to your mother."
"Don't tell her this, but she's usually right."
"I know," Phil said. "That's what's so annoying about her."
"Right?" James said emphatically. "Talk on Sunday."
"Night, James, and tell your mother I'll think about it."
Phil hung up the phone and looked up at the ceiling. "JARVIS, when my niece sends me an email can you notify me?"
"Of course, Agent."
Phil went back to sorting his books until James's email arrived and he stopped to look at the dossier she had put together. It was comprehensive and she'd sent two versions of every photo – the first one undoctored, the second with circles around things he should look at and little comments. She had put together a very comprehensive set of evidence. Not just about how Phil looked at Clint but about a few where she had circled Clint's expression or body language instead and Phil stayed up later than intended looking at them while he finished sorting out his bookcase.
He appreciated that she didn't send him a copy of the one where they were kissing – he knew that she would have seen it and they were both being discrete.
When he had put away a book by his sole Zimbabwean author he changed and crawled into bed. He dreamed of arrows, cocky smiles, and biceps and woke up just a little short of breath.
/
When then was half written I stacked it and gave myself a blood nose and have been a giant bruise all week. Alas, I didn't kiss Clint beforehand...
