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Phil Coulson was a patient man, but that patience did not extend into every aspect of his life. When he had questions, he expected answers and he wasn’t generally the sort to tolerate ignorance.
But some things were beyond his control and, so, he was trying very hard to be patient and not throttle the young doctor who had so far failed to tell him anything useful.
He tried to relax as he watched the young man scroll through page after page of Phil’s medical file. With each new page, the young man would nod as some useful piece of information appeared, but then scowl with confusion as the page went on. He’d refer to charts and shake his head before turning back to some new, possibly more promising page. Again and again.
So Phil breathed slowly and went to his happy place. He thought about Clint, standing buck naked in the doorway of the island apartment they’d rented for a long weekend getaway. He had been roused from a deep sleep by a loud bang just outside the door and instinctively thinking it meant danger, Clint had sprung from bed, grabbed his knife from the side table, and yanked open the door ready to confront whatever terror lurked there.
The ‘terror’ had been a coconut that had fallen and knocked over a planter.
The naked, knife-wielding archer had needed a minute for his sleepy brain to process the scene and accept there was no threat. He stood there, staring at the coconut and rubbing his fingers through his hair while Phil slipped into shorts and came to stand next to him. He’d reached out and brought the offending fruit inside, promising Clint he could interrogate it all he wished.
The pinã coladas had been fantastic.
“It says here, Mr. Coulson…” the young doctor began, snapping Phil from his happy place.
“Agent Coulson,” Phil snapped in response.
“What?” the doctor had asked, looking every bit like he’d just lost his train of thought.
“Agent Coulson.”
The doctor stared at him, trying to figure out the relevance of Phil’s statement. Phil waited a moment and then took a deep breath.
“What does it say, doctor?”
“Oh, right. It says here,” he began, pointing at the screen as if Phil could read it from across the room, “that you were stabbed in the chest and declared dead for several minutes. That’s got to be a pretty traumatic event.”
‘No shit, Doogie,’ nearly escaped Phil’s mouth, but he managed to stay quiet. He thought about Clint instead. Would Clint get a Doogie Howser reference? He’d been living on the street around the time it aired and might have missed it. Phil made a mental note to ask him later. There were so many missing elements from Clint’s youth, things Phil had taken for granted before meeting him, like watching tv or eating square meals. Or having someone to look out for him.
“Yes, I mean, something like that has to leave some psychological impacts.”
“What’s your point, doctor?”
“Well… I think that might have something to do with what’s going on. Your charts are all fine. There’s nothing wrong with you so far as I can tell. But traumatic events can cause some pretty nasty side effects, especially in older people.”
“Excuse me?” Phil asked, bristling at the use of “older.”
“Yeah, an older brain isn’t always able to adapt to trauma the way a younger one can. You may still be trying to process what happened and it’s resulting in phantom pains. Psychosomatic injuries.”
Phil straightened and gave the doctor a cold glare. “You’re saying I’m so old, this is all in my head?”
“uhhhh….. no?” The young doctor swallowed, realizing his mistake. “No, I didn’t mean to imply that you were old. Hardly! Sir, um… but it’s like when my grandfather was in a car accident a few years ago. He…”
“We’re done here, doctor.”
***
Phil strode into Ops still frustrated from the appointment. Three analysts sat at multi-screened terminals watching video images from around the world.
“Where are Barton and Romanov now?” he asked the room as he moved towards his station.
“Romania, sir.”
“I know they’re in Romania, Johnson. I sent them there. Can anyone give me information I don’t have?”
“Uhhh….” the analyst began, tapping away at a keyboard. “The Rembrandt Hotel, sir.”
“Doing what?”
Silence hung around the room.
“What are agents Barton and Romanov doing right now?” Phil clarified forcefully, his patience at an end.
“Just a moment, sir. I’ll have that information…”
“You should never have to look it up. You should know it. When agents are in the field, you should know what they’re doing at all times.”
“Yes sir, it’s just that…”
“I don’t want to hear the excuse. I want to hear the answer.”
The analysts’ keyboards clacked furiously in response.
“Doesn’t anyone know how to follow a damn operation?”
“Agent Coulson, a word.”
Maria Hill appeared in the doorway, arms crossed over her chest. No one in the world gave a better cold glare than Maria Hill. Phil let out a deep breath and followed her into her office.
“I understand you visited medical this morning.”
“Yes.”
“Is there anything I need to know?”
“Apparently not.”
“Then kill whatever it is that crawled up your ass this morning and do your job without berating the techs for doing theirs. Your mission isn’t the only one running today.”
Phil forced himself to relax for a moment and nodded slightly to her in acknowledgement. “Yes, ma’am.”
She continued to stare at him and he knew he was dismissed. He walked back into Ops and studied the analysts’ monitors. They’d all switched to various images of the Rembrandt Hotel.
“I can get agents Barton and Romanov on the line for you, sir.”
He shook his head. Maria was right, of course. Phil had a job to do. Everyone did, including Clint and Natasha. Their operation would begin in earnest tonight so they were most likely catching some rest or running through last minute prep work. If they needed him, they’d check in. Phil knew better than to disturb them.
“No, Johnson. Go back to what you were doing. I’ll take care of things.”
He decided to take a walk for coffee and clear his head. He’d be no good to anyone if he couldn’t focus. And yet his thoughts kept stubbornly drifting away. He was certain the doctor had missed something and that something was definitely wrong with him.
Phil wasn’t exactly sure when it had started. There had been so much pain in the beginning that it was hard to distinguish which was from the initial injury and which came later. There had been pain as he’d pushed himself through rehab, learning how to breathe again, then to stretch and walk. There had been a lot more as he’d pushed himself through requalification and won back his spot with S.H.I.E.L.D.
But then there came random pains at odd times. There had been flutters in his chest while walking home one night. Then there were brief but sharp pains in his side while sitting at his desk. This week, he’d been woken in the middle of the night by pain so intense, he was certain his heart and lungs had stopped all at once. He’d lain in bed motionless, not wanting to disturb Clint but terrified this was it for him. He’d felt the cold sweat build on his skin as numbness spread throughout his body.
‘No,’ he’d told himself. He would not let Clint wake up next to a dead body. He listened to Clint breathe and then focused on his own breathing as if will power alone could make his lungs start working again. ‘In and out. In and out,’ he’d said in his head over and over again matching Clint’s rhythm, until miraculously, his lungs seemed to comply. They slowly, shallowly filled with air and he tasted its sweetness as he’d equally slowly breathed it out. The numbness receded as he watched the time tick quietly by, his heartbeat not quite matching the seconds.
He’d said nothing to Clint the next morning, not wanting to alarm him. Clint would be leaving for Romania the next day and he wanted his attention to stay focused there. Phil would wait until he was gone and then go see medical and get to the bottom of what was happening.
“What’s happening, Agent?”
Tony Stark appeared in the hallway, snapping Phil from his thoughts.
“Mr. Stark. What brings you to S.H.I.E.L.D.?” he asked and, after a pause, “… and how did you get in?”
“Oh, I’m not actually here. It’s all in your head, Agent.”
The coincidence of that statement after this morning’s appointment stopped Phil in his tracks. He coolly considered Tony. He couldn’t know about that, could he? His eyes narrowed. This was Tony Stark he was talking about. Of course he could.
“How about some coffee, Agent. I’m dying for some. You?”
Always suspicious of Tony’s motives, Phil took the bait. “Sure. Your treat.”
***
There was a car waiting for them outside. Happy, Tony’s assistant and chauffer, opened the doors and then sped them off towards Stark Tower.
“This is a long way for us to go for coffee, Mr. Stark.”
“Yeah… well, unlike you I have standards. The coffee you drink is swill compared to what I have. Live a little, Agent.”
They’d said nothing the rest of the way, allowing Tony’s music to fill the ride. At the Tower, Tony escorted them straight to one of his top floor labs, bypassing the living spaces… and Pepper, Phil suspected. Tony was moving a little too purposefully for this to just be a conversation over coffee.
And besides, Phil knew exactly where he was. He’d spent several weeks recovering in this lab.
“So you’ve been listening in on my medical appointments.”
“Not exactly,” Tony replied, busying himself with an expensive looking coffee maker. “But I do have your files flagged. JARVIS gets your results before you do.”
“That’s… disturbing.”
“Yeah well, sue me.” Tony turned to face him. “I have a vested interest in you, Agent.”
“You’re not a doctor, Tony.”
“And yet I seem to know more about what’s going on than your crack medical team over there.”
“Is that so? And what do you know?”
Tony poured coffee into two mugs and handed one to him. “That you’re dying, Phil.”
***
You could say what you wanted about Tony Stark, but he was the smartest person Phil had ever met. And Phil had met some pretty smart people, some of them supernaturally so.
And with those smarts, Tony had saved his life. The more Phil worked with S.H.I.E.L.D. medical, the more certain he was of that fact. S.H.I.E.L.D. would have locked him away after New York, content to let him languish and die in obscurity. He’d have become another anonymous star on the wall. The greater good always prioritized over the individual.
Before New York, Phil would have seen that as the highest mark of honor and accomplishment, but since New York… he’d truly found his Avengers and with them, his life’s purpose. The relationships he’d forged with them were the strongest he’d ever known. They had become his family. Through them, he’d found a sense of belonging and through Clint, love.
All sarcasm and cynicism aside, he owed all of that to Tony. Tony had found him. Tony had recognized what was going on and, for lack of a better description, Tony had rescued him and helped him recover.
And so Phil found himself stripping down to his skivvies and allowing himself to be subjected to a battery of scans and tests. Tony had various results spread across multiple screens and JARVIS recreated several of Phil’s organs as large, 3-D holographic projections. Phil watched as Tony stepped inside his projected lungs and turned himself around in a circle, studying some minute features with great concentration.
“So what’s the word, doc?” Phil interrupted finally. This was becoming the longest coffee break in S.H.I.E.L.D. history.
“Well…” Tony started before trailing off. He hit a few keys on a keyboard and moved off to a table closer to Phil, where he busied himself with equipment. Phil watched a progress bar on the screen slowly fill to 100%.
“The good news, Agent, is that I kind of saw this coming and got started on a little something. It’s not a solution to your problem, though. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea here. It’s more of a band-aid and like all band aids, it’ll be temporary.”
Phil hopped off his table and started sliding back into his shirt, rolling the sleeves while his shirt front hung open. “OK. And the bad news?”
“You’re not going to like it.”
“Tony, I’m sure…” was all Phil got out before Tony wheeled on him and plunged a three inch long spike into Phil’s chest.
Phil’s knees gave out beneath him from the pain and shock. He clutched at Tony’s shirt as he lost the ability to hold himself up. His mouth fell open, gasping for breath he couldn’t get.
Not again. Not Tony.
“Easy, Phil. Breathe. I got you. Breathe it in,” Tony said in a calm voice, holding on to the spike and slowly easing Phil’s weight to the floor.
He looked up into Tony’s eyes through the blur of tears that had formed. ‘Why?’ was all the thought that filled his head.
Then he flashed to the Helicarrier and to Loki. He felt Loki’s spear pierce his heart once again. He felt himself drowning in the blood that began filling his lungs. Again he felt the fear and the terror he’d tried to mask as he realized he was about to see what lay on the other side.
Loki had gotten away with it, too. Phil had shot him, sure, but what was that to a god? He’d killed Phil with no consequence. The only comfort Phil had found was in knowing Fury would unite his Avengers. Just without him.
But not this time. This time, he would look his attacker in the eyes. This time, he would take his attacker down with him.
Phil felt his blood rise with his anger. He planted his foot and started to stand. He grabbed at Tony’s wrist with all his strength and began sliding the spike back out of his chest. But Tony resisted, pushing back with all his strength and keeping the spike embedded.
“No, Phil. You have to leave it. Trust me. Breathe. Try to breathe.”
“Trust?” strangled out of Phil’s mouth as he fought for his life. The pain and the pressure in his head began to mount and he grew more desperate. He’d never win through strength, not while like this, so he turned to his training. He tried holds and locks against Tony’s arms and kicks to Tony’s legs. He grappled fiercely and threw Tony off balance, rolling him to the ground, but Tony had clearly prepared for this. He went with each strike, slung around behind Phil, and maintained control. He wrapped his arm and legs around Phil, holding him immobile against his chest until Phil’s strength started to fade.
“Please Phil, listen to me. Breathe. Try to breathe.”
Phil stopped kicking, the last of his strength gone. Tony kept a steady hand on the spike and a tight grip around Phil.
“Agent, please. Try to breathe. Just breathe,” he said quietly, pleading in Phil’s ear.
Phil didn’t know how he could. The pain was so intense the very thought of how the mechanics of breathing worked were gone from his head. He started to see stars and the dark tunnel closing in.
Then he thought about Clint. Clint winking at him from his perch above Ops, Clint handing him a beer and sitting to join him in their secluded courtyard, Clint lying next to him, sound asleep. He thought about watching Clint’s back while he slept, how the curve of his muscles changed slightly as he breathed.
Then he thought about that breathing - in and out, in a quiet steady rhythm - and he found that his own lungs slowly began to comply. In stuttering bursts, his lungs started to accept air. He again focused on Tony and found him matching Phil’s breaths.
“There you are, Phil, breathe. In and out.”
Phil eased his grip from Tony’s shirt and let his hands fall to his sides as he relaxed. Breathing came a little easier with each breath and the two of them sat like that, breathing together, until a quiet beep played out from Tony’s terminal.
Tony took a deep breath and came around to kneel in front of him without releasing the spike. He put his hand on Phil’s shoulder and looked him in the eyes. Phil could see tears had formed there as well and Phil got a sense of the terror that had filled Tony in these last few moments.
“OK, Agent. I’m going to take it out, real easy. Ok?”
Phil nodded, too tired to do anything else. Tony slowly slid the spike out from Phil’s chest and threw it to the floor. He sat back and leaned against the work bench, watching Phil, letting the adrenaline subside.
“What… the… fuck?” Phil gasped out painfully.
Tony chuckled, relief obviously filling him. “I told you you wouldn’t like it.”
“What’d you’do?” Phil asked, slurring his words together.
“I filled your lungs with nanites. JARVIS, show him.”
Phil’s 3-D projected lungs filled the space above them. They shimmered with golden glitter where before they’d projected as cold, white outlines.
“Your systems are shutting down, Phil. I can’t stop it, at least not yet. But these little guys are going to go through and keep everything working.”
“You… stabbed me… sonofa bitch…”
Tony smiled. “Yeah… I needed you to be completely relaxed when I injected them. I’m sorry about that, by the way.”
“Couldn’t… drug me?”
Tony looked at him incredulously. “Would you really have preferred I drugged you?”
“Yes!” he gasped out.
“Oh.” Tony looked genuinely surprised. “Well, then… sorry. Next time.”
“Son… bitch….” Phil gasped out before closing his eyes and leaning his head back against the table. He sat quietly for a while and focused on his breathing. Slowly, he began to feel stronger.
***
Tony explained that the nanites had short life cycles. They would perform a lot of his system’s operations wherever his organs were shutting down, but they would only last maybe 2 or 3 days before dying off, depending on how active they needed to be. Phil would need to come back for a resupply, preferably before he started to feel too poorly.
As Phil walked back into S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ, he began to feel a lot stronger. In fact, he hadn’t realized just how run down he had become until the nanites began their work. He felt better than his old self, like he was strong enough and fast enough to compete with even the youngest agents. It was energizing and empowering. He even started to whistle as he walked into Ops.
He checked the time. Barton and Romanov should be preparing to leave within the next two hours. It was time to check in. He opened his comm link.
“Agent Barton, I’d like a status update,” he said, always professional when talking shop.
“And a hello and good evening to you, hot stuff,” replied Clint, hardly ever professional when reporting in.
“Is everything in place?”
“Yes, yes. Don’t get your panties bunched. We’re all set to go, here. Though I will be having a word with someone about this outfit when I get back.”
“Agent Romanov?” Phil asked. He tended to trust her assessments just a little bit more. Clint and Nat were a great team, but on mission, Nat was the one with more tactical focus.
“We’re fine, Coulson. He’s just being a baby about the mascara. We’ll check back in when we have Cojocaru.”
“Understood.” Phil kept the comm connection open but settled in for a long evening. He would follow the mission as they experienced it and only interject if necessary.
Cojocaru was a high value target and this was a mission that could be accomplished with old fashioned spy craft instead of brute force. A team was positioned ten minutes out and could be called in case of emergencies, but if all went according to plan, Nat would do most of the work tonight. She would escort Clint to a gallery opening where he was posing as a somewhat dim-witted and highly over-valued American performance artist. She was to approach Cojocaru, a local collector with ties to smuggling, get a feel for his preferences and either bring him back to her room or, as Clint’s assistant, get him to go back with Clint. Either way, they’d wrap him up and find out what he knew about a series of canisters he’d helped move out of the country recently.
When the time came, Phil followed the events closely and smiled, listening to her play the part. He really wished he was with them. He felt so good that he missed the days of running missions like them. But Nat was a genius when it came to matters of manipulation and it was a pleasure to listen to her work.
She had read Cojocaru in seconds and morphed her personality into that of an overwhelmed, disheartened, and slightly drunk assistant. Clint followed her lead and transformed himself into an arrogant, dismissive brat. He caused enough of a scene to drive a ‘tearful’ Nat to the bar, where Cojocaru sat waiting for just such an opportunity to play the hero. He whisked her off for an evening stroll through Bucharest, promising to show her the growing art scene and take her away from her nasty boss. His body guards followed at a respectful distance and a cleaned-up Clint followed along rooftops.
Nat and Cojocaru ducked into a small bar to cool their heels after a long tour of the sights. Nat had convinced him this was her first time abroad and Cojocaru responded by plying her with Romanian vodka. She matched him shot for shot, giggling, flirting, and egging him on to do more until he finally excused himself for the rest room.
“Jeez, Nat. Maybe go easy on the vodka, huh? We want to get the guy home still able to talk,” Clint said over the comms.
“This is not vodka. This is shit,” she replied, dropping the act for a moment. She got up and walked to the bar to mask seeming to talk to herself. She mingled in between businessmen and got the bartender’s attention, ordering a bottle of Russian vodka to take back to the room.
“Well whatever it is, it’s making me thirsty.”
“Well why don’t you come down here and you can take him home.”
“Awww… I’d love to, Nat. But he’s just not my type. Right, hot stuff?”
“Maintain your focus, Barton,” Phil replied, smiling in spite of his tone. He really, really wished he was there with them. They had all the fun these days.
“I don’t think I’m the one who needs to maintain focus. I’m starting to think your guy ditched you, Nat.”
“Well you’d know what that feels like, Clint.”
“Oooo… harsh. But see, I’m a ditcher, not a ditch-ee.”
“Yeah, I doubt that. I bet you’re a crier, too. Ice cream, scented candles, entries in the diary… ‘Why doesn’t anyone love me, diary?’”
“Oh cold, Nat! You’re lucky I know how drunk you are right now. Coulson, I might need you to weigh in here.”
“That’s right, run to your…”
“Quiet, the two of you!” Coulson snapped more harshly then he’d meant. He’d stopped listening to them moments earlier when he caught part of a conversation being had at the bar. Someone there had said ‘blue vengeance,’ a phrase which made all of Phil’s internal alarm bells ring.
“Nat, forget Cojocaru. Get next to whoever just said ‘blue vengeance.’”
“Blue vengeance? Coulson, the guys next to me are talking about Eurovision. In Romanian. What are you talking about?”
“Look around you. Someone there said ‘blue vengeance,’ I want to know who. Look for a deal going down.”
Nat flicked on a small hidden camera so Phil could see the bar. It was sparsely populated. There were a few diners in high-backed booths along the wall, but aside from Nat’s businessmen, the only other patrons were two men chatting quietly at the far end of the bar.
“Them?” she asked Phil as she started walking towards them. “How the hell could you hear their conversation, Coulson? I still can’t.”
The nanites. Phil was instantly convinced the nanites must have improved his hearing enough to pick out that conversation. Damn, these things were useful.
“I must just have a good connection,” he lied. “Get up close to them.”
Cojocaru had emerged from the bathroom and started walking towards her.
“Ah, couldn’t wait for me, eh darling? What do you say we, ah…”
The two men had quickly and suspiciously turned to watch them. Nat pretended to ignore them and walked up to Cojocaru. She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him passionately. Phil caught sight of the men seeming to dismiss them as lovers and turn back to their conversation. Cojocaru leaned down to whisper in Nat’s ear.
“Perhaps we should return to the hotel.”
Nat giggled in response and then Phil picked out the sound of the auto injector she had hidden in her hand. Cojocaru’s weight slumped against her.
“Oh, I think we better stay here just a little longer. Bartender? Some coffee?” she called out in perfect Romanian. The drugged Cojocaru slurred some words as she guided him into the booth opposite the men at the bar.
“Want me to get closer, Coulson?”
“No, I can hear them. Maintain your cover.”
Phil tried to pick out useful intel, but he was coming in at the end of the men’s conversation. They mentioned meeting on Wednesday night, four days from now, but he got no more from them.
“I need you two to track them,” he said to Nat and Clint. “There’s going to be some kind of meeting Wednesday night. You’re going to be there. Observe and report. I need to know what these two are up to.”
“OK,” replied Clint. “You want to tell us what we’re looking at here?”
“I’m not sure yet. You just stay with them.”
“Understood,” Nat and Clint both replied.
***
Blue Vengeance was a deeply troubling phrase for Phil Coulson to hear. It harkened back to his days just before he joined S.H.I.E.L.D. and was in a way, the very reason he had joined.
Phil was serving in Special Operations and his unit had become expert in handling the very bad and the very weird situations that threatened the world from time to time. He had become no stranger to superheroes, mutants, or even aliens.
His closest friend, Nick Fury, had left the unit and rumor was he’d been promoted to some still more secretive group, if that was even possible, so Phil didn’t bat an eye when he was recruited to work in an ultra secret building in the middle of nowhere. He figured he’d run into Nick sooner or later.
But it wasn’t long before he came to realize what a dark place he’d joined.
A young mutant had been brought to the facility allegedly for posing a threat to humanity, but Phil strongly suspected that wasn’t true. Phil’s gut sang out to him that something was terribly wrong. He’d made a point of getting into situations that would allow him to observe the young mutant and more importantly, the people holding him.
The young mutant seemed to have an ability to harness and channel electricity and Phil had seen the military scientists torture him mercilessly in bids to ‘extract’ his powers. Blue Vengeance had been their project’s codename. On seeing their work, Phil had resolved to rescue the mutant, somehow and no matter the cost. It sounded childish even to his own ears, but he knew it was what Captain America would have done. He just had to find a way.
It had taken him over a week to form the plan. To this day he hated himself for leaving the mutant to suffer that long while he got his ducks in a row, but some things were beyond his control. He knew he would need help and it took time to create the right excuse to get away from the facility for an evening. He’d heard about a safe place for mutants in New York State. He’d risked his life to get there and when he did, an older man in a wheelchair had answered the door, smiling. “How can I help?” was all he’d asked.
Two days later, Phil whisked a badly injured and heavily drugged mutant from the facility. His recruiters had mistaken his tact and discretion for blind complacency in the face of orders and Phil had had no problem making that mistake very clear to them. He had caused considerable damage in the escape, but no one had been killed. Phil had accepted that he was officially a traitor, but he refused be a murderer, as well.
He’d taken a bullet to the side and was starting to fade when he’d reached the rally point. The professor and a handsome man in single-lens glasses met them. The cyclops had rushed the young mutant off to a waiting ship but the Professor stayed just a moment longer. He reached out and touched Phil’s hand very gently and then smiled. Phil had had no doubts that what he was doing was right, but standing there with the Professor he was overwhelmed with feelings of goodness and justice. It was a reaffirmation that he would never become complacent to a situation, but instead, always fight to protect those who could not protect themselves.
The next morning, Phil was fresh from a no-name clinic when Nick Fury had knocked on his motel room door and recruited him for S.H.I.E.L.D.
If Blue Vengeance was still active or some part of it was still alive, Phil needed to know and he needed to stop it.
“Do I need to know why your agents aren’t coming home?” Maria Hill asked as she came up to his station.
“They’re following my gut,” he replied. Any other agent would have needed to provide more explanation, but between Phil and Maria, gut was as good as intel. She nodded once and walked away.
***
“Bucharest is nice and all, but it’s sure missing something.”
Phil smiled. “Funny, but I was just thinking the same thing about New York.”
Phil sat in the secluded courtyard behind Clint’s bar. He’d poured a beer and opened a secure line to Clint. Perhaps it was overly sentimental, but Phil liked to come here while Clint was in the field. It let him feel connected despite the distance between them.
“Hmmm… well if only there was someone in charge who could fix our situation…” Clint said, trailing off. Phil smiled but said nothing. He and Clint both knew he wouldn’t leave an agent in the field if it wasn’t important. “Why don’t you come out here and join us? You sound like you know what you’re looking for and I’d love to take you this little café I found. Mind-blowingly good food. And there’s this little bridge in a park up the street. Phil, you should see the stars from there. You’d love it.”
Phil looked up at the stars above the courtyard. There were so few to be seen from New York any more, but Clint knew how much he loved them. Phil wanted so badly to be in Bucharest with Clint. He wanted to be in the field again but more than that, he missed the romance of waking up in a foreign city with a foreign persona. He missed walking into a room knowing he and Clint could play everyone there and when the mission was over, they could sneak away and spend the rest of the evening doing whatever they wanted. In the hyper-watchful world of counter terrorism, those quiet moments of unrecorded freedom were precious.
“I’d love to, baby, but I have a few things I need to follow up on here and you need to focus. You know that’ll never happen if I’m there.”
“Phil, I’m hurt. As if I’d spend mission time thinking about what I wanted to do to you.”
Phil smiled. “No, I’m sure you never would.”
“No, I’d certainly not think about bringing you back to this hotel…”
“I’m sure you wouldn’t.”
“And I definitely wouldn’t think about laying you down on this bed…”
“Of course not…”
Phil smiled again and let Clint talk dirty to him. He only blushed a few times before turning the conversation around and leaving Clint absolutely speechless with thoughts of his own. Phil had always been a creative man. And tonight he felt good.
After they said their goodbyes, he closed his eyes and thought about Clint, the hotel, and the stars above. He really, really wished he was in Bucharest.
***
Phil wasn’t sure what to expect as he approached Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. He knew surprisingly little of the mutants’ community outside what he’d read in files. They had a rather strained relationship with S.H.I.E.L.D. and he wasn’t sure if he’d be welcomed. He had called the Professor first thing that morning.
“It has been a long time, Philip.”
“Yes, sir. It has. But I wouldn’t be coming if it wasn’t important.”
“That’s a pity. You should have found reasons to come even when it wasn’t important.”
Phil recognized Wolverine from his many file photos. For such a reclusive man, he’d had had an awfully large number of public confrontations.
He was standing in the main doorway, his hairy and heavily-muscled arms crossed over his large chest. He was an intimidating figure made more so when he stopped Phil in his path. He’d snarled slightly and then sniffed him. Phil stayed motionless and tried to remain calm as Wolverine slowly circled him, sniffing the air around him. Phil was reminded very clearly he was in the presence of a tremendously powerful creature who could shred him at will.
So Phil did what he always did in highly charged situations; he smiled and waited for Wolverine to come around and meet his eyes.
“What are you doin’ here, bub?” Wolverine asked.
“I have an appointment with the Professor.”
“Not if I don’t let you in.”
The Wolverine chomped on the butt of his cigar and stood immobile. Phil maintained his usual relaxed smile and stood just as immobile. After a long, quiet moment, Wolverine twitched as if hearing a voice and let out a disappointed sigh.
“Follow me.” He turned and started walking towards the door before suddenly turning back and bringing an adamantium claw to Phil’s neck. “And I mean, follow me. Don’t so much as look at any of the kids.”
“Understood.”
Phil knew he’d done nothing to earn the warning, but he didn’t blame Wolverine for being cautious around humans. Especially secret government types.
He was led into a wood-paneled corner office, filled with books. The Professor rolled around his desk to greet him.
“Philip, it good to see you”
“And you Professor, you look well,” he said shaking hands.
Wolverine came to stand next to the Professor and glower at Phil. A woman scantily clad in white – the telepath, Emma Frost, he believed – stood next to an opened side door. Then Phil felt an enormous presence come up behind him, filling the doorway he’d come through. He slowly turned his head and recognized Dr. Henry McCoy, more often known as Beast, by his blue fur, hulking figure... and enormous claws.
“Doctor,” Phil said, masking alarm at what was rapidly becoming a dangerous situation.
“Agent,” McCoy replied politely.
“Forgive our precautions, Philip, but my team has reason to be wary. Would you please follow Miss Frost,” the Professor asked politely, though it clearly wasn’t offered as an optional request.
***
Standing in the presence of four of the most dangerous mutants to ever live made Phil’s decision to comply with Dr. McCoy’s request for a biometric scan rather easy. But unlike the ones Tony had given him, this one was accompanied with head-splitting tension that left him certain McCoy wasn’t the only one scanning him. He looked at Emma Frost out of the corner of his eye and was more than a little disturbed by the intense focus she had on him.
“This is… really, just quite remarkable,” Dr. McCoy had finally said while studying Phil’s scans. “And he’s filled head to toe with nanites. It’s no wonder he smelled ‘off’ to you, Logan. It’s just… remarkable…” he trailed off, staring at the screen.
“Emma?” asked Wolverine. She responded by looking to the Professor, who nodded to her and smiled at Phil.
“Thank you for your patience, Philip. That was a very grave injury you suffered in New York. I’m pleased to see you so well.”
“Thank you, Professor.”
“Come. Let us sit and talk.”
The Professor wheeled out of the room and Phil got up to follow. Wolverine and Emma Frost continued to glare at him coldly and Dr. McCoy continued to stare at Phil’s results. Phil found it hard to believe that simple nanites would be so remarkable to him. His gut called out that something more was going on. But for now, there were other priorities.
***
Phil explained why he was there and asked after the young mutant he’d rescued all those years before. The Professor smiled and watched him curiously before responding.
“Daniel found a safe home here for many years, but I’m sorry to admit he never fully recovered from the trauma of those events. He left here a few years ago and has made it quite difficult for us to locate him. I regret to admit he may be seeking closure.”
“Closure? Do you mean revenge?”
“I can only speculate, and perhaps that is not the reason he has hidden himself from us. Daniel has always been rather withdrawn. But no matter what the reason, I can assure you we would be very interested in locating him. Some of his friends have recently left our grounds as well and… I grow concerned the longer they are away.”
“Do you think they could be in Romania?”
“I honestly do not know, but if we can help you in any way, we will.”
Phil thought of the ‘cautious’ reception he’d received from Wolverine and the others. The Professor read his thoughts… literally, Phil suspected.
“Yes, there is some hesitation among the team on how to assist you. Or if. We tend to look after our own, so perhaps I’ll rephrase and say that our goals are the same in this situation. We will continue to look for ways we can assist you as we work towards that mutual goal.”
The Professor rolled closer to Phil and spoke softly to him. “Some mutants grow up believing they are ‘normal’ humans the same as everyone else around them. When they learn they are… different, the shock and the fear of rejection can be overwhelming.” He reached out and touched Phil’s hand. “This school is a safe haven for all those who feel different, Philip. Perhaps most especially for those who feel betrayed and are angry at those they blame for their situation.”
The Professor paused and looked at Phil with the kindest look he had ever known. He suddenly felt very warm and safe - loved even - and protected.
The professor smiled again. “Please remember that, no matter what you learn.”
***
Phil had a lot to think about on the drive back to New York City. When he’d heard ‘Blue Vengeance’ in the bar, he’d assumed some organization or another was once again targeting mutants. If instead the opposite was occurring, then those men at the bar could very well have been the mutants who left Xavier’s school to join their friend. Clint and Nat needed to be made aware. Phil dialed the in-dash comm and got a line to them.
“Phil, I love hearing from you, but you do know how time differences work, right?”
“Good morning, Clint.”
“Morning? Only by a mere technicality, sugar lips” he said making some yawning sounds. “What’s going on?”
“What’s the status of the two from the bar?”
“Well… there really isn’t much of one. I’ve watched sentries that were harder to follow than these two. Either they’re really bad at what they’re doing or they kind of want to get caught. Nat’s sitting on them now while I… well while I was trying to get some rest. Ahem…”
“I’m sorry, Clint. I’ll let you go in a minute, but first, I have reason to believe the two are mutants and they’re looking for a friend. Either they’re about to cause some serious trouble… or they’re in over their heads and about to get into some.”
“Mutants? Jeez. Ok. How do you want us to play this?”
Phil thought for a moment. Scoop them up now or see how things played out? It made more sense to wait and find Daniel so long as no one got hurt in the process. Plus, Phil was already starting to feel run down. He needed time to get to Tony for some more nanites and get to being his old self. It was disturbing how quickly they’d worn off and Phil knew he needed to be on top of his game for this operation. As much as he trusted Nat and Clint, he thought his ‘old self’ was what might keep this running smoothly. Hopefully, Daniel would remember him.
“For now, just keep a close eye on them and watch out for anyone following them. I have something to do here and then I’m going to fly out. This could go south quickly and I want to be there to help.”
“Sounds good. We’ll keep everyone safe until you get here. And then, Phil?”
“Yes, Clint?”
“I’m taking you out on the town.”
“It’s a date,” Phil said, smiling broadly. It was the second time in an hour he felt so warm and loved and this time, it was without any telepathic intervention.
***
“I told you they were temporary.”
“I know you did and I’m not ungrateful, but is there anything you can do? I won’t be much good if I have to recharge every 2 days.”
Tony turned abruptly and stared and Phil. He seemed to be thinking something through. “What do you mean by that?”
“Nothing in particular. I just feel a bit like a flashlight winding down and the nanites are like new batteries. Does that make sense?”
“More than you know,” Tony replied, relaxing and turning back to his monitors.
“Can I can bring some of them along with me? Inject myself if I need to?”
Tony sighed loudly and sat down. He rubbed his fingers through his hair and then across his face, like he was trying to wake up. Phil suddenly realized how utterly exhausted Tony looked.
“Unfortunately, no, Agent. They don’t work that way. You feel better because they’re keeping your systems functioning, but they aren’t batteries and they don’t have a shelf life. Once I program them, they need to be used.”
“I see.”
“Yeah, so I really encourage you to not go on this trip. Not yet,” he said, turning to look at Phil.
“I have to, Tony. There are lives at stake.”
“There are always lives at stake, Agent. Including yours.”
Phil was deeply touched by the level of concern he could see in Tony’s face. They’d always had a bumpy and complicated relationship. The billionaire, playboy, gun dealer and the honor-bound secret agent. They’d had opposite views on almost every subject that could be discussed, but New York had changed that for the both of them. Now when Phil looked at him, he saw a brother as close as any he’d ever shared a fox hole with. Tony was family and, like family does, Phil knew he was doing everything he could to look out for him. Phil needed to reciprocate.
“Tony, when was the last time you slept?”
Tony chuckled to himself and went back to the coffee maker. “Depends. When was the last time you were here?”
“Tony…”
He waved a dismissing hand. “I’m fine, Phil. Don’t worry. That’s the benefit of being an obsessive genius – sleep gets overrated quickly.” He walked over and handed Phil a new mug of coffee. “But I don’t have a solution for you. At least, not yet.”
Phil watched Tony for a long moment. He wasn’t sure what it was, but there was just something in Tony’s body language that made Phil study him. Something about the way Tony hesitated in making eye contact or kept calling him Phil instead of ‘Agent.’ There was something almost apologetic in Tony’s voice and that was out of character for the man.
Tony was holding something back, that much was obvious, but it was just as obvious that whatever it was, Tony wasn’t being malicious. Phil was confidant his gut would have told him otherwise. But what, then?
“McCoy thought the nanites were pretty remarkable.”
Tony smiled. “Everything I make is remarkable.” He busied himself with a gadget on the bench. It was overly casual, Phil thought. “What else did he say?”
“Nothing much. He just kept saying ‘remarkable’ at my scans.”
Tony nodded and looked distant, lost in thought.
“Of course,” Phil proceeded, “I found it a little odd that someone with his background in bioengineering would be so fascinated by nanites. I mean, he’s seen some pretty remarkable things, I would bet.”
Tony turned to watch Phil.
“It got me wondering…” Phil paused to see if Tony would interrupt, but he didn’t, “… if perhaps there were more than just nanites in my system.”
Tony stared and Phil waited him out, keeping his face neutral and his body language relaxed. After a long moment, Tony spoke.
“What are you asking me, Phil?”
“Is there something you’re not telling me?”
“There are a lot of things I don’t tell you, Agent,” Tony replied, a touch of hostility in his voice.
The last thing Phil wanted was a confrontation. That wasn’t what this was about. He wanted Tony to know he knew there was something more and when he was ready to talk, Phil would be ready to hear it.
“Tony,” he said softly. “Is there anything I need to know?”
Tony considered that for a long while and Phil watched the internal debate play across Tony’s face.
“No,” he said finally.
Phil nodded once. “OK.”
“OK.”
Tony let out a breath Phil realized he’d been holding and went back to his terminals. “I’m going to reach out to Reed. See if he’ll bounce a few ideas.”
“Reed Richards?” he asked. ‘The physicist?’ he thought to himself. It seemed an odd choice, but Reed’s genius was well known.
“I figure you don’t want Bruce or The Other Guy knowing about your little situation just yet. Reed is pretty discrete,” Tony said, trailing off while tapping at the keyboard. Phil could see his focus was already gone, so he let himself out. Despite the lack of answers or solutions, he was feeling pretty good about things.
***
Until he got to the plane.
“Shit, Coulson! Where have you been? Clint’s gone. Everything’s gone to hell,” Nat called out over the comms.
“What do you mean ‘Clint’s gone?’”
“Taken. We were jumped. I’m trying to track them now, but Coulson, these guys were pros.”
The idea that someone had been able to ‘jump’ Clint and Natasha was simply staggering. “What happened?”
“Cojocaru was on to us from the start. The bartender was working for him and laced the vodka with some kind of tracker. They walked right up to me today.”
“Are you injured?”
“I’m fine,” she replied. “It was amateur hour. I took care of them and I’ve got Cojocaru in the trunk, but when I looked up, Clint and the men were gone. Just gone, Coulson. I have nothing on them anywhere.”
Cojocaru’s men approaching Nat had been a distraction, it had to have been. No amateur could just walk up to Clint Barton and take him, especially not that quickly. Something very bad had just happened.
“I’m still ten hours out. You get Cojocaru to talk, then we find Clint.”
***
Ten hours is a long time to sit cooped up with nothing but your thoughts. Coulson ran through scenarios, searching for the details he’d missed. And then he started to plan. These guys may be pros, but so was he.
A deadly calm settled over him. His focus was the sharpest it had been in decades as he sat and coolly considered his options. Phil had access to the most advanced communication and tracking equipment on Earth. He had weapons at his disposal that could level mountain ranges. He could rally armies, Avengers, and extraterrestrials with a single phone call. The President himself had less authority than Agent Phil Coulson.
And these ‘pros’ thought they would hold the man he loved? They didn’t know what being ‘pro’ was. Phil was about to teach them.
When Phil stepped off the plane in Bucharest, he was quite possibly the deadliest man on Earth.
***
“He’s an idiot,” Nat gave as her debrief. She’d moved Cojocaru to a quiet motel on the outskirts of the city. She had asked him several questions. Politely, at first. It hadn’t taken long for him to tell her everything he knew.
Cojocaru was running anything he could – guns, girls, drugs, whatever someone needed moved. He’d recently begun moving mutants for a group who didn’t provide details and of whom he didn’t ask. They paid in American dollars and he got them whatever they needed. It was enough of a departure from his usual though, that he’d become quite paranoid the X-Men or someone else might take notice. He’d investigated every strange acquaintance he’d made over the past year. Nat had been no different.
He was unrestrained and sitting quietly on the bed when Coulson walked in. He appeared unharmed but Phil was sure Nat had terrified the hell out of him. She was good at that.
“Tell me about this group,” Coulson said quietly while taking off his jacket and setting it carefully across a chair. Cojocaru watched each movement with the terrified watchfulness of prey caught in a trap.
“I already told her everything, please. There is not much to tell. They show up, they don’t talk. They just take what I have and leave the money.”
“How do they arrive?”
“Trucks, SUVs, old cars – it is different every time. The men are different every time.”
That M.O. reminded Phil of his time before S.H.I.E.L.D. They had used stolen and salvaged vehicles rather than government issued ones to maintain their stealth and had rotated members among the teams to complicate surveillance.
“Then how do you know they’re the same group?”
Cojocaru flinched slightly. Nat had clearly taught him to regret conflicting statements. “They are the same. They walk the same, dress the same…”
Coulson thought about that. Say what you will, but soldiers tended to have a certain walk. It was one of the reasons agencies liked S.H.I.E.L.D. preferred to recruit civilians for covert work. Perhaps Blue Vengeance was back in play after all.
“How did they first get in touch with you?”
“An old man bought several of my paintings for ten times their value. When they shipped, he had me ship another crate as well. I knew what was in it. I didn’t care and he liked that. He had me ship others and then acquire as well.”
“Acquire? Do you mean ‘acquire mutants?’”
He flinched again and looked at Nat. She didn’t move, but Coulson noticed his breathing grow more rapid. “Yes. They are more common than people realize. You see them everywhere - fortune tellers, healers… they aren’t hard to find. They’re all on YouTube and Twitter these days telling all the world what they can do.”
“I see,” Coulson said, getting up and pouring a glass of water. “That’s pretty disturbing, Mr. Cojocaru, especially now that they’re holding someone very important to me and my colleague here,” he said, indicating Nat.
“…I…I know and, and… I’m very sorry about that. I want to help you.”
“That’s good, Mr. Cojocaru,” Phil replied, handing him the glass of water. Cojocaru hesitated before reaching out and taking the glass. He didn’t drink, but held it tightly to his chest. Phil watched his shaking hands disturb the water’s surface. Nat must have done a real number of his head.
“Then tell me; how do you get in touch with them?”
“I don’t.”
“Then how do you let them know you’ve - what was the word you used? - ‘acquired’ someone for them?”
Cojocaru swallowed again. “I… I… hold them. In a secure location until they are moved.”
“I see. And yet, when my colleague went to check out this secure location – you did say it was a secure location, right?” Phil asked, moving to sit down very close to Cojocaru on the bed. Cojocaru nodded. “She didn’t find anything, just a smoldering ruin. What do you think about that, Mr. Cojocaru?”
Phil started sliding on a pair of black, latex gloves. Cojocaru watched him intently.
“Because you see, what I think that means is that you are no longer of use to them. And if you are no longer of use to them…” Phil smiled and looked in Cojocaru’s eyes, “… I can’t imagine what use you are to us.”
“Coulson,” Nat said quietly. He turned slowly to look at her, knowing she would never interrupt him unless it was important. She was clearly listening to something come through her earpiece. He turned back to Cojocaru.
“Would you excuse me for a second?”
Phil stepped towards the door with Nat. A police report had come through that a dozen or so persons had wandered out the woods claiming to have been held prisoner. They were reporting that an ‘angel’ had freed them and set fire to their prison. The police were considering them delusional and were calling for counselors as well as medical teams.
“Coulson, what the hell is going on?” Nat asked.
Phil thought about Daniel. When he’d seen him all those years ago, he’d had an unmistakable glow about him, shining from a bioluminescent light that Phil thought could easily seem heavenly. “I think we walked into the middle of a war.”
“Between the mutants and your old bosses?”
Phil nodded. “Between one mutant and them, yes. And I think we have very little time to find Clint.”
Playing a hunch, he turned back to Cojocaru. “The tracking liquid you used on my colleague… did you use it on the mutants you grabbed.”
“Yes.”
“Tell me how it works.”
***
The clear tracking dye gave off a slight radioactive signature. Cojocaru could track it for a few days at best before it had passed out of their systems, but once the S.H.I.E.L.D. techs knew what to look for, they were able to search over broader areas for even residual signals. They identified those brought to the Bucharest hospitals, a few who had hidden themselves throughout the city, and then, a cluster of signatures in the wooded mountains near the Ukrainian border.
Phil and Nat organized their teams and went North. Phil tried very hard not to let his thoughts drift to Clint, but found they kept stubbornly slipping away. He knew Clint was capable of handling most situations, but he also knew the pain these scientists were capable of inflicting.
‘Scientists,’ he scoffed in his head. He needed to stop calling them that. Phil’s techs were scientists. These bastards were monsters. And luckily, S.H.I.E.L.D. was very good at handling monsters.
***
The sun was coming up as they approached the facility. It was instantly familiar to Phil – a nearly identical layout to the original facility where he’d been stationed. It must be the same organizing hand, just running underground now in these foreign woods.
Phil decided he would level this place by day’s end.
But first, they needed to infiltrate and rescue the hostages. He, Nat, and a few select troops would move in, secure the hostages, and then call for the larger assault teams. Air support would provide cleanup.
They took out several guards at once, moving quickly and quietly. Phil led the way towards the main building before calling the teams to fan out. Nat led one team towards the rear entrance while another team went for the roof. Phil, however, led his team right to the front door. They needed to get in quickly before the monsters had a chance to execute hostages, so he blew out the entire wall and lit the place up with flashbang charges.
He could hear explosions and gunfire at opposite ends of the building and knew the other teams were keeping guards very busy. His team quickly ended the resistance they faced and Phil marched further up the hall into the laboratory space. He remembered how his facility had been organized and he felt confidant he’d find the hostages in a series of pens one level below ground. He went to the elevator, readying his pistol and a few other toys he’d brought.
“Sir, should we come with you?” asked his lead operative.
“Give me a moment. I’ll clear the area for you,” he calmly replied. As the doors shut, he found he was disappointed there was no muzak to accompany him on the descent. He’d quite liked the thought of inflicting mayhem to the sounds of tinny Abba.
When the doors opened on the lower level, guards immediately filled the elevator with bullets. He waited patiently, tucked to the side. When the firing stopped, he tossed a small metal ball into the passage. The repulsor grenade lit the space and sent the guards flying in all directions.
Phil walked out with his pistol up and took care of the two guards still upright. He casually stepped over a body and moved down the passage towards a pair of electronically locked doors. He didn’t have time for the fancy hacking equipment his techs had provided, so he took a page from Tony Stark’s playlist instead. He pulled the mini plasma cannon he’d brought and blasted a hole clear through the wall adjacent. Minding the glowing, melted remains of the wall’s steel girders, he stepped into a large warehouse space.
As he had thought, the far wall was lined with sheet-draped cages. The rest of the space was surprisingly bare, with only a handful of lab spaces and gurneys. A pair of men in lab coats were hovering in a corner while another held his hand over a keyboard.
“Stay back or I will kill them,” he called out to Phil.
Phil looked above the cages and noticed a series of sprinklers dangling above. It was highly likely they’d dose the hostages with a poison of some kind.
“I’d really prefer you reconsider that statement,” he replied.
“No, no. I’m in charge here. You’re going to turn around and…” was all he got out before Phil put a bullet in him. He turned to the other two ‘scientists.’
“Perhaps one of you will be more helpful.”
The two raised their hands and immediately started nodding. Phil heard the elevator ‘bing’ from behind him and he was soon joined by Nat and her team. They moved quickly, pulling sheets from cages and surveying the state of hostages. All were injured and in various states of drug-induced stupors, but none of them were Clint or the men from the bar.
“All teams move in, clear the grounds. There are more hostages elsewhere. Find them.”
He turned back to the ‘scientists.’ “Where are the others?”
“There aren’t…” the one started to say before Phil leveled his pistol and advanced on him quickly. He held the gun to the man’s head.
“Think very carefully about your next words.”
The man gulped, but said nothing. The other man, however, was clearly a bit smarter. “They’re being evaluated,” he said. Holding the gun steady, Phil turned his head to look at him.
“Show me.”
***
The ’evaluation room’ was not a room at all, but a series of grated pits at the far end of the grounds. When Phil and his team peered in, they saw that the pits were empty and the metal bars locking the grates had been melted into the ground. Phil wheeled on the ‘scientist,’ placing the gun to his head.
“They were here! I swear…” he cried out.
Shouting from an out building garage pulled their attention. Phil heard an electrical hum and the building lit up with flames. Then he heard “No, no, no, wait!”
Clint.
Then gunfire.
Phil took off running. His team struggled to catch up.
Phil walked into the smoky garage unable to see more than a few feet in front of him. The fire had spread along the walls and was lapping at the roof beams. His foot hit something and he kneeled down, finding the unconscious, bleeding body of one of the men from the bar. He was alive, but had been shot. Phil grabbed him by the shoulders and dragged him outside. Then he plunged back in.
He could make out a light blue glow coming from the rear of the garage. It had to be Daniel. He moved towards him cautiously through the thick smoke. He struggled to breathe shallowly and not give away his position by coughing.
“It’s over, let him go,” Phil heard Clint say. But then there was a roar and a series of crashes. Phil rushed forward, pistol leveled.
He remembered this ‘scientist,’ but he didn’t remember him having claws.
The ‘scientist’ had leapt on top of Clint and was sitting on his bleeding chest like a leopard. Large claws protruded from his hands and lightly gripped Clint’s throat. Daniel stood just to the side, looking ready to fight the ‘scientist.’ Little tendrils of blue electricity seemed to zip between his finger tips. The other man sat shirtless and bleeding on the ground. He had deep claw marks in his shoulder and enormous wings unfurled from his back.
How had he missed seeing those at the bar?
Phil walked up calmly, his gun aimed at the ‘scientist’s’ head. Clint turned his head slightly and smiled.
“Hey, sweetie! What took you so long?”
Daniel looked to Phil and recognition seemed to spread over his face. ‘He remembers me. Good,’ Phil thought.
The ‘scientist’ sneered, revealing fangs and an elongated tongue.
“I guess you found a way to ‘extract’ their powers after all,” Phil said.
“He takes genetic samples and splices them with others,” Daniel explained, the electricity between his fingers seeming to spark more violently. “He needs to be stopped.”
“He’s about to be,” Phil replied taking a step closer.
“He’s already done something to your friend.”
Phil stopped cold and, after a moment’s hesitation, turned to look at the winged man who stared at him almost apologetically. The scientist took advantage of the distraction. He dug a set of claws deep into Clint’s shoulder and then they both disappeared with a popping sound. Phil wheeled at Clint’s cry and fired two shots where the man had been just a fraction of a second earlier.
“He can teleport?!”
“Not very far,” the winged man said. “I can follow if you’ll let me.”
Phil didn’t hesitate this time. He nodded quickly and the winged man took his hand and that of Daniel’s. They ran out of the garage before the roof began to collapse and they were all lifted skyward.
They soared over the treetops following the popping sounds as Clint and the ‘scientist’ moved further into the forest. The length between popping sounds began to stretch out to longer intervals and it became harder to follow. Occasionally they would swoop down low enough to touch the branches while the winged man listened intently. Then hearing a pop, he’d flap off in pursuit, jerking Phil’s shoulder mercilessly. They covered more ground than they could have in vehicles, but it was not a great way to travel.
The toll of carrying two grown men as well as deep wounds was quickly proving too much. Blood began to drip down onto Phil and the flapping became more erratic. Before long, they flew towards a rocky ridge and the man set them down.
“I cannot… continue…,” he gasped out. “I am sorry.” Daniel placed a hand on his friend’s uninjured shoulder and thanked him.
“Will you be alright here?”
“Yes. I can make it back, but I can’t carry you anymore.”
“Thank you for bringing us this far,” Phil said, trying to subtly test his shoulder. He wasn’t ungrateful, but he thought he might need those nanites to make some repairs.
“I think they are moving mostly on foot, now,” the man continued. He twitched at the sound of another pop, not far below them. “There,” he directed their attention.
Phil nodded. He could see the ‘scientist’ standing over a kneeling Clint, watching the woods behind him and looking to see if they’d been followed.
“When they grabbed my friends, your man tried to help. I owe you and him a debt. I will help you save him,” Daniel said softly. He reached out to shake Phil’s hand but then jerked back quickly as if shocked. He looked at Phil suspiciously, then curiously. Then he smiled and started down the ridge face.
“Come along, secret agent man.”
***
Phil had exerted a lot of energy in the past 24 hours, he knew that. He was exerting a lot more now as he moved quicker down the ridge than he thought he might have been able to before the nanites. They had to be working overtime and it was clearly taking a toll. He’d felt a few twinges in his side that reminded him of his earlier problems, but he pushed them from his mind. He had to get to Clint. That was all that mattered.
It didn’t take them long to find him, either. He could hear Clint complaining. Loudly.
“Seriously, guy. Just slow down a bit, alright? I’m not in full form here, you know?”
“Shut up!” hissed back a reply.
Phil smiled. That sounded like Clint to piss off his captor with incessant chatter. His own little Red Chief.
“Keep moving!”
“I am… I’mjusta bit…”
Phil heard Clint slur those last few words and then heard him fall. Phil launched himself into a dead sprint down the remaining way, jumping off twenty feet from the bottom. He rolled with it and came up sprinting. He fired two rounds into the ‘scientist’ before he’d even seen Phil approach.
If the two rounds affected him, he didn’t show it. He roared at Phil and disappeared with a pop. He was behind Phil in a blink. Phil felt his claws materialize and grab the back of his neck.
Just like Loki. Again.
But then the air filled with an electric hum. A scream could not escape the ‘scientist’s’ mouth because the electricity coursing through his body caused his jaw to seize. Phil felt his claws scrape down his back as the ‘scientist’ fell, twitching to the ground.
When Phil turned, Daniel was there, sparks still lighting some of his fingers tips.
“Thank you,” he said.
Daniel shook his head. “I have not saved you yet. We still have to get out of these woods.”
Now Phil shook his head. “That’s alright. I have…” he reached up for his earpiece and found it wasn’t there. It must have fallen somewhere on the outcrop. He reached for his cell and found a shattered box of glass and wires, courtesy of his roll.
“Well, shit,” he said finally.
He looked down at Clint. He’d lost a lot of blood as well as his consciousness. Phil knelt down to address the wounds first. He knew they’d have to hike out of there.
“We need to get him ready for travel and then we’ll head East. We should hit the road to Suceviţa.”
‘Aw, Clint,’ he thought to himself. ‘I love you, but I hadn’t planned on carrying you over a damn mountain today.’ Then he called on whatever God heard such cries and begged the nanites would keep him going long enough to get them both out of there.
***
It was frightening how often Phil had to turn to his survival training.
He told Daniel what to do and they quickly crafted a crude gurney from branches, their belts, and the lab coat they’d stripped off the body. Phil had patched Clint up as best he could. The bleeding had stopped, but Phil was worried about the damage done. He wrapped his jacket around Clint’s torso and hoped the sun would also help keep him warm.
Neither Phil nor Daniel were much for chit chat, but they fell into sporadic conversation as they worked their way through the woods carrying Clint between them. They hiked for hours and as the sun started to set, Phil led them up a final rise. They could see the lights of the village below in the distance. They could probably push on and reach it, but Phil was rapidly losing steam and he was worried about Clint getting too cold. He called for them to rest.
He sat Clint up and slid behind him, resting his back against a tree. He pulled Clint close, letting his head rest against Phil’s chest. He wrapped his arms around him, trying to keep him warm, and rested his chin against the top of Clint’s head.
As he sat, he started to realize just how tired he’d become. And that his feet no longer responded.
They had simply stopped working and he was unable to get to them to so much as wiggle. The journey would have been exhausting for anyone, but in Phil’s state… maybe the nanites hadn’t been able to keep up with him. He methodically took an inventory of his other limbs. His arms still worked, but they were moving more slowly now, as if in molasses. He was dying and he knew it.
The thought settled over him like a chill. Tony had been right. He shouldn’t have come on this mission. He should have left it to Nat and the teams. But the thought of just sitting back while Clint was in danger had just never occurred to him as a rational choice. It still didn’t, but now he recognized what it would cost him.
But it was alright, he thought to himself. He’d faced death before. And as long as Clint survived, it would be worth it this time.
“Aw, Clint,” he whispered into his lover’s ear. “I’m so sorry baby. I don’t think I’m going to be able to get us out of this one.”
He felt like crying, but found the tears wouldn’t form. He closed his eyes and leaned against Clint.
“Daniel?” he asked softly.
“Yes?”
“Can you carry him the rest of the way?”
“I can. Do you not think you can continue?”
He sighed and held Clint a little tighter, while he still could.
“I do not. I need you to get him to someone who can help.”
Daniel knelt down next to Phil and looked curiously at him. “Do you not think I can help you as well?”
Phil slowly shook his head. Even that motion had proved difficult. The nanites were done and this was the end. He kissed the top of Clint’s head while he still could.
“I love you, baby,” he whispered quietly before speaking to Daniel. “We’re too heavy for you to carry us both and I can’t go on any more.” He forced his eyes open and looked at Daniel. “Save him. Please.”
“Your friend means a great deal to you,” Daniel said after a moment.
“Yes, he does.”
“You love him.”
“Yes.”
“Then let me help you both.”
Daniel reached down and took Phil’s hand. He felt a surge of electricity travel from Daniel and up his arm. Intricate lines like wires lit up in pale blue under Phil’s skin. He stared at them feeling not pain, but a growing strength in his arm’s muscles.
‘Recharging,’ flashed through his mind.
He watched with growing amazement as Daniel channeled energy into his body and he felt his systems respond. He began to feel strong, like he could carry Clint himself the rest of the way. He looked up to Daniel.
“How?”
“You were simply worn down. This will help you get the rest of the way until you can be repaired.”
Repaired. Like a machine. It was an interesting word choice.
“Daniel,” he asked. “How did you know about the nanites?”
“Nanites?”
“The little robots in my body.”
Daniel shook his head. “I don’t know about those, but I can see the way electricity flows through your wires. Your power core has very little energy left. Will you be able to replace it?”
Phil was speechless. He stared at Daniel as if he had just spoken gibberish. And then the thoughts came flooding in: the way he’d shocked Daniel shaking his hand, McCoy’s fascination with his scans, the Professor’s knowing offer of sanctuary ‘for all those who felt different’, and then…
Odin’s gift of power.
‘My God,’ he thought with clarity that rang like a bell in his head. ‘Odin gave me a goddamned battery.’
Of course. The thought struck him like a thunderbolt. This was what Tony had been hiding.
He thought about waking up in Stark Tower hooked to dozens of machines, of Tony’s intense interest in him during recovery, Tony’s insistence that Phil stay with him in the Tower, little patches of missing time from his early days recovering, every time Tony looked at Phil in an assessing way, and, every time he hesitated to answer a question, then…
Phil was a machine. Another one of Tony’s remarkable creations.
Another one of Tony Stark’s goddamned toys. It made no sense and yet, perfect sense.
He looked down at Clint and he went numb. Did Clint know? He’d been with him at the Tower right from the beginning. He’d never left his side. He’d conferred with Tony over every little detail of Phil’s progress…
Did he do this with Tony? Was Phil his toy? Had he been… programmed to love and trust him?
Phil’s world fell off its axis.
***
He said nothing the rest of the way out of the woods. They made it to Suceviţa before it was too late in the evening. He left Clint and Daniel near an inn and then wandered off, moving aimlessly through the streets and fields. He eventually found himself on the grounds of an ancient monetary.
He sat on a bench and looked up at the painted walls that were lightly lit for the evening. Scenes of ancient warriors, saints, and angels filled his vision. He thought back to religious teachings from his childhood and realized he was staring at the Last Judgment.
He let his head fall into his hands and rest a while before turning to look up to the stars. How he’d loved watching the stars and how he’d grown to love watching them with Clint…
Was it a lie? Was anything real?
The tears that wouldn’t form before came rushing out now. What was he? And what was left for him when he could no longer even trust his own thoughts were his own? Was his trusted ‘gut’ no more than a sequence of Tony’s algorithms?
He was a dead man walking. He’d died at Loki’s hand. What remained – this framework of wires – was not him. Not any longer.
He was an abomination. A monster. A freak.
“You are not any of those things, Philip,” came a quiet voice from behind him.
“You got here quickly, Professor,” he responded after taking a moment to compose himself.
The Professor’s hovering chair moved up alongside him. “We were ‘in the neighborhood,’ so to speak. Henry is looking after Clint this very moment. Dr. Corvo’s crude attempt to splice genetic material onto his will not hold. Henry is confidant the danger is minimal and can be reversed.”
He paused to give Phil a chance to speak but finding silence, he continued. “It is a funny thing, to realize you’re different. Some embrace it with relief, others run from it.”
“I’m not one of your mutants, Professor.”
“No, but your view of yourself has just changed quite radically.”
They sat silently for a while, the Professor seeming to allow Phil to process his thoughts in peace. “Cogito ergo sum, Philip” he said after a while.
“I think, therefore I am,” Phil translated. “That’s a little patronizing, don’t you think?”
The Professor chuckled. “Perhaps. Your body is now synthetic, but your mind remains your own. Does that not make you as human as any of us?”
“Says the mutant.”
The Professor smiled back and then cut straight to the heart of Phil’s fears. “He does not know about your… condition, Philip. He never has. Miss Frost is quite certain of that.”
Phil slowly turned and looked at him, a slight flutter in his chest. A power fluctuation? Hope?
The Professor smiled his kind smile and turned to look up at the mural. “Death and the resurrection of the worthy. It is rather appropriate you would be drawn here, is it not?”
“I’m not the Christ, Professor.”
“No, of course not, but you are loved.” He turned to look into Phil’s eyes. “Do you need to be more than that?”
***
He and Clint hitched a ride back with the X-Men. He’d called Maria with the excuse that he needed to oversee Clint’s care but really, he just couldn’t bear the thought of facing Nat and the other operatives just yet. He needed to be alone and found a quiet place to rest and think within Xavier’s grounds.
He was sitting in the garden still trying to figure out his next move when Clint walked up and sat down to join him.
“I’ve been looking all over for you,” he said. “What’s a guy gotta do to get you to come visit?”
Phil smiled briefly. “I’m sorry, Clint. I knew you needed the rest.”
“Bullshit. You’re avoiding me.”
“Clint…”
“Why? Is it because… because of what that guy was gonna do to me?”
“What?” Phil turned and looked at him. Clint had that look he occasionally got when he was angry and frustrated and upset all at once. It was tragic and adorable all at once. “No, Clint. Of course not. I’ve just… had a lot on my mind.”
“Yeah, you and me both. What if I’d grown fucking horns, or something? Could you imagine that? Like Hell Boy sized horns?” He asked, gesturing to show the size of his imaginary horns.
Phil laughed in spite of himself. “Yes, could you imagine? I’d like to see you fire an arrow around those,” he said, trying to keep the light moment.
But Clint did not laugh. His face was heavily shadowed and Phil realized the anxiety he’d been feeling.
“But what if I had, Phil. Would you… would you have stuck by me?” he asked in the quietest voice Phil had ever heard him utter.
Phil wasn’t sure what to say. He’d spent the last two days trying to think about what he should do or say to anyone about anything. He tried to think how knowing what he knew would affect his place at S.H.I.E.L.D., his friendships, his Avengers… but no matter what he tried to think about, all thoughts always came back to Clint. Would Clint accept him? Would Clint still love him? Could Clint still love him? Love a machine?
And here Clint was, asking essentially the same question of him.
Phil reached out and took Clint’s hand.
“Of course I would, Clint. Horns, claws, wings… whatever. I love you.”
Clint nodded in a jittery way and Phil watched the tension drop out of his shoulders. Clint leaned over and kissed him, sweetly at first and then with more passion. He wrapped Phil up in a heavily muscled hug and Phil realized the terror he must have worked up for himself before asking that question. He closed his eyes and leaned into the embrace.
Clint loved him. He knew that. But would he still after he knew? Phil felt the same terror begin to well inside him and he knew what his next move needed to be. He needed to do what Clint had been brave enough to do and ask him just how much his love could tolerate. If all went well, he’d tell Tony about the gift from Odin. Maybe he and Reed could figure something out. And if things didn’t go well…
No. He pushed those thoughts from his mind. He took a leap of faith.
“Clint. There’s something I need to tell you.”
*******