Chapter Text
Phil Coulson, senior agent in a secret organization and right hand man to Nick Fury himself prided himself on his unflappability and blandness, so he is a little ashamed to acknowledge that when he woke up alone in an underground, concrete room, strapped to a hospital bed, and missing both his clothes and his weapons he did not react well. He had once smiled affably at a towering Norwegian man who was ripping his fingernails out with pliers. He had once softly sung ‘Somewhere over the Rainbow’ to a Tangerine assassin who was being burned alive. Waking up in a room alone was not the worst, nor the weirdest thing he had experienced. Even waking strapped to a bed in nothing but a hospital gown was hardly something that should have freaked him out. He had survived being shot in the groin, partially scalped (SHIELD kept a whole slew of cosmetic surgeons on retainer for just such an occasion, thank god, or Phil would look very different due to that little run-in), and a faked seduction by Deputy Director Hill. Waking up in room alone should not have caused his heart rate to spike and his breathing to speed up.
And yet it did.
Phil blames this on the fact that he was obviously in a SHIELD facility. SHIELD had a very distinct flavor of bland, that was almost exactly like any other government organization, or hospital, but Phil had helped design that level of bland innocuousness. He knew. So, if this was a SHIELD facility (a hypothetical ‘if’ because, as previously stated, Phil knew) where was anyone? Never in his entire career at SHIELD had he ever wakened to an empty room. The staff in Medical were practically OCD about their patients, and no agent or operative was ever left completely alone. Even if no person could be in the room, a camera was trained on every bed 24/7. No one was left unwatched.
Phil looked around, focused his eyes on every corner of the room, on all of the equipment, but could not spot a single camera. Nothing. Which was ridiculous. Phil had helped design the security measures, and he knew (like he knew this was SHIELD, and knew that he was alone) that there wasn’t a single room, in medical or otherwise, that did not have some sort of recording device, even if what the cameras recorded were never watched they were stored and kept for emergencies. So, unless R&D had invented a new type of invisible camera and hadn’t told him (which was impossible, because the scientists were possibly more scared of him than they were Romanoff, and she had once blown up their entire department because a junior agent had stated that it wasn’t possible, and they would never keep something that useful from him), there really wasn’t any recording device in the room.
And what was more surprising was that neither Barton nor Romanoff was in attendance either. It was more than ten years ago that Phil had picked up and brought in Barton, and a hospital visit hadn’t gone by in those ten years that did not include Barton bursting in on him or him waking to see Barton’s cocky smirk and some pithy phrase. Unless, of course, Barton was on assignment, in which case he usually woke to his phone shrilly informing him that he had 81 missed calls from his asset. And, after Barton had kidnapped/adopted/inducted the Black Widow into SHIELD, she too had started showing up after especially dangerous fights. Yes, she often wore angrier glares, but she was always there by his bed beside Barton.
This was only fair, really, since whenever either of them had a stay in medical he took up vigil by their bedside. It was common courtesy. Plus, he looked after his own. So really, the fact that neither of them were there, and that there was no sign of anyone else either, raised Phil’s hackles.
But, thinking of Barton, memories of what had happened to him to make him wake up in a hospital bed in the first place started to filter to the forefront of his brain. Barton was compromised. The Avengers were acting like whiny piss babies. Loki had stabbed him through the back.
Well, that had been just rude.
But, more importantly: Barton.
His body tried to jerk into sitting position without his permission but the straps around his wrists and ankles kept him down. He frowned down at the black leather bands, and then at his chest, because trying to sit up hadn’t pulled at stitches on his chest beneath the hospital gown, but at a newly healing scar (and yes, he did know the difference between those two feelings enough to differentiate them without looking). A scar. Not stitches. That meant he had been in a coma for more than a month.
More than a month had passed since Thor’s brother had skewered him with a glorified glow stick. More than a month had passed, and he didn’t know if Clint Barton had ever been brought out from under Loki’s control. More than a month and he didn’t even know if the Avengers had gotten their shit together, if Nick had taken his advice and used his death to bring them together, long enough for them to save the world. Phil didn’t know, and judging by the lack of people in this room, no one would be telling him anytime soon.
Not like leather straps and an empty room were going to hold him back. Something was going on, and he was going to find out.
Being alone was one thing, not having Barton or Romanoff with him, or any medical staff, but it was another thing entirely to assume that Fury wouldn’t know exactly where he was, and Phil just wasn’t that stupid. And the fact that his heart monitor was going off, and exactly no one had come to look in on him meant that either his heart monitor was not hooked up to anything outside this room (which was unlikely as this was SHIELD, and even if he wasn't Fury's one good eye Nick liked having his fingers in every pie he could reach), or something so big was happening outside this room that they didn't have the manpower to come rushing in.
Phil narrowed his eyes at the sturdy door, the only door in the room, and then back at the leather straps holding him down. He allowed himself the luxury of rolling his eyes in exasperation, but only because he was the only one in the room. If they thought that four straps and a closed door were going to keep him in the room, than they were obviously underestimating him. Again. Which, granted, was one of his particular skill sets (being underestimated), but SHIELD, and Fury in particular should know better. He was able to scare R&D by smiling blandly at them. He once took down a gunman with a bag of flour. He could have escaped the room with half the equipment they had left in there with him. Leaving both needles (his IV) and electrodes in reaching distance of him was almost insulting.
As he gingerly got to his feet, the leather straps fastened around nothing and sitting innocently on the bed, Phil made a mental note to organize another seminar on underestimating coworkers. Everyone here was trained to be deadly and bland, they should know better.
Trying the door handle he sighed. It wasn’t even fucking locked. What had become of his beautifully organized and efficient organization while he had been asleep? He clucked disappointedly and reminded himself that he had to stop reacting outwardly. He supposed he could forgive himself for now because he had just woken up and was probably on drugs still (another thing upon which he could heap blame for his freak-out), but if he wanted to navigate SHIELD and find answers to all his questions he was going to need to rein it back in.
He stepped cautiously into the hallway and was immediately beset with flashing red lights and a whirring alarm.
Phil very pointedly did not raise his eyebrows.
Alright, that explained the lack of Fury or anyone else. Those alarms meant trouble, big trouble, and no doubt all manpower was being used to neutralize the threat. They wouldn’t have left anyone behind to watch a man sleep if something big enough to warrant these alarms was going on.
He mentally forgave Nick for not playing nurse.
He still wanted—no, needed to know whether Barton was compromised, however.
And, if he was being honest, despite having the lack of energy and muscle that came with long periods of being bedridden, adrenaline was pumping through his veins. That alarm meant shit was going down, and all that meant to Phil’s body was that he was needed. He was made to fight the good fight, and that was what he was going to do. And then he was going to find Fury and figure out what the hell he’d been doing in windowless room in a sub-basement strapped to a hospital bed.
He did not sprint down the halls, but his gait was swift, and he realized with an unerring certainty that he missed his personal firearm. And his suit. He wouldn’t be able to fight anything or anyone in a backless paper dress without even a bag of flour on him.
He rounded corner after corner, knowing instinctually how to get to the stairwell that would lead him somewhere more familiar. He had studied the blueprints of every SHIELD base on the off chance that he would someday need that information, just as he'd studied road maps of every large city in the world, and had taken ancient Sumerian in college, on the off chance that he would need those things. The memory of maps had come in handy. The ancient Sumerian hadn't as of yet, but knowing his life he would need it eventually, so he kept in practice. The knowledge of SHIELD bases was more useful in this instant, and Phil was unnecessarily pleased to recognize these halls as those from the blueprints of the main SHIELD base, where he had his office. On the way to the stairs he bypassed the elevator, which he momentarily considered using, as he was already horribly out of breath (he added a mental note to schedule some physical therapy sessions with Romanoff. She wouldn’t be kind, but she’d beat him into shape much faster than any of the physical therapists SHIELD kept on staff), but elevators could get stuck, and they left no place to hide or run, so the stairs were going to have to do.
The stairwell was dark, the only light coming in red flashes. It was a stark contrast from the fluorescently lit hallway, but Phil refused to focus on anything besides getting up the stairs. He stepped more slowly now, having noticed that his breath was coming in quicker and sharper bursts, and his legs were weak, refusing to do the work Phil would generally deem average. A few times he had to stop climbing in order to catch his breath and it was making him antsy, though he knew that if anyone had seen him they would have had no idea he was feeling anything except calm and collected. The fact that other agents, his peers and cohorts, were fighting and he wasn’t there to provide back-up irked at him. His duty was to protect SHIELD, and climbing this stairwell, out of breath and wearing a paper dress, he knew he wasn’t doing his duty. Every fight could be a life or death struggle, an attack that warranted this alarm system would definitely end in loss of life of SHIELD Personnel. It was his job, his honor to fight alongside his fellow agents. He would not play patient while agents lost their lives. He would not.
(And Clint Barton could be out there. Clint.)
Suddenly the alarm cut off and the red-glowing stairwell was plunged into a bright whiteness that hurt Phil’s eyes. He did not squint or blink rapidly but kept on moving. The abrupt silence held a harsh finality that Phil didn’t like.
He squashed the regret that was welling in his stomach and reminded himself that the battle ending was a good thing. It meant SHIELD had won (because they would have been burnt to the ground before they surrendered, and since Phil was still alive they must have won). It meant Phil could focus on the Barton situation.
It meant that the stairwell would not be empty for much longer.
Shit.
Phil leapt up the last few steps to the third floor landing and cautiously pulled open the door. He held his breath and listened. Nothing. Silence. He glanced upward and then closed the door again. He could probably at least make it to the fourth floor before agents started flooding in. They would be able to move faster than him, and he knew that while he could still incapacitate them if need be it would leave him exhausted and breathless and he couldn’t afford that right now.
His office was on the fifth floor, and he would be stopping there first, if for no other reason than he kept a spare suit (or five) in the closet in his office as back up and as much as he wanted to find Clint, he didn’t want to do it practically naked. If he could get to the fourth floor he could go up the back stairs.
If his verification code still worked that is.
On the fourth floor landing he opened the door a crack and held his breath once more to listen. Nothing…nothing… He leaned back and cocked his ear to the stairwell. A sharp squeal of the ground floor door opening forced his hand (and he would have to find who it was who had opened that door and lecture them on the correct way to move without drawing attention to oneself. Or reassign them. Whichever).
He stepped out of the stairwell and into the hall and instinctually took a step 2 ½ feet to the left. The camera in the hall would be able to pick him up, but if he shuffled against the left wall and kept his head bowed it would only be able to see the top of his head. If a techie caught a hostpital-begowned man walking through the halls they would raise the alarms again. His training and his plans both insisted he stay out of sight and unremarkable. He could work with that.
A third of the way down the hall, on a block of hall with no offices or doors, Phil realized that he could hear something aside from his labored breathing. He stopped and dropped a little lower so that he was leaning at an almost 90 degree angle, his whole weight on the wall. He held his breath and listened.
Ahead of him, in the direction he was walking he could hear muffled conversation and the quiet flipping of paper. Agents working on paperwork, or about to start filling it out. They were moving towards him.
(His fingers itched knowing that he would have to correct their filing mistakes.)
Behind him, coming from where he had recently been he heard the sharp slap of standard issue combat boots. They were heading towards him.
He grit his teeth at yet another person ignoring the fact that they were being loud in an organization that prided itself on staying innocuous. He would have to send out a SHIELD-wide memo about the disappointment of being able to hear fellow agents coming from that far away.
Alright, incoming from both sides with no place to hide. Perfect. Just the kind of challenge he liked. He would not be seen, he would not be heard. That was how good SHIELD operatives operated.
(He was so disappointed in these agents. Training of Junior agents must have declined severely.)
He blew a long breath out of his nose in exasperation and looked up, a motion inherited from his religious grandfather that had lost its meaning by his generation.
Then his eye caught on something and the corner of his lip curled into the tiniest smirk.
A ventilation shaft.
By the time the agents converged on the spot Phil had been at he was already looking down at them through the grate. They didn’t even notice that only three screws were in place. What had this place become?
On the plus side Phil knew that even after at least a month in a coma he still hadn’t lost his touch. Even if he had taken a page out of The Clint Barton Guide for hiding from superiors and inferiors alike.
The hall below him was empty once more, but he held his breath for another thirty seconds anyway. He listened, but could hear no one else coming down the hall.
Now he had options. He could go back through the grate and hope his verification codes still work on that back staircase and that if they do work, using them will not rain hellfire down upon his head.
Or he could stay in the vents and travel a la Barton up to his office. It wouldn’t be too difficult. He had done it before, years ago, back before Barton trusted SHIELD to have its agents’ backs. Barton had taken to sleeping and travelling in the vents in order to protect himself. Phil had started climbing in himself to leave Barton little incentives to trust, if not SHIELD, then Phil himself. Books, pudding cups, wrist guards, anything he thought Barton might appreciate and might make him feel more at home. He left them where he knew Barton would find them, and soon he didn’t have to go into the vents at all, as Barton had started coming to him. It was more than a decade since he’d entered the vents, but he still remembered how to climb through them with efficiency. His body remembered where to place his hands and feet, and how to pull himself up straight vertical shafts without falling to his death. It was harder work than he remembered it being, but he blamed it on the month of sleep and not on the fact that he was a decade older.
When he got to the fifth floor he saw that the halls were much busier. Operatives were rushing about, some still in their Tac Suits, some dressed like office workers. Phil let himself rest. He laid immobile, his eyes peaking out one of the grates so he could keep an eye on the happenings below. He rested there for a full minute and a half, and was just about to start moving again when the voice of a very angry Nick Fury echoed up through the PA system.
“Listen up, Motherfuckers,” Oh how Phil had missed those dulcet tones, “this building is going on lock-down. No one comes in, no one goes out. Report any suspicious people or activities. I do not care if you’ve seen this person every day for the past seven years, if they don’t have a badge you handcuff them to the fucking wall. We have a missing agent. Repeat, missing agent. Keep your eyes out for anything out of the ordinary.” His pause was menacing. “If I find anyone who did not report suspicious behavior I will have them made into my next eye-patch.”
His voice cut off abruptly, and Phil allowed himself a silent sigh. He had the unsettling idea that Nick had just found Phil MIA. Excellent. Moving about the base now would not be difficult at all. Phil rolled his eyes behind closed lids.
Below him there was absolute silence. SHIELD agents did not break into hushed whispers or anxious cacophony in the face of the unknown and the terrifying. No, they went silent, and they went still. After a few seconds the people below him began walking again, but there was no chatter now, and everyone moved with a sense of purpose.