ericadawn16 | Friends to the End: The One with the Jellyfish

Title: Friends to the End: The One with the Jellyfish
Author: Ericadawn16
Prompt: The wonderful mash-up of Friends and Avengers
Character/Pairing(s): Clint/Jessica Drew, Jessica Drew/Vange Whedon, Tony/Pepper, Pepper/Natasha, Tony/Thor, Phil/Clint, Clint/Natasha, Clint/?, Natasha/?
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Slash, lots of slash, mild language
Spoilers: Post-Movie AU
Summary: Everyone deals with the ramifications of the death, Loki has a very unfortunate thing happen, Darcy makes a request and Phil reveals some things about himself.
Author Notes: If you have any episodes or scenes in particular that you want to see, please comment with them and I'll see what I can do. I'm sorry about these chapters being so serious, there'll be more levity coming up. I'm also curious what you think about the exchange with Clint and Natasha.

The One with the Jellyfish

April 4, 2016

Phil Coulson kissed Clint Barton on the lips as the younger man's hands were busy elsewhere. As much as he loved the younger man and his distracting him, he couldn't hide from the truth forever. Maria Hill was dead and it was partially his fault. He pushed Clint away.

"What?" Clint asked.

"I just want a break," Phil spoke. It followed by a hurt expression from Clint and he realized his wording could have been better. "Just a walk around."

He made his way up from the bed somehow. It was antique and falling apart like the rest of the mansion that Mystique had made Pepper Potts meet her at. When Phil, Loki and the rest of the Avengers followed, Mystique had retaliated by shooting Maria in the head. Phil sighed. Then, he wondered where Pepper was because she must be feeling so much worse.

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Pepper fled from the room where she had broken up with Tony. First, she stumbled into the antiquated bathroom where she threw up in the toilet. Then, she wanted somewhere quiet to herself. However, in almost every room, she ended up having to leave because of Thor's arguing with Jane on a cell phone. One locked room had fitful snores that sounded like Bruce while she recognized the voices of Clint and Phil in another. She couldn't bear to see Maria lying on the table so she escaped outside to the beach. It worked until an almost naked, limping Loki was being followed by Tony and Steve with their shirts off. She decided she would rather avoid Tony for right now so she left for a creek that also ran by the mansion. Rain pelted down but none of them seemed to really notice.

"How do the rest of them live like this? Like nothing happened?" Pepper whispered, hugging herself.

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"But she's not used to this like we are," Steve spoke as the tide washed over his feet.

"I know but-" Tony started, paused a moment and finished, "She'll be fine."

Steve could tell that he should drop it because Tony was doing that thing where something was really bothering him but he was trying not to show it.

"So, have you read Harry Potter?" Steve asked, changing the subject.

"Oww!" Loki howled.

"Shit," Tony spat. They had promised Bruce that they'd watch Loki while he caught a quick nap. Loki might be an Asgardian but he had his mind exploded the day before by one of Mystique's friends. Even Bruce's thrashing hadn't left him that bad. They ran over the wet sand and waded to his location in the surf.

"What badness is this?" Loki growled and looked down at the back of his legs. They were crisscrossed with red lines and stingers still attached.

"I've seen this before. You've been stung by a Jellyfish," Steve spoke. Tony grimaced.

"This Midgardian creature needs to pay!" Loki spat before doubling over. He was clearly in pain.

"Can't you do magic? I thought you were better," Tony spoke.

"Not enough," he growled. Steve pulled the stingers off.

"In the army, we had ointments," Steve explained, "but I also heard urine works."

"Yes! I heard that, too," Tony agreed; a little too forcefully. Loki gave them an evil glare.

"Look away," he requested and Steve did so. He had already seen all of Loki in the strip card game the night before. After a moment, he heard what had to be an expletive but he wasn't sure of the language.

"I can't do it," Loki complained. As soon as Tony's mouth started to open, Steve shot him a look. Even though Loki wasn't their favorite person, he still needed their help. They should have realized he couldn't reach the back of his legs like that. Loki had pulled his loaned boxers back up before Steve turned around.

Steve tried to do the deed but he had never liked peeing under pressure. When he had urine tests, he made sure he drank a gallon or two beforehand. Even the sound of the rain around them didn't help.

"Ugh." Loki complained.

"Need a little help there, Cap?" Tony asked. Reluctantly, he nodded and pulled his pants back up.

Tony pulled his down.

"Never...never...never...you guys again!" Loki stuttered as the yellow stream hit the red welts. Steve wasn't sure how much of the stuttering was embarrassment or still from the brain damage. It was odd seeing him this way.

"We should probably wake Bruce up for this," Steve stated.

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"Darcy wishes to speak to you. She tried calling your phone," Thor spoke, holding out the phone to Phil.

"This is my phone. I lent it to you when your phone battery ran out," Phil reminded him, taking it from him.

"Right, Jane has wished to speak for a very long time. Things are not well," Thor explained. Phil nodded and put the phone to his ear.

"Coulson," he answered.

"Is it true about Maria?" Darcy asked in a voice lacking her usual amiable apathy.

"Yes," he answered. It wasn't getting easier especially when he heard Darcy draw in a breath like she was trying not to cry.

"Why- why didn't you bring the others? Why wasn't I there?" Darcy asked.

"Fury had us bring a minimum crew to minimize casualties. There could have been more. Bruce was injured and Loki was almost killed," Phil told her. Should he have been more forceful with Fury? It felt like his fault. "You couldn't have come because you haven't been trained like that. You handle public relations."

"Then, what good am I? I wasn't any good to Maria. I couldn't help her. I'm not even a Junior Agent then. I'm practically nothing," Darcy complained.

Without thinking, Phil asked, "Then, what do you want me to do about that?"

"Train me. Make me a full agent with all the clearances and responsibility," Darcy stated.

"Fine."

"Fine? I was expecting a little more argument," she said, regaining some of her usual tone.

"Not today, I'm not in the mood. We'll discuss more when I'm back in New York. I'm giving you back to Thor," Phil told her and held up the phone for the other man to take.

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"Why does he smell like piss? You were supposed to watch him," Bruce complained as Steve and Tony led Loki towards him.

"There was an incident with jellyfish," Tony explained.

Bruce resisted the urge to sigh and close his eyes.

"Don't tell me you believed that old wives' tale and peed on him," Bruce retorted.

"Wives' tale?" Steve asked.

"Yes, he's right. It's not working!" Loki raged. Despite the grimace that followed, he seemed to be back to normal. "Let go of me!"

Steve and Tony let go with a hiss. Loki's hands had been blue for a brief instant. Bruce saw him stare at them, smile and disappear.

"I think our ticket out of here just left," Tony pointed out.

"SHIELD must have a backup plan," Bruce said.

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Natasha sat by Maria. She felt broken and was relieved when Clint entered the room. He put a hand on her shoulder.

"I haven't cried," she admitted. "All she's done and..."

"She'd understand, Tash. It doesn't mean anything," Clint spoke.

"She did though. She cried for every agent we lost. She cared," Natasha argued. "What if it's everything they did? Everything they made me into? What if I'm broken that way?"

Clint's hand left her shoulder and he stood in front of her.

"I haven't cried either. I thought maybe it was being worried for everyone else, especially Phil. Maybe I was still in battle mode but-," he paused. Clint looked at Maria a second.

"It still hasn't happened. Maybe it was your upbringing but what if SHIELD is making us worse? What if we became too good at killing? Like it doesn't have meaning anymore?" Clint spoke. His blue eyes were so sad and his words brought to mind another conversation from years ago.

You lie and kill in the service of liars and killers. You pretend to be separate, to have your own code, something that makes up for the horrors. But they are a part of you, and they will never go away!

At the time, she had only focused on her mission but since then, his words held a scary truth to them. She claimed to have no loyalty to SHIELD yet she had grown comfortable, too comfortable. Her foot struck out at a broken planter that shattered further, spewing the ancient dirt against the hard wooden floor.

"If we're not SHIELD, what would we be?" Natasha asked.

"Avengers?" Clint suggested and she nodded.

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"SHIELD's working on it. If nothing else, we wait for Miss Munroe to come back from Africa," Phil explained. Bruce nodded. The others were around. The island wasn't immense. He could find them if he had to.

"Did you know that Fury had you pegged as his number two since you were a teenager? Why?" Bruce asked. It was sudden and drowning like the rain outside. He could have two choices; his official work identity or the truth.

"I was one of the younger Rangers. They have a lot of hoops so you can't be too young but I wanted to be in the Army, like Rogers. Rangers seemed like the closest thing to a Howling Commandos squad. I was good at it," Phil spoke. He paused for a moment. The truth felt so ugly spoken aloud. "I was good at killing people. It came easily. Fury was one of my commanding officers then."

He knew Bruce was holding on. He was in control but he could also see how much Maria's death was wrecking him. The other man was just looking at the floor with his hands in his pockets.

"And then Fury recruited you here?" Bruce spat.

"No, I turned him down. I quit. It wasn't as glamorous as I imagined it to be," Phil explained. "So I went to college. I tried being normal."

"None of us get to be normal," Bruce uttered.

"No," Phil agreed. "It didn't work."

"Maria told me so many times how she was looking for that one big mission that would finally prove herself to Fury and make her stop being the third wheel," Bruce spoke. "I guess he has what he wants now."

Before Phil could worry about Bruce's state, he walked out of the room. Phil crossed his arms. Everything was wrong. Then, he realized the rain had stopped. This was the first good news in hours.

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"You're going to talk and I'm not going to like it," Clint guessed as he studied Phil's worried face. Despite being back in Manhattan and Clint's own bed, it had gotten worse.

"Yeah," Phil uttered. "Bruce is pretty torn up and I think he blames me. He said that Maria felt like 'the third wheel'. I knew things were bad but...I always treated her as a superior, or at least an equal."

"I know you would have talked to Fury, argued with him," Clint said, taking his hand.

"I know but...maybe I could have done more," Phil spoke. Clint let go of his hand, took his arm and pulled him closer.

"They're going to need you. Nobody's going to want to listen to Blake, seniority or not. Peter's going to graduate in a couple of months and then, you won't have to be principal anymore. Darcy's working out-"

"Darcy wants to be trained to be 'a full agent'", Phil interrupted him.

"Hmm," Clint replied in response.

"You're going to make a betting pool, aren't you?" Phil guessed.

"You never know, I might let Tony do it," Clint offered.

"He might need a distraction from thinking about Pepper," he agreed.

"She didn't really...?" Clint asked.

"She did," Phil confirmed. Clint braced himself for what was coming. "I'm going to be as busy as or busier than when we broke up and I don't want us to make the same mistakes again. I can't offer you anything serious. If you want to see other people when I'm not around, I think you should and we'll just be...casual."

It was better than nothing. He'd take it for now. Maybe one day he'd even talk to Phil about the conversation with Tasha.

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