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They’re on vacation, walking down the street in some lazy little town in Maine, and suddenly there’s an explosion, and Phil’s ten feet down the block with blood oozing out of him, and before Clint can do more than run over and drop to his side, a rangy man with white hair and round glasses is running out the door opposite them, skidding to a stop and dropping to his knees like he’s been hit, too.
“Name?” the man asks.
“Barton. Clint.” Clint replies.
“His name,” the man says.
“Phil. Coulson. Coulson.” Clint replies.
The man looks into Phil’s face. “Phil Coulson Coulson, can you hear me?”
“Yes,” Phil says. His voice is thready, but it’s clear.
“I’m Dr. Pierce; I’ll be your emergency surgeon today.”
“What happened?” Phil asks.
Clint looks down the street. The front half of the house they were walking in front of is a smoldering ruin. It smells like antifreeze and battery acid. “Meth lab,” Clint says.
“And some weed,” Dr. Pierce tells him. “Call 911,” he tells Clint as he cuts open Phil’s shirt with a pair of kitchen scissors and pulls it apart. He pauses for a second at the sight of the still-healing surgical scar that basically bisects Phil’s chest. It’s three inches to the left of Phil’s new wound. “Haven’t seen one of those in awhile,” he says, and reaches for the kitchen towel he has slung over his shoulder. He twists it in his hands and holds it out for Phil.
“What are you about to do?” Phil asks.
“Triage,” Dr. Pierce replies. “Bite down.”
Phil takes the towel between his teeth, and Dr. Pierce pulls out tweezers, douses them in alcohol from a bottle in his pocket, and spreads open the wound. Phil groans, and Clint clamps a hand on Dr. Pierce’s wrist.
“That’s a meth lab that just exploded,” Dr. Pierce says. “As you so quickly identified for reasons I’m not asking about. Which means what’s in this wound here could be more than just glass and dirt.”
“What are you doing living next to a meth lab?” Clint retorts.
“Cleaning your husband’s wound so he doesn’t get an infection.”
“He’s not—”
“I’m a confirmed bachelor,” Dr. Pierce says. “But I’m not blind. I saw you holding hands as you were walking down the street. Now, you want to keep holding his hand for many years to come, I need to work.” He recognizes the combination of anguish and pain and terror that goes across Clint’s face. “How long ago?” he asks.
“Seven months,” Clint replies. He clears his throat and lets go of Dr. Pierce’s wrist and stares at Phil’s face. “Ready?” he asks.
Phil nods.
“Do it,” Clint says.
Dr. Pierce digs in, pulling out glass and dirt and other bits. “You still haven’t called 911,” he says to Clint. He glances at Phil, who still has the towel in his mouth but isn’t biting down. He pauses in the wound cleaning and leans back on his heels. “You,” he points to Clint with the tweezers, “are not a soldier, but you,” he points at Phil, “definitely were.”
“And you were an army doctor,” Clint replies. “I’m Hawkeye,” he adds.
“Son of a bitch,” Dr. Pierce says. He opens the alcohol and dumps it directly over Phil’s wound. Phil hisses, and Clint grabs for the bottle, but Dr. Pierce pulls it away. “I’m retired,” he says. “I told Fury no. You want a team doctor for your superhero squad, find it elsewhere.”
“You sure responded fast for a guy who said his instincts aren’t good enough,” Clint says.
“Tell me you didn’t blow out the front of that house just to get my attention.”
“We didn’t,” Clint says. “Believe me, we didn’t.”
He’s pale and sweating at the temples, eyes tight on Dr. Pierce but a wildness to his posture that Dr. Pierce recognizes as remembered shock. “All right,” he says. He gets an arm under Phil and waits for Clint to get his other side. “You can come in, and I’ll stitch this up, but you tell Fury he can still consider his offer ignored.”
“Will do,” Clint says.
Pierce gets Phil stitched up and propped up at the kitchen table with a dirty martini and a couple of ibuprofen. Clint’s standing up at the side window, watching the police work their way around the blown-out house.
“We’re supposed to be on vacation. This was supposed to be a tiny little side trip.” Clint murmurs, and Pierce thinks he’s not supposed to hear, but Phil turns and watches him for a minute.
“It’s six stitches,” Phil says. “It’s not the same.”
“At least you weren’t doing something incredibly stupid this time,” Clint says.
“Clint,” Phil says. He swallows the ibuprofen and eyes the martini.
“Medicinal,” Pierce says. “Doctor’s orders.” He stands up from the table and stands next to Clint. “You and I share a name,” he says.
“And?”
“And I get the feeling it’s not the only thing we share.”
“I never snapped,” Clint says.
Pierce laughs, mirthless. “You’re about to if you don’t relax.” He reaches for the martini shaker and pours the second drink into a spare glass. “Sit down, have a drink, and enjoy your damned vacation.”
“He nearly died,” Clint says. “And it was my fault.”
“It wasn’t,” Phil replies.
“It wasn’t,” Pierce says before Clint can disagree.
“You don’t even know me.”
“I’ll make another round of martinis, and we’ll get friendly really quick,” Pierce replies. He grins, and Clint doesn’t grin back. Pierce drops the smile from his face. “I know enough,” he says. “Believe me. You want to compare who’s carrying the most unnecessary guilt, we’re gonna need a new bottle of gin.”
Clint reaches into his cargo pants and pulls out a fifth. “Courtesy of Fury.”
Pierce unscrews the cap, takes a whiff, and gives a cough. “Bathtub, sweat sock hooch. He make this himself?”
“Compliments of Tony Stark,” Phil says. “On orders from Fury.”
“The answer’s still no,” Pierce says, “But give me an hour with this swill, and I’ll probably have enough brain damage to reconsider.”
Clint cracks a grin and sits next to Phil, resting a hand on the back of his neck. Dr. Pierce dumps the gin into the shaker and adds vermouth and olive brine. “Now, tell me how you two crazy kids met,” he says. “I now Nick’s not going to give up, so I might as well know my negotiators.”
“It was a dark and stormy night,” Phil says, and Clint chuckles, and Hawkeye considers, maybe, he might let Nick put him to work every now and again.