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Phillip Burke knew, from quite a young age, that no matter how much his father loved him General Burke would never accept all of him. General Burke was a life hardened man and his world view was pathetically dependent on his control over those weaker than him. Phil doesn't know this always but he learns. He learns when he brings home his best friend for Thanksgiving. He learns when his father scoffs and sneers at rainbows and Ms. Marie and Ms. Lexi down the street. He learns when his mama gets into one too many fights with his father and they're thrown out onto the street in broad daylight. Phillip Burke is fifteen when he becomes a Coulson. Phil Coulson is fifteen when he vows he'll never be his father. Phil is fifteen when he discovers Captain America.
Captain America stands for these great ideas of justice and equality. Captain America punches Hitler in the face. Captain America sacrifices himself for the greater good of the United States. As Phil's collection of memorabilia expands exponentially so does Phil's determination to be someone good. Phil Coulson wants to be more. He wants to do more. He doesn't want to sit on his ass in a white picket fence house with a trophy wife and 2.5 kids, preaching of times and things he knew best. If he was going to make an impact on his wretched world, he'd do it his own way. So he joins the army.
The army is a good place for him. He learns discipline and skills he could nowhere else. He goes from lanky and scrawny to lean and filled out. The army is a good place for him if you ignore DADT and the suffocating sexist environment and the disgustingly blatant racism. He doesn't dare bring Captain America there; he's had enough bullying in high school. He decides, if he can't bring Captain America, he'll be Captain America. That shuts down pretty quick. Johnson (Marcus, soon to be lifelong best friend) pulls him out of a fight before he can be dishonorably discharged. "Look kid, I've seen the fucking line in your shoulders before. You wanna change the fucking world? Well change it but don't fuck yourself over doing it." All in all, it's pretty sound advice. Marcus helps him change his behavior. He becomes the one people overlook, eyes slide over and always underestimate. He appreciates it.
Marcus brings him to SHIELD and they work their way through it. They meet Jasper, Maria and Melinda. They meet more but they soon learn it's best to never get too close. Jasper punches Marcus in the face when they start to pull away from him. They get uproariously drunk after missions. Its one of those nights when he tells them. Captain America. Being gay. His father. They sit and listen and drink and listen. Afterwards, after he's spilled his life story onto the coffee table in front of them Marcus says "Cheese, we may not be in the same boat but we're in the same ocean. We're good, kid, you're good." Marcus squeezes his shoulder, Jasper slaps a sloppy kiss on his forehead, Maria squeezes his hand fiercely and Melinda places a sweet kiss on his cheek. He breathes a little easier knowing he has a family. One by one each of them spills and they get closer. Jasper talks about life on the run, talks about a diner in Bumfuck, America, talks about the culture taken from him. Maria talks about dark days and racing hearts and lack of control, talks about numbness way before she got to be an agent. Melinda talks about being spit on, talks about being confronted with stretched eyes and harsh mocks of language, talks about her parents' distrust in the police and government. Marcus doesn't talk, Marcus listens. He listens until he can't anymore. He listens until he has to talk.
"Alexander wants me to be the next Director." "They have to kill off Marcus Johnston." and for the first time, "I'm sorry."
So Marcus "dies" and their family shrinks before growing. Fury doesn't talk anymore to them like family anymore and comes back one weekend without an eye. No one says anything. And so it continues for years before Marcus (not Fury curiously) gives Coulson a little bird. Just the file at first and Coulson doesn't know, whoever this man is will change his life. He chases Hawkeye for a few years before he shoots him in the rain. He doesn't see him for a month just hears Jasper's stories of a cocky asshole that never shuts up. On the darker nights, he hears how similar they are. Running, hiding, and running some more. It's when Coulson becomes Senior Agent Coulson and Jasper becomes Senior Agent Sitwell that it changes. It's when Maria becomes Assistant Director Hill that he gets Barton. Barton is everything Sitwell says and more. By the time Fury creates Strike Team Delta and Strike Team Gamma, Coulson holds Barton higher than any person he's ever met.
He keeps the trading cards in his pocket and poster on his wall for a little over a decade before someone asks. To say Clint asked would be far too much of an exaggeration, for Clint could only use his words with small animals and children. But Clint shows him his arrowheads and a little girl's ribbon he keeps wrapped tightly around his circus bow and nods at Phil's, its Phil now, it'll always be Phil from here and how wonderful is that, cards and understands. Gentle hands smooth over arrowheads and steady hands replace pristine cards thousands of times in the near decade they spend together. The hands that take care of them are clean and bleached of the blood that stains their fingernails. They tie ballet shoes and pet cats and edit dream menus and brew booze and support backs and test sinew. They hold a family in all but name. Regardless of what changes with the strike teams, their morals clank equivalently in two pockets.
It's not perfect, it's not even great most of the time. Coulson pisses off Marcus and Jasper and Maria and Melinda. He pisses off Fury and Hill more when he brings home strays and doesn't even try to pretend he isn't saving them. And so, Clint then Natasha slip their ways into their family. Jasper and Clint hate each other for the first few years and Natasha and Maria cannot stop arguing. Clint plays more pranks on Fury than is strictly acceptable in order to live. Melinda gets married and leaves. Clint always sees better from afar and tells Phil one evening over pizza that Fury sees Clint and Natasha as younger siblings and Jasper will always be too similar to Clint not to piss off and Maria and Natasha will get together some day just not right now, they aren't ready yet. Phil asks what he means to Clint. Clint gets on his knees and asks him to spend his life with him. Phil says yes, how could he not?
Their relationship is painfully human. It's tender and gentle and heartstabbingly soft because it's what they need. They sleep together for months before they sleep together. Clint falls apart in Phil's hands and Phil shatters into him. Some days are bad. Some days Phil has to fight Fury, something Supreme and himself to let Clint stay in bed on days Clint can't even get out of bed and his usually steady hands shake violently. Phil freezes Clint out for almost a week when his father is brought up. They fight and they hurt and they fill their cracks with gold because they worked. They get married in the middle of the desert with no one they know but Natasha and a polaroid camera. There are pictures but those are burnt once they trade hands with just four people. There is a copy buried near Ms. Coulson's grave and in a frame in an abandoned farmhouse. Phil, Phillip, Coulson, Burke, whatever name his body takes will always breathe easier pressed into Clint.