Disclaimer: I do not own "The Avengers" or any of the characters affiliated with them. If I did, there would totally be a Hawkeye/Black Widow movie in the works. I do not claim any of the directly quoted lines from "The Avengers" as my own, they belong to Marvel and the writers. The cover art came from a google search with the original source being pinterest where it was credited to Anthony Genuardi.
Author's Note: While I embrace constructive criticism, remember this old saying if you choose to leave a review "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all"
Special thanks to all who reviewed Chapter Four: Well done you, GremlinX, CyanB, BatmanOtaku, Kylen, ladybug114, Lollypops101, R1dDL3M27h15, truefairytales, LostHawk, Steff7, thababes, yevguine, weemcg33, faithfreedom, Qweb, JRBarton, Sandy-wmd, burningupastar, RAGAnne, skoreangirl tina, Wolfsdrache, Belice, Batghost, Kirstiej104, ImaginaryArtist17, Awesomesauceamy, Lei, donttouchlola447, Viviannafox, LEMarauder, BooksAreMedicine, GreenLoki, GinervaMarieChaseEverdeen, animexluva13, Sara, Natalia Grayson, bookworm1517, darkdestiney2000, jaguarspot, Alice of Scots, discordchick, ILuvClintasha, Arlothia, ELOSHAZZY, Zoeff, hawkeye-mockingwidow
Shout out to those that have guessed the song inspiration for the chapter titles: truefairytales
You can guess the song up until I tell you what it is in the final chapter!
Continued thanks to my wonderful betas Kylen and JRBarton for their wonderful support and beta-powers throughout this story. Kylen, as usual, is the final word on anything concerning Dan Wilson. I'm not sure what of his dialogue she did and what I did, but she's the one that finalizes all his words ;)
This A/N is IMPORTANT: I'm now formally announcing that I'm going to be working on a REWRITE of Vantage Point (my first story) in conjunction with working on my next new story. That being said, Phil's video to Clint (as seen in Vantage Point) has been rewritten to an extent here. So it is not the same as it was when we first saw it. I rewrote it to more adequately reflect what Phil and Clint meant to each other at this point in their lives. The rewrite will be posted as a NEW story called "Vantage Point Revisted" so that everyone will always have the option of reading the old version if they so choose. The core of the story will remain the same but expect a lot more detail, character exploration, and general smoothness of writing ;)
to ladybug114: YES! You'll see them both very soon!
to skoreangirl tina: this story goes beyond the movie into the fallout. That's all I give away, but I think the Battle of NY is like...chapter 11 or 12 lol and there are 17 chapters ;)
to Awesomesauceamy: I binge watched season 2 like immediately. But I haven't watched Jessica Jones yet, is it good?
to Lei: nothing wrong with asking :) this is not all just the movie, after like Chapter 11 or 12 the movie coverage is over and there are 17 chapters total. However, the plot will match the movie because this movie was the springboard for the entire Vantage Point Universe and is the only MCU movie that is canon in this 'verse. So there won't be any crazy changes or twists, just showing the movie through the eyes of the VPU characters if that makes sense and all the fallout of this movie that got us to where this story series started in Vantage Point.
to GreenLoki: Ah the age old VPU question. What will I do with Phil Coulson? To answer vaguely...i'll say that my mentality is not set in stone. In that I've considered MANY options for that character. WHAT option, exactly, I've settled on will remain a mystery until such time as it is put to rest once and for all in a fic ;) #vague
to Natalia Grayson: I'll reveal that at the end of the final chapter of this story :)
to jaguarspot: it just so happens that content in this chapter requires that announcement ;) Almost 4 years! Wow! *raises champagne glass Gatsby style* I can't believe Arrow Man is what started it all for you :D I feel like you just told me a really cool origin story!
And the train keeps rollin...
Last time in The Untold Stories:
"I think you'll find, when the time comes, you'll welcome the release."
Barton didn't argue, just stared at him, compliant.
Loki smiled wider.
"Tell me more."
I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell.
William Tecumseh Sherman
April 12, 2012
9:40 p.m. Local Time (3:40 p.m. NYC)
Helicarrier, somewhere over Northern Africa
Phil slid by a group of agents moving down the hall and then had to pause at the infirmary door to let a small mass of people exit. Finally, he made it inside and headed for Dan's office. He knocked once and entered before he was invited.
He closed the door behind him and leaned back against it, looking across the office to where Dan sat at his desk, phone held to his ear by his shoulder and hands typing quickly on the keyboard of his laptop. He spared a hand only briefly to motion Phil into one of the two chairs sitting opposite his desk.
Phil found himself suddenly nostalgic for the old ratty couch that had once held residence in Dan's office back on the New York base. Unfortunately, when Dan was reassigned, the couch hadn't been able to make the trip. The new office just didn't have the room for it.
He sat in the chair anyway, slumping wearily as he waited.
They were heading back to New York now, after Phil had just flown the same distance from New York to meet with the carrier in the Indian Ocean. Fury had wanted the carrier as near to Banner as possible, just in case. By the time Natasha had the doctor on board, Phil and Captain Rogers had already been in route. It had made the most sense for the carrier to wait for them to arrive before they took off. Landing a jet while the carrier was in flight wasn't safe or easy. Fury had also thought it best to break the technological marvel of the Helicarrier to Rogers easy – rather than mid-flight. Now they had everyone in one place and were collectively heading back to the New York SHIELD base because they had no other place to go.
They didn't know Loki's plan.
They didn't know where he was.
All they knew was he had one of SHIELD's top agents and a brilliant astrophysicist as his captives and a magical spear in his arsenal. They had to assume Clint had been forced to reveal information about SHIELD. That made them all vulnerable.
Phil shook his head. He didn't want to think about how Loki had forced Clint to talk. But with magic on his side, he doubted even Clint could have resisted indefinitely.
"Phil."
Phil looked up at Dan's call to find the doctor watching him seriously.
"You're better than that. Keep your head in the game."
"What?"
"I could see it all over your face. You were thinking about Barton."
Phil frowned, hardly believing he'd been displaying his thoughts so clearly. Dan was right – he needed to get his head back in the game.
"Well? Weren't you?" Dan asked.
"Yes…can't see how I can avoid that though." Clint was all he could think about.
Dan sighed, then cracked a little bit of a wry grin.
"You probably can't. It's like telling you not to think of a pink elephant." Dan's face grew serious. "But you can keep yourself from imagining every last damned worst-case scenario. You do it every damned time Barton finds himself in a jam."
"A jam?" Phil challenged blandly. "He's been taken as a POW in a war with an alien god on one side and a team of super humans on the other. How is that not already a worst-case scenario?"
"Because he's Clint fucking Barton. That kid would survive if you threw him in a pit of vipers with nothing but a toothpick. Hell, he'd probably emerge with a pair of snake-skin boots."
Phil quirked his lips slightly. However exaggerated, the point held true. Clint was a survivor, always had been.
"Look, Phil…there's nothing I can tell you about that kid that you don't already know. You gotta trust him to stay alive until you can find him. Simple as that."
"Simple, huh?" Phil frowned doubtfully.
"Yeah. Simple."
"And until I do? Find him, that is?"
"Remind yourself that he's Clint fucking Barton." Dan repeated the line with a smirk. "Keep yourself focused and do your damned job. Otherwise you're gonna drive yourself crazy and do something stupid."
Phil scowled at him, but didn't dispute the point.
Dan's expression softened.
"I know you're worried and fucking scared out of your mind. Barton is like a son to you, I get that. But you can't put blinders on, Phil. You're needed. So find a way. Think about something other than Barton…even though it goes against your nature."
"And how would you suggest I do that?"
Dan sat back in his chair and threaded his hands behind his head, lips quirking into a sly smirk.
"I hear your idol is on board. A fanboy couldn't ask for a better distraction."
Phil huffed a slight laugh. He had been meaning to ask if Captain Rogers would sign his trading cards. Dan nodded sharply.
"My job here is done," the doctor stated.
Phil stood and headed for the door. He paused before pulling it open, though, and looked back.
"Thanks."
"Hey, what are friends for if not to tell you to pull your head out of your ass?"
This time, Phil laughed outright.
Phil held onto that resolve all the way back to the bridge. He found Captain Rogers there, watching the hustle and bustle with a deeply contemplative look. Phil blew out a breath and started forward. Distraction – that was the name of the game now. Anything to keep him from thinking and worrying about Clint.
"Captain Rogers?"
The Captain turned to face him, nodding politely.
"Agent Coulson."
"I was wondering if...well, you see, I have these cards – trading cards, actually. They're a lot like baseball cards, only they don't have player stats because well, they're just you, not players. I mean, not just you. You are better to have than even the rarest of rookie cards."
Rogers was giving him an odd and slightly confused look so Phil hurried on, already feeling his neck redden in embarrassment for his ramblings.
"Anyway, I was wondering if you would…well, if you wouldn't mind signing them for me. My trading cards, that is," he finally managed to spit it out. And in coherent fashion even.
Rogers blinked, still looking a little overwhelmed. Phil wished a little bit that he hadn't started this conversation, but he hadn't thought of Clint in at least two minutes. That was something, at least, even if he did look completely foolish.
"I mean, if it's not too much trouble." He tried to tame his awed excitement now, keeping his tone more controlled.
Rogers blinked and seemed to finally catch up.
"No, no, it's fine," he agreed courteously.
Phil smiled, feeling a little giddy again.
"It's a vintage set. Took me a couple of years to collect them all." His plan to avoid thoughts of Clint backfired because he suddenly remembered with vivid clarity just who had gotten him two of those cards. He forced himself to keep his tone light as he went on, "Near mint, slight foxing around the edges but-"
"We got a hit." Agent Sitwell's announcement cut him off and stole both his and Rogers' attention. "Sixty-seven percent match. Wait – cross-match, seventy-nine percent."
Phil stepped forward, eyes going to the screen. He fought back a wave of crushing disappointment when it was Loki's face they'd matched, not Clint's.
"Location?" he asked anyway, because he had to stay focused.
"Stuttgart, Germany. Twenty eight Königstraße." Sitwell glanced over his shoulder. "He's not exactly hiding."
Phil frowned, his instincts warning him that it was too easy. Loki just showing up out in the open didn't make sense. But at the same time, they couldn't just do nothing.
"Captain," Fury – who stood at his command center eyeing the monitors that displayed the carrier's global location – looked to Rogers, "you're up."
Phil watched Steve nod, his posture determined, and walk away.
"Hill, get Romanoff, send her with him."
Maria nodded curtly and keyed her communicator.
Then they waited…waited and watched.
All they could do until then was keep an eye on things and hope Loki didn't do anything drastic.
"What's his play here?" Fury muttered lowly, the words meant only for Phil's ears. "Why come out into the open? He has to know we'll move to confront him."
"Hard to get a read on him," Phil admitted as they both watched Loki move casually through the crowd. "What was your impression when you faced him?"
"Do you remember that guy you dealt with back in '96? In Dubai?" Fury offered as a response.
"Bhakta?"
Fury nodded.
"Loki reminded me of him, just with a magic spear."
Well that was…not at all reassuring. Bhakta had been a dangerous bastard and a bitch to take down. But he'd been a talker – much like Loki, according to Fury's report – and that overzealous bravado had given Phil's team the time it needed to get into place. He thought maybe that was the comparison Fury was making.
"Delusions of grandeur?" Phil suggested. That tended to be the undoing of men like Loki. When the power you had wasn't enough, you reached for more…and the further you reached, the easier it was to knock you off balance.
The director nodded, eye pinned on the screen monitoring Loki.
"Something like that."
Then they fell silent, watching. After a while, Loki disappeared inside the building with the rest of the guests and waiting got harder.
"Wish we had eyes inside," Phil muttered mostly to himself.
"I might be able to fix that," Sitwell offered. "Looks like they've got private security and closed-circuit cameras. I can hack in." He looked to Fury as he finished, asking silent permission.
Fury nodded sharply and Sitwell bent over his computer.
Slow minutes crawled by and then all of the sudden Sitwell straightened.
"Got it. I'm in."
All at once, the screen started lighting up with different camera views. They silently searched for Loki.
It was Fury that saw him first.
"There, coming down the stairs."
Sitwell pulled up the best angle and they all watched Loki casually walk up behind a man giving a speech.
As none of them were sure what he had planned, they were all startled when Loki abruptly lashed out at the man before him. He flipped him onto a nearby structure and then unceremoniously jabbed a device into his eye.
That was when Phil put it together. It wasn't a pointless show of bravado. It was a specific mission.
"Where's Clint?"
The sidelong look Fury gave him was full of something close to pity.
"Phil…"
"No, not literally where…but he's not there. Not with Loki." He turned and met Fury's gaze. "He has one of the most highly trained spies in the world at his disposal and he does this himself? He's here for a reason…and Clint's somewhere else for a reason." He gestured at the screen and the poor man Loki had just stabbed in the eye. "He's getting a retinal scan for a reason."
Fury's gaze ignited with understanding.
"Get me an ID on that victim."
Sitwell started typing furiously, freeze framing a shot of the man's face and uploading it into their facial recognition system.
"Anything on Barton?" Fury directed at another tech.
"Still dark." Came the immediate response.
"He's out there." Phil insisted. "He's in the open, we just have to find him."
"That may be the case, Phil," Fury replied sharply. "But that goddamned kid could be walking through Times Square and he'd still never turn up on a camera. He's a ghost. You taught him to disappear and he learned the lesson too damned well. I have no doubt that he is up to no good at this very moment, but we've got no way of finding him."
"The victim is a scientist," Sitwell announced. "Heinrich Schäfer."
"Where does he work?" Fury demanded.
"Pulling up surveillance of his lab now."
Clint tossed the retinal hologram device to one of his men and wordlessly held his hand out to the one who held his bow. Once his weapon was back in his hands, he led the way through the door and into the lab.
He wasn't sure what to expect here. Labs like this could have anything from rent-a-cop security to ex-special forces. Given the magnitude of what he knew this lab housed, he was betting on the latter.
Sure enough, no more than five steps into the building and a pair of guards rounded a corner up ahead. Their posture and stride told Clint all he needed to know. Special Forces, undeniably.
He smirked darkly and stowed his bow even as he used his free hand to wave off the men behind him. He'd handle this on his own.
And he'd enjoy ever goddamned minute of it.
The two guards exchanged a surprised look and then started purposefully towards Clint. But he wasn't going to sit and wait for them. Instead, he strode right for them, picking up speed until he was nearly running when they finally met in the middle of the hallway.
Clint ducked under a right hook from the man on his left – Led – and shifted sideways to avoid a left jab from the man on his right – Zeppelin. Clint grinned to himself at the nicknames and struck out with a right cross. He clipped the outside of Zeppelin's chin and drove his boot into Led's thigh, deadening the muscle if only briefly. He shifted right as he ducked under Zeppelin's attempt at a left cross and contracted his torso, driving his left knee up into Zeppelin's ribs.
A kick from the recovered Led momentarily collapsed Clint's knee, but he went with it. He braced his downed knee on the tile and spun, kicking out Zeppelin's feet and sending him to the floor. Then Clint exploded up, spinning into an aerial kick that landed on Led's arm, brought up to defend his head.
A quick, three-move combination drove Led back into the wall and Clint spun to face Zeppelin.
He was met with a solid jab that briefly flashed his vision white.
Zeppelin grabbed two fistfuls of Clint's shirt and spun him hard into the wall. Clint felt his back crack the plaster and immediately ducked, narrowly avoiding Zeppelin's follow up left jab, which embedded in the plaster instead.
He struck out with a series of low hits to Zeppelin's ribs, which the man seemed to just absorb. An elbow snapped into the side of Clint's head, and then a knee rammed into his side ribs.
Clint pushed hard off the wall, driving his forearms into Zeppelin's chest and taking two fistfuls of the man's uniform for leverage. He drove his feet into the ground for a few steps, spinning Zeppelin as he went and then he used his grip on Zeppelin's uniform for support as he torqued his body up into the air, spreading his legs up just as Led charged towards them.
Led walked right into the trap and didn't have time to dodge before Clint's knees tightened around his neck and his ankles locked behind his head.
In a move he'd learned from Natasha, he walked his hands up Zeppelin's shoulders and folded his elbow around his neck, locking the man's head to Clint's shoulder.
Then, using every bit of abdominal strength he had, he twisted his torso towards the ground. The three of them hit the ground in a pile of limbs. He heard Zeppelin's neck snap next to his ear and felt the same give between his knees as Led's head twisted at the wrong angle.
Without wasting a breath, Clint kicked his way free and rolled to his feet.
He met his stunned team's gazes and motioned them forward.
"Fan out. Find the other guards. Keep them distracted while I go for the iridium."
He got a series of nods and 'yes, sir's in return.
He nodded sharply back.
"Let's move."
Phil's breath caught when he saw a familiar dark figure stalk out of the building with a small team of men following behind him.
"Jesus…" he knew that walk – that dark, angry, prowling stalk.
That was Clint. Clint when he was in full 'Hawkeye' mode.
"Do we have anybody close?" Fury demanded.
Sitwell clicked away on his keyboard and then shook his head.
"No teams near enough to get there in time. Unless you want me to redirect Agent Romanoff. But even then, they may not get there in time."
For one long moment, Fury was silent and Phil found himself selfishly hoping Fury would send Natasha after Clint instead of Loki.
But then Fury gave him a sympathetic glance.
"I'm sorry, Phil." Even as he spoke, Clint disappeared off the last possible angle of the cameras.
He was gone. Again.
"Find out what was stored there and send the list to Banner and Stark," Fury ordered Sitwell calmly.
At Sitwell's nod, Fury turned his attention back to Loki and his demands for subservience.
Phil couldn't seem to focus, though, on anything but the image of Clint's SHIELD ID photo displayed on one of the screens.
Fury was right. The trace was useless. Clint was too good to ever get caught on camera again. The lab had been unavoidable, cameras covered every possible angle due to the value of the materials stored there. If they had a one in a million shot to find Clint with the trace, they'd just blown that one. They'd never find him that way again.
But they'd been so damn close. Clint had been there – at the lab. Phil had seen him. But he was gone now, in the wind again.
He stared at Clint's picture and felt something in his chest constrict painfully.
Where are you?
"Well, I'll be damned."
Fury's huffed statement drew his attention back to the matter at hand. His gaze went to the feed of Loki's battle with the team.
"They've got him." Fury added with a frown.
Sure enough, Loki was subdued. Phil frowned too. He'd hadn't been zoned out that long, had he? Had the battle really been that fast?
"In your experience, has it ever been that easy?" Fury shot Phil a doubtful glance.
Phil shook his head. In Phil's experience, easy usually meant the shit was headed towards the fan in a big way.
"Right." Fury sighed. "Get me Romanoff."
April 12, 2012
11:15 p.m. Local Time (5:15 pm NYT)
Quinjet, somewhere over Europe
Natasha nodded, agreeing with Fury's assessment of the situation.
"I can't say I disagree," she admitted. "He practically rolled over and played dead at the first sign of trouble."
"He say anything?"
"Not a word." Which was about what she'd expected. It's what she would have done if she were in Loki's place. Stay quiet, observe, learn your enemy's weakness.
"Just get him here. We're low on time."
Well, wasn't that quite the understatement. She bit back the urge to ask about the search for Clint. Now wasn't the time.
It turned out that Fury wasn't intending to give her a chance to ask, because he disconnected the line before she had a chance to say anything at all.
Natasha sighed, tuning into Rogers and Stark's discussion about Loki's capitulation.
"I don't remember it being that easy. This guy packs a wallop," Steve was saying.
And only Rogers would use a word like 'wallop'. Natasha wished Clint were here. He'd have had a field day with that. Knowing him, he'd start using it in every day conversation just because.
Her throat tightened at the thought.
"Still, you were pretty spry, for an older fellow. What's your thing? Pilates?" Stark replied flippantly.
God, could Stark take nothing seriously? It was like a bad flashback to her time dealing with him as Natalie Rushman.
"What?" Rogers didn't sound so much confused as annoyed. Natasha could understand the sentiment. Stark tended to have that effect.
Her attention was drawn away from Stark's response when she noticed the clouds swirling oddly in the sky. The night had been pretty much clear just seconds ago. The cloud cover had come out of nowhere. The flash of lightening and subsequent thunder just added to her confused wariness.
"Where's this coming from?" she wondered aloud, leaning forward to get a better view of the sky.
"What's the matter?" Rogers asked, but not to her. She glanced back to see him looking at Loki. "Scared of a little lightening?"
Loki grimaced an odd little smile.
"I'm not overly fond of what follows."
Something in Natasha's memory pricked. Clint telling her about a mythical god named Thor who'd ended up being able to control lightening. She looked back at Loki.
It couldn't…
The force that slammed into the top of the jet brought her attention swiftly back to the controls as she added her own skills to help the pilot keep them level. Even as she did, her eyes rose to the roof, wondering what the hell that had been.
Not wanting to stick around to find out, she nodded at the pilot to keep going even as Rogers and Stark started moving around and heading towards the back of the jet.
She barely held back a very loud, very Russian curse when Stark lowered the ramp.
"What are you doing?" Rogers yelled.
No sooner had he gotten the words out than a large, armor-clad blonde landed on the ramp. He knocked Stark into Rogers like neither of them were anything but a nuisance, grabbed Loki, and was gone again.
What the hell was going on?
"Now there's that guy." Stark grunted as he stood.
"Another Asgardian?" It wasn't really a question. All it had taken was a glance at the blonde hair and fancy armor and she knew who they were dealing with. Clint's description had been very detailed.
"That guy's a friendly?" Rogers postulated.
She supposed it made sense. Thor had grabbed Loki and looked pissed as he did. But they didn't have time for the Asgardian prince to dole out his own kind of justice. They needed Loki.
Apparently Stark agreed.
"Doesn't matter," Iron Man insisted. "If he frees Loki, or kills him, the tesseract is lost."
And so was Clint. Maybe Loki being dead freed him from whatever mind fuck he was in, but maybe it didn't. It wasn't a risk she was willing to take.
Stark, apparently, felt the same, because he started down the ramp.
"Stark, we need a plan of attack!" Rogers called, ever the team player.
"I have a plan. Attack!" Stark replied, ever the one-man show.
Natasha gritted her teeth as Stark disappeared off the ramp and Rogers moved for a parachute. What did he expect to do? Gently coast to the ground and politely ask for Loki back?
"I'd sit this one out, Cap." Because super-soldier or not, he couldn't fly and it appeared the major players in this fight could.
"I don't see how I can."
It sounded like something Clint would say – no, not say. Clint wouldn't have even bothered replying, he'd have just given her a look and gone. He'd never given much attention to someone telling him to stay out of a fight either.
"These guys come from legend. They're basically gods," she explained as she adjusted flight controls so their pilot could focus on flying. Rogers at least needed to know what he was getting into.
"There's only one God, ma'am." Did he just ma'am her again? "And I'm pretty sure he doesn't dress like that." Then Rogers was gone too and she was left alone with the pilot.
"Men," she muttered under her breath.
The pilot shot her a vaguely offended glance and she shrugged unapologetically.
She muttered a few choice words in her mother tongue just for her own sake and then keyed her radio. "Overwatch, you out there?"
It only took a moment before Phil's voice rang through the line.
"Everything okay?" Trust Phil to have worry be his first reaction to an unscheduled call in. It brought a warmth that had stopped being foreign years ago. She motioned for the pilot to turn the jet back towards the direction all the idiots had gone. He obeyed and then switched into hover mode, waiting.
"Well, I'm currently co-piloting an empty jet."
There was a beat of silence.
"Come again?"
She blew out an annoyed breath. They didn't have time for this shit. Clint didn't have time.
"Thor showed up and snatched Loki."
"Thor?!"
She sighed, closing her eyes and squeezing the bridge of her nose.
"Yeah."
Because one god in their midst just wasn't enough.
She heard Phil speaking to someone else, probably Fury.
"Stark and Rogers?"
"What do you think?" she shot back.
Phil sighed.
"We don't have time for this."
He was preaching to the damn choir.
"I could always just shoot them and bring Loki in myself." She was really only half kidding at this point.
"You can't shoot them." Phil's matter-of-fact response was expected, but the dry humor laced into the words brought a small grin to her face.
"Not even just a little?"
Phil chuckled now.
"Not enjoying your reunion with Stark?"
She let her icy silence be answer enough for that.
"We need them, Natasha….all of them."
She sighed.
"We need Clint." It was out before she could stop it. And the pained intake of breath she heard from Phil had her wishing she could take it back, even if it hadn't caused a stabbing pain in her own chest.
But it was true. Clint had a way about him, even though he didn't seem to realize it. He'd be able to match sarcastic wits with Stark easily – and perhaps keep him out of Roger's hair. Which, in all honestly, was the biggest of their supposed "team" issues right now. You couldn't put two personalities like Stark and Rogers together without a buffer and expect anything other than fireworks.
"I saw him."
The confession caught her off guard and stole her breath.
"He's alive."
"Where? When?" she demanded rapidly, feeling adrenaline flood her system. She'd leave all the idiot men to camp in the woods if she had a shot at getting to Clint.
"It doesn't matter, he's not there anymore. He made a move for something in a lab while you guys were tangling with Loki."
Anger flashed through her. Nobody had told her, probably on purpose, and any chance she'd had at catching up to him was now gone before she'd even known it was there.
It wasn't fair. She shouldn't have to choose between her job and the one man that meant everything to her.
"I know." Phil seemed to read her mind. "But we'll find him again."
The assurance, for some reason, made her eyes burn. She blinked the feeling away, mentally cursing Clint for being the one thing that always brought down her hard-won, steel-enforced walls.
"I should go." Because she needed to think about something other than Clint if she was going to keep it together, and talking to Phil pretty much made that impossible.
Phil was quiet for a moment, and when he spoke his tone was one of complete understanding.
"I'll see you when you get back."
He got it. Phil always got it, no matter what 'it' was. It was one of the many, many traits that made him one of the few that could deal with the man of few emotional words, Clint Barton.
"Copy that," she replied quietly.
Then she disconnected the line and scanned the trees, looking for a sign of where the others were.
The blast of light and a tree-leveling explosion served as quite the beacon.
The pilot looked to her for guidance and she nodded. Wordlessly telling him to head for the small area of fresh devastation.
She shook her head in annoyed disbelief.
Men.
April 12, 2012
11:25 p.m. Local Time (5:25 pm NYT)
Helicarrier Bridge, somewhere over France
Phil switched off his connection with Natasha, sighing deeply as his eyes settled on the picture of Clint once again. The face-trace continued to run. Useless or not, there was always a 'just in case' hanging over their heads. But the longer he watched the trace run, the harder it became to look at the picture.
Clint was out there, somewhere, waiting for Phil to find him – even if only subconsciously. Phil had promised him, years ago, that he'd always come for him. He'd never leave Clint to disappear into the shadows. He'd never leave him to die alone.
But somewhere, deep in his gut, he knew that this time…he would. He knew his best wasn't going to be good enough. This time he wouldn't be the one to save Clint. He didn't know how he knew, he just knew. Something was brewing. With Loki nearly on board, things were about to start happening. One way or another, everything in this game was about to change.
Phil stood abruptly and headed for the exit.
He had to get out of here. He had to find a place to breathe.
"Coulson?" He ignored Maria's call, determined steps taking him off the bridge and towards the residence halls.
He made it to his room with little disruption. Something in his expression seeming to reduce everyone he met to monosyllabic acknowledgments.
With the door finally closed behind him, he let out a deep breath and moved over to his bed. He sat heavily and just stared at the wall for a long moment. Without even realizing what he was doing, he pulled open the drawer on his small, built in bedside table.
He had the leather, composition-sized book in his hand a moment later. The leather had been worn already when Clint had given it to him, almost two years ago now, and it had only grown more worn since. Clint had given him this book, their history book, in the wake of the attack on the New York SHIELD base as ordered by former Council Member, Matthew Williams. It had been an act of revenge, mercenaries sent to kill Clint, Phil, Natasha, and anyone who got in their way.
Phil had nearly died, Clint had barely coped. This book had been his way to process what nearly losing Phil had meant to him, how it had affected him. Phil flipped through it often, usually when Clint was away on a mission, and had even added to it.
He opened to the first page, the title page.
"Greatest Hits"
He clenched his jaw, lightly rubbing his thumb across the scrawling words, the black sharpie just as crisp and clear as the day the book had been given to him.
He flipped through the pages slowly, taking in each one, remembering each moment in time, forever immortalized by Clint's almost purposefully sloppy handwriting. Phil never could understand how he could write in nearly perfect all-caps print one moment and then switch over to a barely legible chicken scratch that Phil only understood from years of exposure.
Maybe that was the point though. Phil was one of the very few that could read it.
He stopped on the page dedicated to Croatia, closing his eyes. He could see it, as clearly as if it had happened yesterday, the vision of Clint stepping to the left only to jerk back a step and go limp. He could still smell the blood, feel it coating his hands.
He opened his eyes again, reading the caption.
"The day Clint and Phil realized what it meant to be brothers."
Brothers. It didn't seem accurate anymore, or at least it didn't seem to be enough. It had started that way, back in the beginning. They'd forged a brotherhood through blood and fire. But time had changed that, had made it evolve. They were brothers, always would be…but damn it, Phil felt more like a father than a brother. He was more a father than a brother and had been for a long time.
And fathers weren't supposed to outlive their children.
His breath caught in his throat, that morbid thought causing his chest to clench so tightly he couldn't breathe. He slid off the edge of his bed, collapsing onto his folded legs as he unconsciously held the book to his chest with one hand and gripped the edge of the bedside table for support with the other.
The emotion flooded through him as quickly and brutally as a tidal wave, forcing its way free and leaving his face wet and his lungs aching.
It wasn't supposed to happen like this. This was monsters and magic. It was nothing they could have ever prepared for, nothing they could have trained for. But it was here and it had taken Clint as a prisoner of war.
War.
Maybe that's what made this so much worse. It wasn't like Clint hadn't been captured before. Hell, the damn kid tended to get himself in that type of situation more than most – except maybe Natasha, but then she usually did it on purpose.
But this was a war.
A war between gods and super humans and geniuses in flying iron suits.
How was a guy like Clint – who, at the end of the day, was just a normal man – supposed to survive being caught in the middle?
Out of nowhere a memory flooded his mind.
"I don't think I can do this anymore."
Clint had never sounded so defeated than he had in that moment in Cairo. He'd sounded like he'd failed, like he was a failure and he'd sounded so goddamned ashamed of that.
But Clint wasn't a failure, was the furthest from that you could get.
Phil looked down at the book in his hands, remembering his own response to Clint's whispered confession.
"Yes, you can. Listen up, because I'm only going to say this once. You are Clint fucking Barton…"
Clint fucking Barton.
Strong as steel, tough as nails. Those were the phrases used to describe the archer by those that knew him.
Strong.
How many times over the years had he told Clint he was strong? Phil had lost count. It was a point that Clint could never seem to grasp because in his own eyes he'd always been weak. But Phil's definition of weak had always been different than Clint's. And what Clint saw as weakness, Phil saw as something else entirely.
Clint looked back on his days as a contract assassin and saw a teenager too weak to make a better choice. Phil saw a kid who somehow kept pieces of his soul intact even while living in nothing but darkness, who was strong enough to find a way to survive.
But that's what Clint did. He survived. He always survived, even when he didn't want to.
Phil clenched his jaw and tightened his grip on the book.
Clint would survive this.
Phil was suddenly surer of that than anything else in the world.
Clint would survive. He was too strong to do anything else.
Phil looked back down at the book in his hand, thumbing the pages until he found the one dedicated to Cairo. That mission had tested Clint's strength in a way no other mission ever had. And his agent had come out of it stronger in so many ways.
Phil traced his fingers over the scribbled inscription, there was no picture with this entry, the page held nothing but words and even those…were simple.
"Phil came anyway."
He still remembered that moment. Standing there in the middle of the safe house pointing a loaded gun at an intruder he thought was nothing more than a homeless vagrant. He remembered the exact moment when he realized the intruder was Clint. He remembered the weight in his arms as he caught the archer when he collapsed. Clint's whispered words had been burned in his memory from that moment on.
"I was dead…and you came anyway."
That had been the first of many defining moments for them. It had been the moment Clint had truly realized Phil would never abandon him, that he would always come even if all hope was lost. That he could count on Phil in a way he'd never counted on anyone else.
But that moment had been something different to Phil. It had been the end of a nightmare. Clint had been dead. There had been an autopsy report – a falsified one, he'd learned – to prove it. Clint had been dead and Phil's world had stopped spinning.
What happened after the attack on the New York base had proven, without a shadow of a doubt, that Clint's world hinged just as precariously on Phil's survival as his did on Clint's.
Phil stood abruptly, moving over to his desk. He opened his laptop and dug into the desk drawer for a blank DVD. He slid it into the disc drive and selected the program that would let him record through the laptop's camera.
Clint would survive this. Phil knew that without a doubt, he couldn't accept anything less. But Phil had no such guarantee.
Because this was a war.
If the worst happened, he needed to know that his last words to Clint weren't an order to 'go find a perch', but were something real, something that truly reflected what Clint meant to him.
He needed to know that his promise to Clint would hold true, even if he wasn't here to keep it. He needed to know, and for Clint to know, that he would never abandon him. That he would always come.
He took a breath and looked into the laptop webcam.
He hit record.
"Hey kid...at the risk of sounding cliché, if you're watching this, then I'm dead." It was a blunt statement, but if Clint was watching this then it was something he already knew. "I decided to record this after you were taken by Loki, just because…well, I didn't want the last thing I ever said to you to be some order on a mission. You being my agent…that was always secondary. You were always more than that to me and I hope to hell I've made that clear to you over the years.
"I'm leaving this with Dan, with instructions to send it to you when he thought you might need it. When he thought you'd actually be ready to see it, which I'm guessing probably won't be for a while. And that's okay…because I know, that if I'm gone…" Phil cleared his throat, not wanting to dwell on the devastation he knew his death would do to Clint. "I know it's hard and I know it hurts, even more so if it had something to do with Loki. I know how your mind works, Clint. I knew the moment he took you that you would carry whatever happened on your shoulders. I know that it won't matter to you that he didn't give you a choice. I know that you're sitting there, blaming yourself for everything that happened."
Phil lifted his chin and hardened his tone.
"This is me, telling you to knock it the hell off."
He hoped throwing his own words from Croatia back at him, would at least draw a smile when Clint watched this.
"If I couldn't get away with it then neither can you. Loki was wielding a power none of us could possibly understand. What he did to you, what he stole from you…it wasn't his to take. You cannot blame yourself for anything that happened as a result. So stop beating yourself up over it.
"I chose this life, to be in this fight. I knew the risks and I knew that one day my card would be up. I know that doesn't make it any easier, but maybe it makes it clearer. This isn't on you. It was my choice."
Phil took a breath and looked away briefly and when he spoke again, all the sternness was gone from his tone.
"I know it's hard for you to lay down your burdens. You've never been good at letting yourself off the hook. But I'm telling you right now, to forgive yourself, kid…for all of it. For what happened to me, for Loki, for everything that came before. You promised me, that day in the hospital after the base attack, that you would keep moving forward. You sure as hell better keep that promise.
"That being said, you sure as hell better be fighting with the Avengers. You belong with them. Yours was the first name on the damn list for a reason and if you aren't among them then they aren't complete. You are and have always been as much of a hero as Stark, Rogers, Thor and Banner…maybe you're even more of one because you and Natasha are so painfully and beautifully human.
"It's never been the ones with super powers that make the best heroes. They have an obligation, a duty, to use their powers for good. It's the people like you and Natasha, the ordinary ones, that don't have to fight, but choose to anyway. You're the ones that are the real heroes in my book," he paused for a moment and then smirked, "My Captain America obsession notwithstanding."
The light moment faded and he sighed, looking down at the book he had resting in his lap. The memories flooded through him and he knew he wasn't able to keep that off his expression when he looked back up.
"I know it's hard for you to let people in. I know I promised you that I would always have your back. So I'm sorry. I let you down." His voice broke there and he had to swallow. "I know I was supposed to be the one that never did that. I hope that you can forgive me. But – and I need you to hear me on this – even though I'm gone, you are not alone. Don't ever make the mistake of believing you are. You have a beautiful, strong woman who loves you. And I know, love is for children, but kid, what you two have is the real deal. If it's not love, then it's something a hell of a lot stronger. She would walk through fire for you and with you. So let her.
"But beyond that, you've got a team now. A team filled with extraordinary men. I promised you nine years ago that you would never be alone again and I meant it. Let them in, kid…they'll surprise you.
"I'll leave you with this. Don't hide. Don't be afraid of what you could become. You are capable of a greatness you cannot even fathom. All you have to do is embrace it."
Phil took one final breath and felt moisture build in his eyes. This was going to be the hardest part.
"Always remember that for these nine years you have been everything to me." His eyes burned and his throat tightened. "Goodbye, kid."
He all but slammed the laptop closed, forcing himself to take a deep breath and let it out slowly. He'd allowed himself one emotional breakdown already, there wasn't time for a second one.
But God damn it.
Saying goodbye to Clint was one of the hardest things he would ever have to do. He ejected the DVD and slid it into an envelope. Then he grabbed a piece of paper, wrote a hasty, but detailed note and slid it in with the DVD. He'd drop it off with Dan on his way back to the bridge.
Maybe this wouldn't be necessary. He hoped to hell it wasn't. But if the worst happened, he was relieved to know he'd kept the promise he'd made to himself and to Clint.
He'd said what needed to be said. Words he hoped would help Clint move past the devastation. Words he hoped would make Clint's world start spinning again like Clint's words in Cairo had done for him.
End of Chapter 5
So first of all, I'll say it once more. I recognize that the video from Phil is a bit more involved in this than it original was in Vantage Point. As i said up top, Vantage Point is in the process of being rewritten and the new video will be reflected in that rewrite. Hope you guys don't mind the slight inconsistency, but these things happen when you write a stand alone story that unexpectedly developed into an entire Universe.
Hit me up with a review, let me know how you're liking it ;)
Same time, same place, tomorrow. Until then...preview
Seeing the beloved device, this tangible piece of him, holding it in her hand…it was her undoing. She clenched her hand around the iPod and buried her face in the pillow.
Then she just let it all go, just this once, with no one to bear witness to the moment of weakness.