A/N: Thanks to everyone who left a review and followed this little fic! I forgot to mention the huge amount of thanks I have for dysprositos, who is continuing to be the best beta reader ever. Huge thanks. Here's the last part. I hope you like it!

Steve understood where Phil was coming from, he really did. He didn't complain when Phil asked him politely to wait until Clint asked to see him, and he got that Clint not asking for him in the hospital while he was still in a lot of pain probably didn't mean anything bad. So he waited. He got reports from Natasha and Bruce, who both said that Clint looked pretty awful from his face injury, but that he was in pretty good spirits considering his team leader had tried to kill him.

Steve hadn't wanted to kill him, though. He just had to. When the voice spoke it was all he could do, and he had to obey. When he had come back to himself under Thor's hammer he had a vague visual memory of hitting Clint and really trying to beat him senseless, but he couldn't remember specifics. He wasn't sure what Clint would remember.

Still, Steve wanted to see him. The day he knew Clint was coming home from medical he hoped that he would get a chance, and he even resorted to baking his mother's snicker doodle cookie cookies that he knew Clint loved. He baked in his own apartment instead of in the common kitchen, knowing that if he did it out there Tony would smell the cookies ten floors away and come to try to steal as many as he could, and when he was done, he placed the cookies in a tin and set them on his countertop.

As evening rolled around, he texted Coulson, asking if Clint was up for company yet. He knew he was being a bit of a pest, but he was tired of waiting. He wanted to see how his teammate was doing, and he needed to apologize. After a few minutes, Coulson texted him back, inviting him over after dinner.

Steve took the cookies and headed to Clint and Coulson's apartment around seven. He knocked on the door and Coulson opened it, smiling when he saw the tin.

"Did you bake?" he asked with a hopeful tone in his voice.

Steve grinned and nodded, "Yes. Clint's favorite."

"Did he bring snicker doodles?" he heard Clint holler from the living room, and Phil just rolled his eyes and gestured Steve into the apartment.

"I figured it was the least I could-" he started to say, but the words died on his lips as he entered the room and saw Clint sitting on the couch, his face covered in purple and yellow bruising and his eye still half shut from swelling. His arm was in a sling and he clearly winced as he turned to see Steve.

Phil quietly slid his hands up and pulled the tin from Steve's hands and set in front of Clint. He sat down next to Clint and offered Steve the nearby chair.

Steve sat down and watched as Clint leaned into Coulson's shoulder.

"Phil, can you give us a minute?" Clint said after a few moments of awkward silence, straightening with a wince.

Phil looked at Steve and then back to Clint without responding. Steve could feel the wariness from Phil.

"Phil," Clint insisted. "It'll be fine. It's just Steve. I'll call you if I need anything."

Phil sighed and then stood. He looked at Steve and shrugged. "I don't mean to be rude."

Steve understood. "It's okay. Really." He watched as Phil ruffled Clint's hair and left the room.

"Thanks for the cookies," Clint said.

"Least I could do," Steve repeated, leaning forward in his chair and putting his elbows on his knees. "How are you feeling?" he asked.

Clint gave him a small smile. "I think I look worse than I feel," and then he paused and added, "Except my shoulder. You really did a number there. They say it's not busted, though."

Steve nodded. "I'm sorry, Clint. I- I don't even know what to say." And it was true. He'd been trying to rehearse an apology for days and this moment was as far as he ever got. Clint was one of his best friends in this crazy new world, but at the core of it, Steve was a soldier and had violated the trust of a teammate. That fact was eating him alive. He needed to know that Clint was okay.

Clint shrugged his good shoulder. "It's okay, Cap. Really. I know what it's like to lose control like that. Tony explained what happened. You couldn't have stopped it, sounds like."

And Clint sounded sincere. He really did, and Steve wanted to accept his forgiveness, but something was off. He couldn't hear it, but he could see it in Clint's face and feel it in the air. There was forgiveness, but there was something missing.

"I don't – I don't really remember much," Steve offered. "Just a sort of red haze and then…rage. Next thing I knew Thor's hammer was on my chest. I'm so sorry."

Clint leaned back and nodded, "Okay. Look, try not to worry about it too much, Steve. It was over quick and I'm gonna be fine. A couple months enforced vacation. I'm trying to convince Coulson to go to Hawaii with me, but don't tell him that. I need to make it seem like his idea or he'll never go." He grinned and then pointed to where Coulson had retreated and winked at Steve.

"I heard that!" Phil called from the den and Steve laughed as Clint nodded in satisfaction.

"I hope it works. I hear Hawaii's nice," Steve said, and then Clint ate a cookie and called Phil back in. The men chatted for a while until Phil and Steve saw Clint starting to flag again. Steve said goodnight and that was that. Apology done and friend's well-being accounted for. Things might go back to normal now.

Or not.

Clint was up and around the next day, and they all had dinner together and watched a movie that night. He didn't say three words to Steve, though, and it seemed like he might actually be avoiding him. Steve wrote it off to tiredness, though, and he knew Clint was still really sore from the whole thing. When it kept happening, though, he began to wonder.

Clint wouldn't stay if he was alone with Steve, finding any excuse to head back to his apartment. When he did it during a Red Sox game on the big screen a few days later, Steve knew something was wrong. Clint loved watching baseball on the common room TV, and he had parked himself with a blanket and another guilty pleasure of his, a huge bowl of pistachios and a spare bowl for the shells. Cleaning that up and leaving in the middle of the third inning five minutes after Steve walked in seemed fairly obvious.

Steve gave it another week just to be sure.

After an Avengers mission everything came clear.

Phil was watching Clint's recovery carefully. He knew Clint was downplaying the pain as usual, but there was also a lot more pain to downplay this time; Phil remembered with clarity a bone bruise he'd gotten on his shin once, and that had been fifteen years ago. So he made sure that meds were taken regularly, not leaving Clint to his own neglectful devices. He tried hard not to work more than four or five hours at SHIELD a day, Fury allowing him a few more teleconferenced meetings than usual under the circumstances. Also, he put Bruce and Natasha on food duty each time he had to leave for SHIELD, making Bruce promise to cook some sort of vegetarian dish that Clint liked each day. He was covering all the bases.

He also watched carefully when Clint mentioned Steve or when Steve was around. He realized after a few days that Clint was avoiding Steve. He was avoiding Steve, too, so it wasn't hard to spot.

It took him noticing Clint to realize why he was avoiding Steve. The three of them usually got along very well, Phil and Steve sharing history and military strategy and Clint and Steve sharing bikes and baseball. But when they brought Clint back to the tower from medical and Steve brought him cookies, there was something that just refused to sit right with Phil when he looked at Steve. He tried to hide it, but he knew Clint could tell.

Then the Avengers got called out. Clint was clearly off duty, but Phil was in their apartment when the call from Fury came through. He apologized to Clint, gave him a quick kiss, and then left with the others. Everyone performed admirably, even without their eyes in the sky. But it was harder, less smooth, and everyone felt Clint's absence.

When they finally got back to the Tower, a tiring nine hours later, Clint was nowhere to be found. Phil allowed himself a shower after he realized Clint wasn't in their apartment, and then he went looking. His texts went unanswered and when he got to the common room, Steve was there looking, too.

"Hey, Phil," he said. "Is Clint at your place? I wanted to talk to him."

Phil sighed. "No, I was hoping he was here. He's not answering his phone."

Steve's eyes darkened in worry and the two men said at the same time, "The roof?" Phil smiled and nodded, and they headed for the roof together.

He wasn't there.

After that, they checked the only other place he went regularly, even though he shouldn't have been there. He was, though, sitting in the shooting range cleaning his bow one-handed.

"Clint," Phil called as they entered the range. "Why are you trying to clean your bow at one in the morning?" There was no answer. Phil looked at Steve and they both sat down on opposite sides of the archer. "Clint," Phil repeated.

Clint looked up at him with hollow eyes; he hadn't slept since the team had left, which these days was unusual. Clint wasn't really up for full days awake yet. But here he was, looking wiped out.

"Clint, what's wrong?" Steve asked.

Clint looked over at the captain and smiled. "Did you figure it out today, Cap?" he asked cryptically.

Phil cocked his head as Steve answered, "Figure what out, Clint?"

Clint shoved his chair back from the table he was working at and shoved his good hand into his pants pocket as he stood. He ducked his head and said, "First mission since I was knocked out. You guys don't really need me."

Phil was stunned. He thought they'd gotten past this hurdle months and months ago. Cap looked just as startled.

"Clint, I was coming to find you to tell you that we missed you and would probably have been home about three hours earlier if you'd been around for the fight. What are you talking about we don't need you?" Steve said, incredulous.

Clint sighed and looked at the captain, but he didn't answer. Just then Phil remembered something that had been a constant over the last week at the Tower and he ran his hand over his face and sighed. Steve looked over at him. "Your nightmare, right?" Phil asked, gently.

Clint looked over at him, startled. "What?"

"Every time you have a nightmare you wake up saying something along the lines of "I can be useful. I can be a soldier" or some variation. Clint, the team needs you. Where did this come from?"

Clint looked at Steve hesitantly and Steve's eyes grew wide.

"It was when I hurt you, wasn't it?" Steve asked, his voice thick. "I said something, didn't I?"

Clint nodded and closed his eyes.

"What did I say?"

"You said I wasn't a fighter. You said I wasn't a soldier."

"Clint," Phil started, but Clint interrupted.

"No, Phil," he said vehemently. "He might have been under some spell, but he was clear. He meant it. I figure he'd been thinking it but was too nice a guy to actually say it until then." And Clint stepped back to the table and started putting his bow away.

Phil watched as Steve put his hand on Clint's shoulder and kept it there despite the little jump it caused.

"You're not a soldier, Clint."

Phil saw Clint flinch at the words, so he narrowed his eyes and stepped to the table, putting himself between Clint and his childhood hero. "Captain," he said, threatening without words what might happen if Steve hurt Clint again.

Steve stepped back, looking between Phil and Clint. He repeated, "No. You're not a soldier, Clint. And you're not a fighter in a soldier sense, which is where my brain was that day. All I was that day was a soldier. That's what the voice wanted me to be, so that's what I was. And I must have said it like it was a bad thing, Clint, but it's not. That wasn't me saying it like that."

Clint leaned around Phil. "What do you mean?" he said as Phil stepped to the side.

Steve sank into a chair. "Clint, I don't want you to be a soldier, and you're not. You're a strategist, a scrapper, a snarky bullshit caller who I can hardly do without. Do you know why it took us three hours longer today? It was because you didn't remind me of some bad strategy that I couldn't see because I was in the thick of things. Because you weren't there to take out two guys at a time. Yeah, we had a backup sniper but man, he wasn't worth a damn, Clint. I don't want you to be a soldier. I want you to be Hawkeye. That's who I need. That wasn't the leader of the Avengers or your friend talking that day in the cave, Clint. That was a maniacal super soldier. That's not me."

Phil saw realization dawn in Clint's eyes and Clint sank down in another chair and put his head in his hands.

"I'm sorry, Clint," Steve said. "I didn't mean to hurt you and I didn't mean to cause you doubt. You don't deserve that."

Phil looked at Clint and then at Steve and something unlocked in his own chest. He didn't realize he'd gone quiet until Clint stood and put a hand on his own.

"Phil? What's wrong?" Clint asked, insistent.

Phil looked over at Steve. "He didn't trust you and so I didn't trust you, you understand that, right?" he said. "I walked into that cave and saw you beating him to a pulp and then he was wary of you since. He tried to hide it, but I saw it and reacted instinctually."

And that's what it was. His childhood hero had beaten the person he loved most and even when forgiveness was offered, it wasn't fully accepted. He marveled at himself and at the connection he had with Clint that allowed his own unconscious protection to slip into place.

Steve nodded. "I figured it did a number on your head seeing me hit him like that. It's okay."

Clint sighed. "We're good now?" he asked both men.

They nodded.

"Yeah," Steve said, standing again and shaking Clint's good hand. "We're cool."

Clint grinned and looked over at Phil. "Didja hear that, Coulson? He said 'cool.'"

Phil rolled his eyes and gathered some of the cleaning supplies back into the kit on the table.

"What?" Steve asked earnestly, and Phil felt his ears go hot.

Clint nudged him in the ribs and looked at Steve. "Phil likes it when you use – what did you call it, Phil? 'Modern vernacular.' He thinks it's endearing." He paused and added, "I just think it's hot."

And Phil chuckled as he saw his hero blush.

"It's not that far out of my time period," he heard Steve mumble as they went back upstairs to turn in for the night.

"Just far enough to still be hot, Cap," Clint said, and Phil slapped him lightly on the back of the head.

"Sleep now, Barton. Flirt later," Phil said.

"And not with me," Steve added.

Clint just shrugged and said goodnight to Steve, and they all gathered the next afternoon to watch the Red Sox on the big TV.

Clint flirted anyway.