You Left, I Stayed
By Cider Sky

A/N: I am eternally sorry for the long wait - I have been horrendously busy and had moments of writer's block. I have always been envious of prolific writers; I often struggle with regular updates and for that I apologize.

Here is the last part of the angst part of our angst fest. Seriously, how did anyone read this at all?

Also, the poem comes from the film 'The Grey'; I believe it was written for the film. Either way, not mine.

Chapter Five: Once More Into the Fray

Bruises fade away, the angry wounds that once marred his skin heal and physically he is whole again. Mentally, however, he is more broken than ever because slowly, painfully, the anger melts away and in its place rests a cold, stony numbness.

Anger was the last thing he had and now it too has left him and he feels a lot like an empty shell.

It's this complete lack of feeling that has him standing dumbly over his armoire, staring at the open drawer; it's nearly full now. Full of things that belonged to Phil, things that reminded him of Phil, things that he'd buried away so he could forget: books, his iPod, Phil's hoodie, their rings, Phil's dog tags, that stupid Captain America Special Edition Box Set -

- and now the book he holds in his hands.

"Once more into the fray, into the last good fight I'll ever know –"

Phil loves poetry. Even more so, Phil loves to read poetry out loud to him.

Even though Clint has never been one for literature or the prose his husband adores, listening to Phil's gentle cadence as he recites the words – words that seem to flow like honey, but only when he reads them – brings him to a state of relaxation that borders on meditation.

No more than two lines in and his eyes are blinking sluggishly closed as words far gentler, far more beautiful than he deserves wash over him.

"- live and die on this day –"

Phil's free hand, the one not clutching the tattered old book, rakes through his hair, careful to avoid the stitches at his hairline. Clint sighs as his head sinks deeper against Phil's thigh.

Clint sighs and he can't imagine anywhere else he'd rather be.

"- live and die on this day."

He had wondered where it had gone. No, more than wonder, he had nearly lost it, had literally torn their old apartment apart looking for it. He didn't know how but it had simply gone missing, until this morning that is.

Natasha had been the one to recover it and had delivered it to him with an urgency ill fitting of the situation, or at least so he thought.

"Where was it?" He croaks because beside himself, Natasha was the only one who knew of their once handler's love for poetry; Phil had read to her, once or twice, and though she hadn't showed it, she had enjoyed it.

"Agent Hill had it. I saw her reading it. He mast have lent it to her." He knows that she intends to end the sentence with 'before he died' but he knows for his sake she doesn't

He also knows, for his sake, that she had most likely snatched it from the woman's grasp with a glare, all venom, and little explanation.

It was a testament to how terribly he was coping, how poorly the façade was holding.

It's almost everything he owns, he realizes, as he looks around the room. If it weren't for the bow lying on the end of his bed or the water glass next to the table, it would seem unoccupied.

It was only when he'd moved out of their apartment and into Stark tower that he realized how much of him had actually been Phil.

Without Phil the walls were barren and bland. Without Phil the room suffered a militaristic simplicity, boring and utilitarian. Without Phil, there was no music because, apparently, Phil was the one who always turned it on and now every damn song reminded him of the man.

Without Phil, he realizes, it has dwindled down to a bow and a fucking glass at his bedside.

Simply put, without Phil, he has been reduced to nearly nothing. He draws a thumb across the books old cover and it conjures up images of Phil asleep, the book open on his chest. He looks at the pages, pressed together, small gaps creating dark spots – pages Phil had bookmarked.

Phil's poetry books were always dog-eared; the man absolutely refused bookmarks. It hadn't taken Clint too long to figure out that Phil wasn't bookmarking his personal preferences, but that of the archer's.

Clint doesn't want to looks inside but is thumb is already peeling back a page, one of the dog-eared ones. Immediately his eyes are drawn to the last sentence, the short four-line poem standing out on the ivory page.

Live and die on this day …

Clint snaps the book shut and puts it back where it belongs, back with what's left of Phil.

Eventually, they all manage to corner him one-on-one.

Bruce looks for bruises, his eyes boring through him, assessing him and no doubt worrying over every little thing he sees. He talks about anger again and Clint assures him he's done with that. He's not angry anymore, he says, and it's true. He's not angry He's just nothing. He could tell Bruce this, but he doesn't.

Thor tells him a lengthy tale of a warrior, mighty in heart and spirit, that was forced to do terrible things under a thrall similar to the one he had suffered. It's an interesting story and Clint appreciates what Thor is trying to do but this isn't about the thrall or Loki. It's about Phil. Regardless, he listens and thanks Thor when he finishes.

Steve tries to get him to work out with him, to go to lunch with him, to hang out with him … Steve tries hard, a little too hard, and the man realizes, a little too late, that it's only pushing the archer away. When Steve corners him and asks him if he's fit for the team – he's pulling those cards, then– Clint straightens his back and tells him that yes, he is, Captain. Steve looks guilty and Clint tells him not to worry about it when he apologizes.

Tony tells him to buck up, to stop moping around and really, though harsh, it's better than the child gloves Steve has been handling him with or the frustrated sympathy Bruce has been exuding. Tony accuses him of running away and calls him a pussy – he knows the man wants to get a rise out of him but he gets lost in the thought of running away. He wishes he had somewhere to run to. Running sounded wonderful.

Tony sicks Pepper on him, which isn't really fair, and he smiles at her. She says something about a cellist in Oregon, her voice soft and oh so gentle, and he excuses himself, the false smile slipping from place.

Natasha slaps him and he's never seen her look so hurt.

"Don't do this, Clint." She's lost someone too. Clint knows this but it's as though all rational thought has left him and all he has now is his grief. "Please."

He's never heard that word leave her lips outside of an undercover mission. Nastasha did not beg. Natasha did not say please.

The word alone tears at him and it's more than he's felt for a long while.

"I'm fine." It's empty, hollow, dead; he can see it tearing her apart because though he still does his job, though he has everyone outside of the avengers fooled, he is so utterly broken and for the first time in their entire, wonderful history together, she doesn't know what to do.

He moves to turn away and when she grabs his wrist, firm and unforgiving, he pulls away, throwing both hands up and Natasha feels as though she's been stung.

"Natasha, just –" he shakes his head and tries to avoid her gaze, full of hurt, "leave it. Just – stop."

He makes himself scarce after that.

He takes every mission Fury has to offer, even the ones no one wants because it keeps him away, keeps him isolated.

When he's not on a mission he's cleaning his bow, cataloguing his weapons, dragging himself through brutal exercise regimens, doing fucking paperwork – it's a blur of detail oriented tasks, all of which are supposed to make him forget but fucking don't.

His eyes manage to pick out pieces of Phil's poems everywhere and he wonders if they've been there all along, hidden in the mess of mind-numbing bullshit that was SHIELD's paperwork, but then again, maybe that was the big secret to Phil's love for paperwork.

Or maybe he's just losing it.

Either way, nothing works.

Often enough, he calls it a day and sleeps.

But he can't sleep.

Minutes bleed into hours and hours into days. Sometimes he thinks he's dreaming but he isn't because when he dreams Phil is there and he hasn't seen Phil in a very long time.

He can't sleep but this is nothing new; he once stayed awake 92-hours on a mission in Karachi. He knows how to deal with it, the ache in his body, his eyes, the trembling of his hands – he knows that when the world turns and everything cracks and shimmers and wobbles that it's all in his head and he needs to sit down, to eat something.

Clint catches his appearance in a mirror one night and he hardly recognizes the man staring back at him; thick, purple smudges sit under his eyes and his skin looks sallow, pulling too tight at his cheekbones.

That same night, Clint sits at the end of his bed and thinks about the poetry book locked away in the drawer and doesn't move until the sun rises.

At 120-hours 51-minutes and 35-seconds the Avengers are called into action. He pulls on his uniform in a motion that is purely mechanical and pulls his quiver onto his back.

He dawns his sunglasses to hide the bruising under his eyes and tries to ignore the way his legs quiver and the uncomfortable thumping in his chest.

They all stare at him when he arrives for the briefing and he wonders for a moment if this isn't and intervention, wonders if there is a mission at all.

There is and suddenly Clint is at the top of a skyscraper, picking off a horde of 'he-doesn't-even-know-what's because he can't even remember how he got here, let alone decipher what those things are.

He pulls back and releases, finding a rhythm, but is slow to change his arrowheads correctly. He forgets the amount of clicks needed for the acid tips and confuses the electric tips combination for that of his generic explosives.

His brain feels muddled and the small amount of adrenaline that had been sent coursing through him at the beginning of the mission is already retreating.

The archer narrowly avoids a spray of energy-based shots, twisting his fatigued body out of the way – it works, sure, but no sooner than he's avoided the first one, a second and third are upon him.

A few acrobatic moves see him safely across the roof but one wrong move, one wrong step and he gets clipped on the shoulder – the shot burns and he stumbles and the next thing he knows his foot is landing on empty air.

In another time, another world, it goes like this.

The God of Mischief's spear impales Phil Coulson while his back is turned; it rips through bone and muscles, cartilage and sinew, exiting through his chest before being brutally ripped out. He manages to shoot the bastard once before passing out, his lasts thoughts resting on Clint.

When he wakes up the doctors tell him he is lucky. The spear had missed his heart by an inch. One small inch. Lucky.

When he wakes up again Clint tells him he is stupid. There are unshed tears in the man's eyes when he reaches to grasp his hand like it's all that's tethering him to the ground. The thought of what his death would have done to the man he loves is enough to make Phil's throat constrict painfully. Stupid.

Clint sits with him everyday for hours on end until, eventually, someone ushers him away. Phil falls asleep shortly after those moments but every time he wakes up, Clint is there again.

Clint helps him through physical therapy and in those rare moments in which Phil gets frustrated, when he tells Clint to stop wasting his time helping his pathetic ass up and down the therapy stairs, Clint huffs and reminds him of for better and worse and forever.

For three months they practically live in the infirmary and things get a bit stale; Tony realizes this and brings them two spanking new StarkPhones. Clint doesn't even complain about his being purple and he even ignores Tony's remark about his overabundance of saved messages from Phil and how creepy that makes him. He ignores it because Tony seemed to know that Phil is a sucker for Angry Birds and Clint loves the way the man chews his lip when he plays it.

When Phil is released Clint settles them into their quarters in Stark Tower and doesn't complain – not even once – when Phil can't decide where he wants his memorabilia to go.

A week later Clint is hunched over a pot of soup, watching Phil sleep lightly on the couch, when Steve hands him a package.

"This came for you." He says as he towels his wet hair. Clint doesn't remember ordering anything but doesn't waste much time thinking about it. He rips it open and can barely contain his excitement – much to Steve's incredible embarrassment – when he sees what's inside.

Clint lets Phil wake up on his own accord, and when he finally does, he watches in silence, a small grin fixed on his features, as the groggy man takes in the bowl of soup and the huge box set sitting next to it.

Phil nearly cries and it's all somewhat embarrassing for him with Captain America standing off to the side, sputtering about how stupid he looks on the cover and how he can't believe anyone would want the set, but for Clint it's one of his finest moments.

That night Clint and Phil gather everyone together – Tony, Pepper, Bruce, Thor, Natasha, Steve – and they watch the documentary. Steve regales them with stories from behind the scenes and they laugh. Phil curls next to him and Clint's chest tightens.

Phil's recovery progresses, albeit somewhat sluggishly, and he is eventually put back to work. His office is just as he left it, save for his old poetry book with the post-it on top – glad your back. Hill. – sitting atop his desk. It feels incredible even though he spends most his time at a desk but even from there he can watch Clint and the team's backs.

And he's glad for it because the inevitable moment in which Clint does something stupid – jumps off another damn building – and ends up in the infirmary.

Clint's pupils are uneven and Phil knows he's hurting but they're alive and for the moment, okay; Clint's glossy eyes soften when Phil takes the seat next to him, book in hand. Phil licks his thumb as he turns through the pages, something Clint always teases him about, and clears his throat.

"Once more into the fray –" he starts. One of the archer's a favorite.

A small smirk graces Clint's feature and already his eyes are drifting shut. Despite the pain in his head and the pain of the last few months everything feels perfect.

In another time, another world, this is how it goes.

This is neither that time, nor that world.

The first thing Clint feels is a small amount of relief and there's not even enough time to consider how absolutely fucked up that is. There's no time to consider it because the second thought follows quickly and it sounds exactly like Phil.

"Into the last good fight I'll ever know –"

Clint closes his eyes as he falls – "live and die on this day …" and thinks about how differently things could have gone.

"… live and die on this day."

One more to go - I promise you, the angst fest is coming to an end.

If anyone is wondering what the team has been doing while all this has been going on I promise you'll see in the final chapter. It will be a bit of a long one as it will go back to the beginning. I promise you they haven't all just been twiddling there thumbs while poor Clint has been suffering.

Thanks for sticking with me. Every comment has been most appreciated and had been an inspiration.