Chapter Text
"This is ridiculous."
"Hell and damnation Coulson, would you settle yourself for all of a moment?" Fury snarled, casting his oldest and closest friend a glare that would make a lesser man quail. The loss of one eye had done nothing to temper the threat of it, but General Phillip J Coulson was not a man easily intimidated.
It is respect, nothing more, that has him easing himself down onto the cushioned marble chair that has been provided for him, nearer a throne than a simple seat.
Nodding, only half satisfied, Fury settles himself beside him, in the true throne of the Roman Empire. At the height of the day the sun beats down bright and golden but the Emperor's private viewing rooms at the top of the Coliseum are posh and elegant, covered and sheeted, with servants standing by whose sole purpose is to wave the heavy, ostrich-feather-fans that keep the air from stagnating. It's cool here in the shade, fresh food and drink are kept close to hand, and for the past four nights he has slept on the most lavish bed he's ever experienced in his life.
He has never been more uncomfortable.
"I've ordered these games particularly to celebrate my greatest general and good eye," the man beside him rumbles, looking out over the sand fields. "Yet you sit as though I've called you to be stretched over the rack."
"With all due respect, your Imperial Majesty," Phillip says with a bow of his head, "I should be with my men."
Fury scoffs, waves his hand, though Coulson knows he understands the sentiment.
"Your men will not be going anywhere without you Coulson," he replies, motioning for a cup of wine to be placed into his hand. "They would hardly dare. They love you too much, even more than their Caesar."
"This I doubt."
Fury only laughs at his murmured lies, shakes his head.
"You're far too modest," he says, sipping from his cup and placing it down again on the low stone ledge meant to keep them from toppling over into the arena below. "Always your biggest failing."
"I have no failings," he lies again, and his friend chuckles, deep and rich and real.
The sound allows some of the tension in his own shoulders to loosen, to relax. When he had received Fury's missive, when he had been called away from the frontlines back to Rome he had known something was wrong, that there was more at work than a simple birthday celebration. Though Fury had yet to broach the subject he had no misgivings that this was the case, and the waiting, the build-up had put an anxious restlessness into his muscles. He could hardly keep himself from moving, his hard, honed, soldier's body unaccustomed to the soft and sedentary lifestyle of his Caesar.
His need to pace, to fight and spar and practice his swordsmanship has translated into a mercurial temper and snappish speech, a tell which he cannot forgive in himself.
The Emperor's jokes, dry as they may be, are a forgiveness of sorts, and they are enough.
"You've done well with them Coulson," Fury rumbles. "You've prepared them better than any other man could have. Their deaths do not belong to you, but to Hydra. Place the blame where it belongs."
"I blame no one but Hydra and their commanders," Phillip replies sharply, more certain now that the Emperor has been living in fear of his reproach, his regret. He would no sooner place the blame of Roman losses on his Caesar than on his men, those who have fought and bled and died in the mud and snow all these past weeks.
Himself, well that is a different matter.
It is he who bears the responsibility of his men's training, the movement and strategy of his armies. Mistakes are one of the many, many things he cannot afford to indulge in or fall victim to.
These games, he fears, are another.
"You're concerned."
Coulson blinks, looks at Fury long and hard before skirting a glance around the balcony, lighting on the men and women and few important others near enough to eavesdrop. Fury scoffs low in his throat then makes the smallest of dismissive gestures, and within seconds the wide, open box has emptied, the servants going quietly while a senator or two grumbled, irritable and disappointed. The Emperor didn't so much as blink in their direction – they were beneath his notice as they had always been.
Strangely enough, politics were not his Imperial Majesty's strong suit.
His patience was not even near to endless and he did not suffer fools lightly, which is why Coulson takes his cue to speak as soon as the box is clear.
"We're losing men," he says quickly, only repeating his reports from his arrival. "Too many, and far too quickly. Hydra is gaining ground as our soldiers fall, and our lines are forced to withdraw from the fronts."
"I'm aware of our troubles as you damn well know," Fury growls. "You think I brought you here to watch a bunch of stupid games, to sit for fucking spectacles drawn out in blood on the sand while we have a war to win? Christ Coulson, I know you're smarter than that."
"Yes I'm well acquainted with your twice-turns and double talk," he snarls back. "You only refuse to explain your purpose to your oldest friend and good eye!"
Fury barks a bitter laugh, hears the accusation, the bite in his own words thrown back at him.
"What do you see?" he asks, spreading his arm wide as he gestures out over the Coliseum, a feat of engineering that still astonishes even after all these years. Coulson looks, see sand and heat, the blood and sweat of thousands who have died to entertain the mob of citizens who swarm the tiered seats, even now a shouting mass of rabble waiting for their pound of flesh. Below them hawkers sell their wares to the waiting crowd, servants rush across the fields, and flags and trumpets slowly take their positions as the games prepare to begin.
"What am I meant to see?"
The Emperor leans back, grins at him wolfishly from his dark face.
"Potential," he intones.
Phil cocks an eyebrow, waits his friend out.
"You need men to fill the gaps in the line," he says slowly, as though Phillip is a child to be spoken down to. "Well hell Coulson, I'm about to trot out some of the country's best fighters right before your very eyes."
"Slaves?" Phillip asks, taken aback.
He'd never considered...
"Gladiators," Fury corrects with a glint in his eye. "Fighters. Some of the best. They fight to kill, fight with everything they have because it is all they have, some of them all they have ever had."
Phillip frowns, actually takes a moment to consider what his Caesar is suggesting.
"And your proposition?"
"Take them," Fury shrugs. "As many as you need. Train the ones who are capable of learning, of making themselves useful, and as for the rest? Well, they'll make good fodder on the fronts, collateral to take the fall while the rest of you do the real work."
"What's to say they'll fight for us?"
"They're slaves Coulson. They do as their master deems they ought."
"So you suggest I purchase Rome an army."
"I suggest you do what you must to acquire the men you need. What do you care for the image of Rome? You're a soldier Coulson – worry about your army. Let me worry about the bureaucrats."
Phillip sits back heavily in his chair, stunned by the utter simplicity of it, the ease of it.
"What's to say that they won't run?" He asks, his mind going immediately to the logical, the practicalities of it. "They're housed in the ludo, kept controlled."
"First satisfy the master," Fury explains, waving a single servant forward who busies himself refilling the Emperor's cup with wine, presenting him with an array of fresh fruit. "Words or money."
"Blackmail?"
"Easily accomplished. So. Now you have your men. For a moment forget that they're slaves – what do you do?"
"Begin their trai..."
"Before that."
Phillip scowls, glares.
"Contract them," he says finally. "Hire them. Outfit them, pay them..."
"Incentivize them," Fury nods. "Make it worth their effort. Offer every man their freedom in exchange for three years' service to their country. And while you're at it remind them that the penalty for treason is death."
For a time the two are silent, watching the men moving below as the horns sound and the games are announced. Mention of Phillip's name and accomplishments are made, the purpose of the week's spectacles, and he is made to stand, to make his bow to the people as he raises a hand in acknowledgement of the crowd's roar. He hates it, wishes again for the pain and cold and exhaustion of the battle lines but does his part, disgusted to think what the people must see in him, here when his men are falling against Hydra in the North, regardless of the ulterior motives.
By the time he sits back down he is only slightly better prepared to sit through the farce about to play out below him.
"You have a terrible way of solving my problems for me," he mutters as the first gate rises and men begin to spill out into the arena.
Fury huffs bitterly and slouches down in his seat.
"If only I could solve my own."