Cadence
Title: Cadence
Rating:PG-13
Genre and/or Pairing: Avengers movieverse/Supernatural crossover...though it doesn't crossover till part 3 or 4; Clint/Coulson
Warnings: some language, probably
Word Count: 631
Summary: Clint remembers a promise he made to Phil long before he thought it'd be hard to keep. (Part 2 of my All the Devils Are Here verse.)
There’s a certain rhythm to some things, to the pull of string and the flight of an arrow, like the steady drip of blood from a wound or the deep constant of breath as it cycles to break silence. The others probably think it’s comforting for him and maybe it should be, but it isn’t. The thing he holds in his hands is by this point as much a part of him as his hands and fingers, and nothing about himself could ever ease anything now, not now that he’s failed.
When he sleeps(fitfully, on the floor or in a hide, not in their bed) he sees it all again, sees Loki’s hand close over an arrow that didn’t even fly for the right reason. He’d stood there on that rooftop thinking it was all about his own pride and some about the mission, never knowing he had yet to begin to understand what it was to truly hate. He’d never felt it like this, not even after the crash as a child. He was young when they died, small and frightened and anyway the car just slid off the road. There was no one to blame.
On the third day after, he pulled himself together enough to tell Fury he needed to see it, needed to watch the surveillance tape and see the work of Loki’s hands, to watch the man he loved breathe his last. He should’ve been there, should’ve been able to hold him and comfort him and lie to him and since he was robbed of that, watching seems all he can do. It makes sense, to him. Phil’s the one that had to die without him. The least he can do is put himself through hell over it. Fury said no, of course he said no, but Clint isn’t an island anymore. He hasn’t been for years, really, not since they met and fell in love and swore their lives to each other, not since he met Natasha and finally knew what it was to have a friend. Now, his world’s bigger than that. He has friends, plural, and so he appealed to Tony, the man who could unseal the most sealed files, and he nodded his thanks when Tony pushed the drive into his hand next to a flask of scotch.
Honestly, it didn’t make him feel any different. He wakes up hollow and he goes to bed hollow, and no amount of psychological torture he can concoct for himself will ever make him feel any worse. He’s lost Phil, and really, he should know that nothing could ever be worse than that. So he keeps to himself and he shoots and he hides and lets these people he’s come to love whisper that he’s healing because what else does he have? He can’t imagine being better and he can’t seem to make himself worse and he’s got to keep living with it because once upon a time, he promised.
He remembers, there was a funeral and Phil’s aunt crying and Phil silent and dark until after, until they were alone at his parents in his childhood room and Phil had pressed him to the wall. His heart beat jackrabbit fast against Clint’s chest as he whispered unsteady against his neck. “No matter what, don’t you ever…promise me.” He’d said first in as a light a voice as he could that it’d never come to that, that even with their jobs they’d be alright, that he’d be there to save Phil’s ass. He wanted to wipe the fear away from him, hear him answer that he didn’t need protecting(because he didn’t really, not really, not any more than Clint himself did). Instead, he’d only repeated it, softer. “Just promise me.”
“Alright, sweetheart, I promise. I promise.”
Rating:PG-13
Genre and/or Pairing: Avengers movieverse/Supernatural crossover...though it doesn't crossover till part 3 or 4; Clint/Coulson
Warnings: some language, probably
Word Count: 631
Summary: Clint remembers a promise he made to Phil long before he thought it'd be hard to keep. (Part 2 of my All the Devils Are Here verse.)
There’s a certain rhythm to some things, to the pull of string and the flight of an arrow, like the steady drip of blood from a wound or the deep constant of breath as it cycles to break silence. The others probably think it’s comforting for him and maybe it should be, but it isn’t. The thing he holds in his hands is by this point as much a part of him as his hands and fingers, and nothing about himself could ever ease anything now, not now that he’s failed.
When he sleeps(fitfully, on the floor or in a hide, not in their bed) he sees it all again, sees Loki’s hand close over an arrow that didn’t even fly for the right reason. He’d stood there on that rooftop thinking it was all about his own pride and some about the mission, never knowing he had yet to begin to understand what it was to truly hate. He’d never felt it like this, not even after the crash as a child. He was young when they died, small and frightened and anyway the car just slid off the road. There was no one to blame.
On the third day after, he pulled himself together enough to tell Fury he needed to see it, needed to watch the surveillance tape and see the work of Loki’s hands, to watch the man he loved breathe his last. He should’ve been there, should’ve been able to hold him and comfort him and lie to him and since he was robbed of that, watching seems all he can do. It makes sense, to him. Phil’s the one that had to die without him. The least he can do is put himself through hell over it. Fury said no, of course he said no, but Clint isn’t an island anymore. He hasn’t been for years, really, not since they met and fell in love and swore their lives to each other, not since he met Natasha and finally knew what it was to have a friend. Now, his world’s bigger than that. He has friends, plural, and so he appealed to Tony, the man who could unseal the most sealed files, and he nodded his thanks when Tony pushed the drive into his hand next to a flask of scotch.
Honestly, it didn’t make him feel any different. He wakes up hollow and he goes to bed hollow, and no amount of psychological torture he can concoct for himself will ever make him feel any worse. He’s lost Phil, and really, he should know that nothing could ever be worse than that. So he keeps to himself and he shoots and he hides and lets these people he’s come to love whisper that he’s healing because what else does he have? He can’t imagine being better and he can’t seem to make himself worse and he’s got to keep living with it because once upon a time, he promised.
He remembers, there was a funeral and Phil’s aunt crying and Phil silent and dark until after, until they were alone at his parents in his childhood room and Phil had pressed him to the wall. His heart beat jackrabbit fast against Clint’s chest as he whispered unsteady against his neck. “No matter what, don’t you ever…promise me.” He’d said first in as a light a voice as he could that it’d never come to that, that even with their jobs they’d be alright, that he’d be there to save Phil’s ass. He wanted to wipe the fear away from him, hear him answer that he didn’t need protecting(because he didn’t really, not really, not any more than Clint himself did). Instead, he’d only repeated it, softer. “Just promise me.”
“Alright, sweetheart, I promise. I promise.”