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It is a red vitreous blob, about the size of a paperback book. A red light pulses softly from one edge to the other. It shines warmly off the skin of Coulson's body, a tiny fraction of his face is cast warm and alive by it while the rest of his skin is wan and paper white.
The inelegant hole that Loki thrust into his back has been made larger by neat surgical cuts.
"I'll admit that mainly I shoot the things I'm told to, but it seems much more likely that he’ll recover if his heart is on the inside."
Betty smiles and points with the tip of her pencil. "See the chip?"
Clint does. The glass is soft and curving, organic, but there is a sharp jagged piece, maybe a square inch, missing.
"That's not good."
"I think he might heal if we can find the piece, but with the way the helicarrier was tossed around, quite frankly we'll be lucky if it didn't fall out somewhere over the ocean."
"Has anyone looked for it yet?"
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The chip is tiny, and wedged under a console. But Hawkeye is used to aiming for someone's tie pin from the top of a skyscraper.
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Dr. Ross is correct. The chip clicks into place, and the glass heals around it. Then Col-Sun's odd alien heart is fitted back inside his earth built body and the synthetic skin and muscles and bones are closed around it.
She lets Hawkeye put in the last layer of tiny stitches, the way that Coulson always asked him to in the field and Coulson opens his eyes, coughs up more of the harsh red fluid he uses for coolant and grins at Clint.
"I knew they called you Hawkeye for a reason."