Chapter Text
Once upon a time Clint had loved standing on the rooftop of SHIELD’s New York headquarters. He could see the whole city from there, and no one ever disturbed him. Every now and then, Natasha or Phil would join him in contemplative silence, standing shoulder to shoulder and enjoying the view. That rooftop had been one of Clint’s favourite places.
Not anymore.
All it showed him these days was the destruction Loki and his army had wrought on the city. It had been almost five months, and Manhattan was slowly patching itself up, cranes and construction sites still the prevailing sight everywhere. Clint made himself look – made himself remember. He watched improvements and delays, damaged buildings coming down and new ones coming up, and as the city healed so did he. He was getting there, slowly but surely, but nightmares – memories – still kept him up at night, which was why he was on the roof watching the sunrise, mindless of the freezing January temperatures and the snow falling softly on his shoulders. He knew no one would bother him: only two persons would know where to find him and care enough to lure him back inside. But Phil was in Portland recovering, and Natasha was shadowing him on Fury’s orders.
That sucked, by the way. Clint always bounced back quicker when he had someone to take care of.
Surprisingly little had changed since the attack on the city. After a couple of months of high alert, resurrections and media frenzy, it had become clear that nothing else was going to happen. So the Avengers had gone back to their lives, lives that intersected only rarely. After all, they weren’t a team, not really – just a bunch of people thrown together that one time when circumstances had demanded it. They barely knew each other, and they were all too busy doing their own thing to change that.
With Thor in Asgard doing God things, Stark in California doing Stark things, and Banner having gone off grid the second Stark had let him out of his sight, Rogers was the only one still around. The man had needed a purpose after everything had settled down, and Fury had been more than happy to offer him a job. Clint saw him sometimes – they passed each other in hallways and sat together in the cafeteria when they happened to be there at the same time. Rogers was a good guy, but Clint hadn’t felt that sociable lately. Besides, the man inevitably made him think of Phil, which led to other things Clint was actively trying not to think about.
Near-death experiences had stopped having an effect on him a long time ago – he wouldn’t have lasted as long as he had in his line of work otherwise. Real deaths though? Recent events had shown that still messed with his head, no matter how temporary it ended up being.
Clint could have done without that realisation.
Phil’s death had been devastating, and he had mourned him, but not as a lost handler or a friend – not just that, anyway. It had felt like he had lost more, the hole in his chest mirroring the one in Phil’s. There had been guilt, yes, but something else too, an unfulfilled potential that would never become fully realised. The irony of coming to terms with the fact that he had been in love with Phil after being responsible for the man’s death hadn’t been lost on Clint, and he had spent days in a haze of what ifs, my fault and if onlys.
Fortunately for Clint Phil had turned out not to be dead after all. Unfortunately dying had had a similar impact on him – one that hadn’t involved Clint. So while Clint had resolved to use this miraculous second chance to ask Phil out for coffee once he was out of the hospital, Phil’s thoughts had turned towards his former girlfriend.
Clint had walked into Medical one morning to find Phil on the phone with Sylvia, voice soft and tentative.
“Are you guys back together?” he had asked him afterwards, and when Phil had smiled Clint had known he wouldn’t say anything after all. He wasn’t an asshole: trying to figure out if he had a shot with Phil when the man was single was one thing. Dumping his confused feelings on him when he was working things out with his girlfriend was something else entirely.
So Clint had put up a good front, and had ignored the too tight feeling in his chest. He had lied, told Phil it was great – that he was happy for him. And he was, because the fact that Phil was even around to break his heart was miraculous, and Clint would take that over the alternative any day. He’d rather have his friend alive and happy with someone else than dead and lost forever.
He would just have to suck it up.
Besides, it wasn’t like anything had changed. Yes, he was now aware of a brand new range of Phil-related feelings, but he had obviously had those for a while, he just hadn’t known about them. All he had to do was learn how to ignore them, and he would be right as rain again. He would move past this, as soon as he was done dealing with the other stuff – what he had done under Loki’s control took precedence over his non-existent love life.
Phil electing to do his rehab in Portland so he and Sylvia could get reacquainted had helped. Fury sending Natasha with him because the paranoid fucker didn’t like the thought of one of his best agents without backup while not at 100% hadn’t. Clint had felt very much alone these past few months and–
The blaring sound of klaxons signalling an intruder in HQ wrenched Clint back to the present, and he bolted for the door, his phone already in hand – with good reasons. He had barely made it down a flight of stairs before it rang.
Hill.
“We need you on Sublevel 3,” she said. “The bunker.”
“Copy that,” Clint acknowledged and ran faster, ignoring the way some agents flinched as he went by. He couldn’t blame them – after all, the association of Hawkeye with the intruder alert hadn’t worked out so great for SHIELD the last time around, and it was bound to bring back bad memories for some of them.
Shoving those thoughts to the back of his mind, Clint made it to the bunker in record time. A first response team had beaten him there, and the first thing he heard was Rogers’s voice.
“Agent Coulson, put the gun down.”
The guy sounded strained, and there was an edge to his voice that told Clint it hadn’t been not the first time he had asked.
Wait.
Agent Coulson?
Clint shoved people aside to see what the hell was going on, and there was Phil, backed into a corner with a death-drip on a gun that was pointed directly at Captain America. From the terribly blank look on his face, Clint knew he wasn’t really seeing him – wasn’t seeing any of them, his brain in primal mode registering only potential threats.
“Back off, all of you,” Clint growled at the others. Couldn’t they see there was something wrong and it was Phil and they were not helping?
Rogers frowned at him, but he must have decided Clint was the best equipped to deal with the situation because he gave a short nod of confirmation to the response team – and wow, it didn’t hurt at all that they needed Cap to confirm his order. But there was no time to deal with that, so Clint ignored them as soon as they took a few steps back, focusing on Phil instead.
“Phil, it’s me, you’re at HQ,” he said, gentling his voice despite the heartbeat thundering in his ears. Phil blinked at him slowly, and Clint chose to take that as a good sign. “Think you can put the gun down? You’re making people nervous.”
The gun wavered, and Clint tried to smile encouragingly. It was kinda hard, because Phil looked like crap, he almost didn’t look like Phil, tired and worn in a way that couldn’t be healthy, and where the fuck was Natasha? There was a reason she was supposed to be watching Phil’s back, the man was in no shape to deal with any kind of stress, though Clint had thought he would be better by now. Clearly, he had been wrong. And what the fuck was Phil even doing here? He was supposed to be on the other side of the country.
“Clint?” Phil said, disbelieving and confused, and as the gun finally came down, safety reengaging, a small form darted past him. Phil made an abortive motion to grab the kid – seriously, what? – and missed, reflexes made slower by exhaustion and whatever else was wrong with him, and the kid launched itself at Clint with a sob.
“Daddy!” he cried and Clint suddenly found himself with his arms full, which meant he couldn’t catch Phil when his knees buckled from under him.
Clint stared at the kid sobbing into his chest, at Phil passed out on the floor, and then at Rogers and the rest of the agents crowding the back of the room. They stared back looking just as flabbergasted as Clint felt.
Helpful.
“What the fuck?” he asked.
No one had an answer to offer.
---
Phil woke up to the steady beeping of a heart monitor. God, he felt like crap – something he had unfortunately grown accustomed to over the past couple of days. Still, it was a better kind of crap than usual, the drugs he was on holding the nausea and cramps at bay for the moment.
That was a good sign. At least they still had drugs.
Less reassuring were the restraints keeping his arms and legs pinned, and Phil had to fight to maintain the appearance of unconsciousness despite the panic that was welling inside him as he took stock of the situation.
Where was Jack?
“Hey,” a well-known voice said, shattering the pretence.
Phil swallowed hard – God, he had missed that voice – and opened his eyes. He couldn’t make himself look, not yet, so he stared at the ceiling instead, forcing back tears. It had been seven months since he had last heard Clint’s voice. He had been laughing, teasing Natasha about something as they geared up, and trying to get Phil to agree with him on the comm. That was how Phil liked to remember him – not the screaming that had come later.
But this wasn’t Clint. Not the Clint he had known anyway. He needed to remember that.
He forced himself to turn in the direction of the voice, half-afraid that there would be no one there and that he had finally lost it – it wouldn’t surprise him, though he was supposed to have a few more days before that happened.
He was met with the almost surreal sight of Clint looking at him curiously, Jack sprawled over his chest fast asleep. It wasn’t a sight Phil had thought he would ever see again, and it hit him right in the gut.
“Is he okay?” he asked, and Clint nodded, shifting in his seat before going rigidly still when Jack mumbled something and tightened his grip on his SHIELD-issued jacket. He looked like he had no idea how to deal with the child sleeping on him, maybe even found the whole thing a little terrifying, and Phil was almost glad. It helped keep this Clint separate from his own.
“Medical checked him out, he’s fine,” Clint said, keeping his voice low. A beat of silence, then: “What’s his name? We could barely get a word out of him.”
“Jack. His name is Jack. He’s four,” Phil volunteered.
The silence that followed was awkward, a little uneasy as they tried to gauge each other out. Clint broke the silence first – of course he did, he was the bravest man Phil knew. It obviously wasn’t different here.
“The DNA tests say you’re Phil Coulson,” he started, looking at Phil searchingly. “Only problem is, I’ve talked to the man, and he’s currently on the plane somewhere above Indiana. So what is it? Alternate universe? Visit from the future?”
Phil blinked. “You’re taking this awfully well.”
“What can I say?” Clint shrugged. “In the past year we’ve had Gods, mind-control, portals and alien invasions – I guess anything is possible. Which is it?”
“Alternate universe, I think. You look about the same age,” Phil said, his voice catching a little. He did look like Clint, only very tired – the kind of exhaustion that was bone deep and all consuming, and an expression he had only just started to see on his husband before–
Before.
Were things so bad here?
Phil looked away, trying to ignore the pain in his chest. This wasn’t his Clint – he couldn’t afford to think like that. He had to focus on Jack and what he would tell him. Had to make plans for his future.
“Did anyone else come through after us?” he asked, because he had to hope they weren’t the only ones left.
“No, just the two of you,” Clint said, eyes narrowing as he assessed a potential security threat. “Should we expect more?”
“No,” Phil said tiredly. He didn’t even have time to mourn his friends properly anymore. “If no one followed us, they’re probably all gone. We only had one shot at this.”
Clint nodded to himself. He looked like he wanted to ask more questions, but he eventually settled on:
“Are you going to do something stupid if I undo the restraints?”
Phil shook his head mutely, and Clint leaned forward just enough to free Phil’s left arm, leaving him to undo his right while he started working on his ankles – something for which Phil was grateful as he felt too worn out to even attempt sitting up.
The movement woke Jack, and he blinked at Clint sleepily. The look on his face was heart-breaking, and Phil dreaded what he was going to have to do.
“Hey, Jack,” he said, refocusing his son’s attention on him.
“Dad, you’re awake!” He beamed at Phil, making him feel better instantly – that smile never failed to do just that.
He scrambled towards Phil, almost falling off Clint in his eagerness. Clint caught him at the last minute, looking dumbfounded, and deposited him on Phil’s bed.
Jack was mindful with the IVs and the monitors as he made his way up the bed to snuggle against Phil’s side, and as usual the fact that he knew to be careful broke Phil’s heart a little.
“I’ve got to make a call,” Clint said – either demonstrating tact or beating a hasty retreat to regroup, Phil wasn’t sure. But the man didn’t need his permission, and Phil watched him leave the room before looking down at Jack.
“How are you doing?” he asked, checking him over. Medical may have done so already, but Phil was still going to make sure.
Jack just kept smiling, cupping his hand against Phil’s ear to share a secret.
“Daddy came back,” he whispered loudly, as if the fact that no one could see him speak negated the need to actually be quiet.
Phil closed his eyes briefly. How was he supposed to explain to a four year old that the stranger wearing his father’s face was not, in fact, his father? It felt like killing Clint all over again.
“That’s not Daddy, Jack.”
“But –”
“Remember Kenny and Matt? How they look the same?”
Jack nodded, looking mutinous. ‘This better be good,’ his face said, and it was such a Clint expression that Phil felt like crying.
“They’re twins. Twins are brothers who look exactly like one another. But Kenny and Matt are still two different persons, right?”
Jack’s face scrunched up in concentration and he nodded, some uncertainty seeping into the defiance.
“When we stepped into Bruce’s machine, we came here, where people are like the twins of the people we know.”
“You too?” Jack asked, alarmed, and Phil quickly shook his head.
“No, I’m still me. I’m still your dad. But I have a twin here too.”
“So Dad’s still dead?” Jack’s lower lip wobbled, making Phil feel like a horrible human being.
“Oh, sweetheart, I’m sorry, but yes.”
Jack looked at Clint, who was tucking his phone away on the other side of the observation window, and then at Phil, weighting words against fantasy. The hint of stubbornness Phil could see on his face made him sigh internally. This was going to end badly.
“Fury is on his way,” Clint said, coming back into the room and cutting short any hope Phil may have had to convince Jack further. “You have a Fury, right?”
“Yes.” Phil glanced at Jack, and his reluctance must have showed on his face because Clint said:
“I can look after him during the debrief, if you want.”
Phil hesitated. On one hand, he didn’t want Jack to listen to what he would have to tell Fury. On the other, he really didn’t want him out of his sight. And no offense, but this man may look like Clint, but Phil didn’t know him. He wasn’t in the habit of leaving his son with strangers.
“We’ll stay where you can see us,” Clint offered, and Phil finally nodded.
“Okay,” Clint said, relieved. “I’ll go and get stuff ready.” With that he left again, reappearing a few seconds later on the other side of the window with a chair in his hands.
Phil watched him go back and forth a few times, creating a small waiting area within Phil’s line of sight. He appreciated it.
“I have to meet with someone,” he told Jack. “You’re going to wait outside with –” Phil stumbled for a second, not knowing what to call Clint, “Agent Barton, okay?”
“I don’t want to,” Jack said stubbornly.
“Jack, please.”
“Why?”
Because I don’t want you to have nightmares again, Phil didn’t say, instead going for the classic:
“We have to talk about grown-up stuff.”
Jack looked like he wanted to protest again, but experience had taught him he couldn’t win against the grown-up card, and so he went with Clint when he came back with Fury and Hill in tow.
“Where do you want to start?” Phil asked them, and they were off.
---
Not for the first time, Clint wondered why he had volunteered to watch the kid. Well, no, he knew why. It had been because of the look on Phil’s face, both protective and lost when he had looked down at his son. Their son – no, not Clint’s. The other Clint’s. Who was, possibly, dead. Jesus, it was confusing. But didn’t change the fact that he didn’t know the first thing about children.
“So… what do you like to do?” Clint asked after a few minutes spent staring at each other in silence.
“Dad says you’re not my dad,” the kid – Jack – said almost accusingly instead of answering. “He says you’re like his twin.”
Or they could talk about that.
Clint nodded cautiously – he guessed that was as good an explanation as any. “He’s right.”
“So what do I call you then?”
Right.
“Uh… You can call me Clint?”
Jack seemed to ponder that for a few seconds – Jesus, could the kid be any more like Phil? – before he nodded decisively.
“Okay.”
Clint should not have felt as relieved as he did then, getting the kid’s stamp of approval.
“Right, so… Do you like to draw?” The only thing he had found at the nurses’ station that had seemed age-appropriate had been paper and pencils, with some red, blue and green pens for variety sake.
Jack wrinkled his nose, and fine, maybe Clint could see the resemblance there too.
“It’s okay, I guess.”
Hardly a winning endorsement, but it would have to do. He pushed the stuff in Jack’s direction and left him to it, keeping an eye on him and the other on Phil and Fury.
The debriefing seemed to last forever. Jack eventually grew bored with drawing and asked for a story, which Clint made a valiant effort at although it didn’t seem to meet the kid’s standards. Well, he was trying, okay?
Lunch came – or maybe it was dinner, Clint had lost track of time at some point –, and after a trip to the bathroom Jack went back to his pens. Most of his drawings seemed to feature figures who Clint assumed were Jack and his fathers – one of them may or may not be carrying a bow. Natasha showed up in a few of them – if the red hair was any indication – and possibly Iron Man and Hulk as well. It was a little hard to tell.
Clint had been about to ask when the ping of the elevator made him look up. Natasha strode out of it determinedly, and he stood, mustering a tired smile for her – it had been way too long since he had seen her –, but before he could say anything Jack was throwing himself at her.
Really, the kid had to stop doing that.
Clint quickly intercepted Nat’s hand before she could reflexively reach for a knife – she didn’t do so well with unexpected physical contact. He squeezed her wrist once before letting go, and Nat relaxed, looking down at the kid wrapped around her leg quizzically.
“Hi?” she said.
“Hi!” Jack sounded more excited that Clint had heard him so far. “I know you’re not Tasha, but you’re her twin, so can I call you Tasha too?”
“Uh… Sure?”
He beamed at her, dragging her to his chair to show off his drawings. Clint bit back a smile at the look on Nat’s face as she dutifully examined each one of them, darting increasingly questioning glances at Clint.
“You can keep that one,” Jack said shyly, turning bright red at Nat’s polite “Thank you”. It was kinda adorable.
Jack though seemed to have run out of steam, and his eyelids soon started drooping. After he had almost slid off his chair a second time, Clint transferred him to his lap despite his grumblings, and sighed with relief when he finally dozed off.
Free to talk at last.
“Where is Phil?” he asked, keeping his voice quiet. Seeing Phil would be really good right now. The long minutes it had taken for Natasha to get eyes on him earlier and confirm the man passed out in Medical was not, in fact, the Phil Coulson they all knew – though the lack of gigantic scars on his chest had helped – had been among the longest of Clint’s life. Phil had looked so bad and would not wake up, and Clint had been certain he had been about to die on him all over again. He didn’t know if he could have dealt with that.
He could do with some visual confirmation that the man was okay right now.
“Stuck on Level 2. Fury cut down his security clearance to make sure he didn’t overdo it during his recovery,” Nat reminded him.
Fuck.
Clint shot a look at Jack and then at the stairs, lingering.
“I can watch him if you want,” Nat offered, and Clint raised an eyebrow at her. Really?
She shrugged. How hard can it be?
It was tempting, very much so, except–
“Nah, it’s fine. I said I’d look after the kid.” He had promised Phil – the other Phil. Damn it. “But he is okay?”
“Yeah, he’s fine.”
It was enough for now: if Nat said Phil was fine, then he was.
“So what’s the deal?” she asked, lounging back in her seat and nodding towards the other Phil on the other side of the glass window.
“Some sort of alternate universe portal, I guess.”
“Sure he isn’t a clone or something?”
Clint shrugged with one shoulder. “Medical said they were sure. Besides, I think he’s sick.”
Natasha cocked her head. “Yeah, he doesn’t look so good. What about the kid?”
“That’s his. And mine, I guess – alternate me, I mean.”
She barely even looked surprised. “Interesting. Adopted?”
“Nope, genetically.” And there was the shock, at last. “The DNA tests were pretty formal. And no, I’m not a woman in their universe,” he added to forestall her next question. The quirk of her lips told him he had been right on target.
“That’s a little weird.”
Clint snorted. “Only a little?”
“Okay, a lot,” she amended, craning her neck to see Jack better. “You know, I can see it. He kind of looks like you.”
“He looks like Phil,” Clint countered, because seriously, couldn’t she see that?
“He looks like both of you.”
Fair enough.
“You don’t think that’s weird? I mean, me and Phil,” he asked, because he was nothing if not a masochist when it came to his feelings.
She rolled her eyes. “Clint, that’s pretty much the only thing that makes sense.”
He blinked. Oh.
She gave him a pointed look that said he was far more transparent than he thought he was, and then proceeded to ignore him while he privately freaked out about it, before rationalising the whole thing as Natasha being Natasha.
The debrief lasted another half hour, and when Fury and Hill exited the room Natasha pushed herself to her feet, Clint following more carefully so as not to disturb Jack.
“Barton, Romanoff, with me,” Fury barked.
Clint opened his mouth to protest – hello, he had a kid in his arms! – but Fury beat him to it.
“And get that child back to his father,” he added, and Clint did just that, ignoring Hill’s stare.
“He’s pretty out of it,” he told Phil back in his room. He looked worse than before, both too pale and flushed, and his heart rate was up. A second after Clint, a nurse bustled into the room and started adding meds to his IV. “Where do you want me to put him?”
Phil pointed at the extra bed that had been set up in a corner earlier, and Clint put Jack down carefully before shooting an interrogative look at Phil to make sure he had done it right.
“Can you put the rails up?” he asked, and Clint hurried to comply. He should have thought of that. “Thanks.”
“No problem.” He hovered by the door for a second. “I’ll… see you?” He finally said, and Phil’s nod was distracted, his face tight with pain.
“Is he okay?” he asked Fury when they made it into the elevator.
“No, he isn’t. Radiation sickness.”
Clint almost missed a step. “He’s dying?”
“Nothing we can do.”
He felt numb, like all his nightmares were coming to life – except it wasn’t like that, was it? It wasn’t Phil. Phil was fine, and they were going to see him right now. Still, it was a Phil, and he was dying, and Clint couldn’t figure out why he was taking this so badly. He didn’t even know the man.
“The fuckers dropped a bomb on DC without giving SHIELD personnel time to withdraw,” Fury fumed, and Hill mouthed ‘Council’ at Clint and Natasha. “Almost fell right on top of them. Didn’t even achieve anything. Fucking stupid, that’s what it was.”
In a way, it was almost reassuring that Fury was taking this as personally as he was. Then again if he was starting to measure his mental wellbeing against Fury’s, he was pretty much screwed.
The ride down to Level 2 seemed to last forever, and the walk to the conference room where they had stashed Phil – usually reserved for representatives of other agencies when they were forced to interact with them – seemed to take even longer. But then Phil was in front of him, and Clint had to forcefully stop himself from grabbing onto whatever part of the man he would get away with. Instead he settled on a quick visual inspection that did a lot to reassure him that Phil was okay, replacing his mental image of a sick Phil with a much healthier one.
Clint hadn’t seen him in a month, not since he had taken a side trip after an op in Seattle and visited him. Phil looked better than he had then, which put him miles ahead of the other one. He moved more easily, no longer keeping his left arm tucked against his chest, and he had put some weight and muscles back on. He was also wearing a suit, which helped with the illusion that he was back to normal.
As such, Clint was able to respond in kind when Phil smiled, and wisely kept his mouth shut for fear of what might come out.
“Coulson, sit the fuck down,” Fury said, and Phil obeyed with a roll of his eyes.
“You’re going to have to accept that I’m fine eventually,” he pointed out calmly. “So what’s going on?”
“What’s going on is there are two of you in the building,” Fury said shortly, and Phil’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.
“An infiltration attempt?”
Fury snorted. “Doubtful, he brought his kid with him. And even if it was, he isn’t going to be around long enough.”
“Sir?” Phil frowned.
“Hold your horses, I’m getting to it. Alright, long story short, it’s all Loki’s fault.”
Clint stiffened in his chair, and almost jumped out of his skin when Nat’s hand landed on his thigh under the conference table a second later, squeezing gently.
“I don’t know what the fuck happened,” Fury was saying, “but where he comes from, Loki became King of Asgard a while back. Don’t ask me where Thor was, the other you had never heard of him. Anyway, at some point Loki decided one throne wasn’t enough, and started conquering other worlds. It was complete chaos, with refugees showing up on Earth from all over the place – some of them less than well-intentioned. Kept us busy, and that meant no Captain America. We didn’t have the resources to keep looking, and neither did Stark.”
Clint stole a glance at Phil to see how he was taking that, but his face was impassive. He probably shouldn’t tell him the first thing his alter-ego had done upon arriving was to point a gun at his childhood hero – he may never recover from that.
“Then about a year ago Loki turned his eye on us,” Fury went on. “We hadn’t ranked very high on his list of ‘Realms I wanna rule’, and it’s too bad it didn’t stay that way because it didn’t go well for us – at all. The WSC made one last-ditch attempt two days ago and nuked DC trying to take Loki out, right in the middle of a SHIELD operation. Stark and Colonel Rhodes died trying to alter the nuke’s course – apparently he was an Avenger too. They failed, obviously, and now it’s slowly killing you.” He pointed at Phil.
An oppressive silence settled on the room.
“How did they get here?” Natasha asked, breaking the spell.
“Well, that was Banner’s last-ditch attempt – and Stark’s, I suppose. Open a portal, go through with as many people as possible, regroup, maybe find some help, and then go back. After DC it went from bad to worse – massive civilian casualties, and the WSC was MIA. Then yesterday evening, Loki attacked HQ so Banner turned the machine on. You and the kid were the first through, and according to him the only reason no one would follow was if they were all dead. Whether that’s the case or something else went wrong on their end, the result’s the same. I’m not comfortable asking Banner and Stark to try and recreate whatever they were using, so they’re stuck here unless someone comes and gets them. Which he seems pretty convinced isn’t going to happen.”
Clint shared a mildly freaked-out glance with Nat. Somewhere in another universe the world had pretty much ended, and they were likely both dead. He suddenly had the urge to find a way to contact Thor to make sure Loki was safely locked up.
“What do we do now?” he asked, and Fury shrugged.
“Nothing.” Fury stood, Hill following suit. “Medical will try to make him as comfortable as possible, and I said we’d help with his son afterwards.”
Jesus, Jack. What was going to happen to the kid?
“Send me the files,” Phil told Hill when Fury headed for the door, but the man overheard and rounded on him before she could answer.
“Hill is not sending you anything. Let me make things very clear: I’ve briefed you out of courtesy because it affects you. Now you’re going to go home and rest. Are we clear?”
“Yes, sir,” Phil sighed. “Can I at least see them?”
“Maybe. If you don’t piss me off.” With that Fury left the room, Hill shooting Phil a sympathetic look before following the billowing coat of the Director.
“So,” Clint said once the echoes of the door slamming shut after them had subsided. “Are you staying in town or flying back to Portland?”
“Staying. I have an appointment with Medical next week anyway.” At Clint’s alarmed look he elaborated: “Just one of the hoops I have to go through to be put on light duty.”
“How are you going to get Fury to agree to that?” Natasha asked dubiously, distracting Clint from the relief he was feeling. Between the injury and Phil spending all his time in Portland, part of him had feared the man would resign for good. Obviously he should have known better.
“I’ll find a way,” Phil answered Natasha, and then: “So, a kid? What’s his name?”
“Jack,” Clint said ruefully. “He’s four.”
“Here.” Natasha took the drawing Jack had given to her out of her pocket – Clint hadn’t known she had taken it with her – and pushed it towards Phil. It was one of the group ones, with Jack, Phil and Clint in the middle surrounded by Nat, Iron Man, Hulk – more recognizable due to the colours used to draw them rather than real artistic talent – and another figure Clint hadn’t been able to identify - Rhodes, probably.
“What about his mother?” Phil asked, and Clint raked his hand through his hair nervously, stealing a look at Nat. She stared back at him steadily, her resolve that Clint be the one to tell him clear on her face.
“Uh, that’s the thing,” he said. “Genetically speaking, he doesn’t have a mom, he’s got two dads. You and… me.”
Phil’s eyes widened, and he digested the news quietly, which was better than how Clint had dealt with it. If Jack hadn’t been asleep on him when the docs had told him, he would probably have run and hidden until he could wrap his head around it.
“So… we’re together?” Phil finally asked tentatively.
“I have no idea,” Clint said. He hadn’t gotten around to asking that part. Hadn’t been ready for the answer or what it could mean – if it could even mean anything at all. “How is Sylvia?”
Natasha poked him under the table for changing the subject, but really what did she expect? That Phil would suddenly jump to the conclusion that they were meant to be together just because two other versions of themselves were? Yeah, Clint didn’t think so. The last thing he needed was for Phil to start thinking about it, because then he might notice Clint was very much not adverse to the idea, and where would that leave them? Nowhere good, that was where.
Besides, they may not even be together. Jack shouldn’t be possible, so what were the odds the relationship between his parents was normal?
At least the mention of his girlfriend made Phil smile.
“She’s good – great even. The New York Philharmonic offered her a permanent position. It’s her dream job so she’ll be finishing this season in Portland and then move back here. Stark is denying any involvement, but you know how he is…”
“That’s great.” Clint forced a smile he hoped looked natural – he would have to work some more on that. But at least it looked like he would get plenty of practice.
Until then he could count Natasha to have his back.
“Come on,” she told Phil, pushing herself to her feet. “I’ll drive you home before Fury decides you’re overdoing it and kicks you out of the building.”
“We need to stop for food,” Phil said as the two of them made their way towards the door.
“Pizza?”
“They have pizza in Portland, you know. Clint?” Phil stopped in the doorway, frowning slightly when he realised Clint was still sitting. “Are you coming?”
Clint hesitated for less than a heartbeat.
“Sorry, there is somewhere I’ve got to be,” he said.
“Okay,” Phil said. “See you soon?”
There was something almost tentative about the question, but Clint’s nod seemed to reassure Phil who nodded back with half a smile.
Nat shot him a look before disappearing after him. ‘Be careful,’ it said, and Clint smiled in what he hoped was a reassuring manner. He couldn’t claim he knew what he was doing, but there was a Phil a few floors up who had just lost everyone he knew and loved, who was grieving and dying and who only cared about what happened to his son when he was gone. And maybe Clint couldn’t do anything about any of it, but at least he could make sure Phil didn’t go through it alone.
He headed back upstairs.