Inkspinner
Fandoms
Recent works
-
Tags
Summary
“We haven’t had enough time,” Daisy said softly, staring back at her screen as her Lighthouse room dimmed. She tried to memorize the way May’s eyes crinkled at the corners, the lines around her mouth; the way she looked exactly the same as she always had, even with every line of her gone softer. “I don’t—May, it’s only been—” she laughed, shaky, years blurring together in their warmth and recency.
“I’m not that old, Daisy.”
“I’m not saying you’re old!”
“Really? ‘Cause everyone, lately—”
“Nothing’s allowed to happen to you,” Daisy blurted, suddenly desperate. “You’re—unbreakable, May, you can’t—”
The way May stilled made Daisy’s heart stutter.
“Unbreakable, huh.”
(Or: You know how there's a part of you that still wants to believe in forever?)
Series
-
a place where you have never been by Inkspinner
Fandoms: The Old Guard (Movies 2020 2025)
24 Aug 2025
Tags
Summary
Andy sighs, pulls another candy bar from the pocket of her coat, yanks on the wrapper with her teeth, and sets it on the hood beside her. Waits.
“C’mon, asshole,” she mutters. “I don’t have all the time in the world.”
“And that’s the gist of it, isn’t it?”
A woman walks out of the darkness to settle at her side. Andy doesn’t look at her. The woman picks up the candy bar with vague, serene disinterest; delicately, she peels back the foil.
“This doesn’t usually work unless I’m dead.”
“I’m told,” says the strange woman, very dryly, “it’s called a near-death experience.”
Andy nearly spits out her mouthful of chocolate.
(Or: when the oldest being alive becomes mortal, Death stops by for a chat. It goes about as well as you'd expect.)
-
Tags
Summary
For all it now lived in her every motion, Andy would always be terrible at being mortal.
Nile and Andy, and their little family--impossible, all of them, and yet, not unlike any other--navigating the eternity of life and the inevitability of death, and holding onto each other while they do.
-
Tags
Summary
“You ever considered going,” Elena says to May, just as they arrive at the checkout line, and in a panic changes vigilante to, “vegan?”
“No,” says May, deadpan.
The bored looking cashier gives them a weird look. May offers her the most obnoxiously pleasant hello Elena has ever heard, and spends the next six minutes doing her grim-faced version of trying very hard not to laugh.
A tribute to the delightfully chaotic duo these two became, and to the kind of friendship that starts with two people being lonely together.
-
Melinda May: Let Me Speak by Inkspinner
Fandoms: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
12 Aug 2024
Tags
Summary
“There is not a right thing, Qiaolian. There is not a wrong thing. There is the bad you have done, and the good you can do. You can choose. Always.”
“Yeah,” said May, voice thick, eyes squeezed shut. “But what makes it matter?”
Simply, Lian answered, “You.”
The Cavalry is, by her very definition, a bringer of hope.
(Or: a character study of Melinda May, from the very beginning, up until the point we meet her in Agents of SHIELD. A story about the many faces of heroism, of hope, and all the ways we bring ourselves home.)
Series
- Part 1 of Let Me Speak
Recent series
-
get out my machete and battle with time once again by Inkspinner
Fandom: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
09 Oct 2025
Summary
Moments from a different sort of happy ending. Stories for the building of a life, for figuring out what you want it to look like; for the good days, the bad days, and the struggle and hope and life in it all. AKA: a post-season 5 peaceful retirement AU. Works are listed in my best attempt at chronological order.
- Words:
- 28,848
- Works:
- 7
- Bookmarks:
- 17
-
Let Me Speak by Inkspinner
Fandom: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
12 Aug 2024
- Words:
- 25,350
- Works:
- 1
Recent bookmarks
-
Tags
Summary
“It’s the thaw you have to look out for. That’s the part that really burns.”
May, May and Coulson, May and Coulson and Skye. Throwing it back to a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away (2013 on the ABC network), when the team's biggest problems were less about saving the world and more along the lines of "Can we trust this weird girl Coulson found in a van?" and "Why do they call Melinda May the Cavalry?"
Bookmarked by Inkspinner
19 Dec 2025
-
Tags
Summary
“You should take a shower. You’ll feel better after you wash your hair.”
“Um,” Skye says blankly, before she processes that’s actually probably a really good idea. It’s just that it’s weird to hear it from May, in that flat, matter-of-fact delivery. “Yeah, that’s — washing my hair, that’ll be good.”
May narrows her eyes for a split second, then nods and goes back to rooting through whatever she’s got in her duffel. Weapons, probably. Fresh underwear, Skye hopes. She can’t say she ever considered that aspect of the spy-on-the-run lifestyle, back when S.H.I.E.L.D. was just something she blogged about.
Series
- Part 1 of bodies in transit
Bookmarked by Inkspinner
18 Dec 2025
-
you're nobody til somebody wants you dead by captainshakespear for Rupzydaisy
Fandoms: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
01 Sep 2022
Tags
Summary
“I’m a secret agent now, shouldn’t I have a cool catchphrase?”
Copley’s pause stretches out like an ocean. Nile bites back her laughter, trying to commit to the bit.
“I’d keep workshopping it, if I were you,” he offers.
Fresh out of grad school and into an unexpected job, Nile tries to sort out which is more stressful: being an international secret agent, or trying to make new friends in your 20s.
-
Tags
Summary
When Mulder and Scully are called to Upstate New York to investigate a colossal predator with an appetite for human, they quickly realize that nothing is as it seems while being sucked into a mystery that threatens to change their lives forever ...
Or:
The one where Mulder eats the pizza and the box and Scully ruins her shoes in a new way. -
That Blessed Arrangement by ofinfinitesspace, sodiumflare
Fandoms: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
31 May 2021
Tags
Summary
Across the table, Nile’s grin is cheshire cat-wide, eyes gin-bright in the golden light. “Hey Nicky,” she says, triumph on her words like hot fudge on a sundae, “I dare you to marry Joe.”
That's the best idea she's ever had. It may be the best idea any of them have ever had. It may beat the elephant sanctuary. Quynh gasps into her hands, Booker is frozen with his glass halfway to his mouth, and Nicky—
“Nicky, my heart,” Joe says, clasps Nicky’s warm hands in his, “will you marry me?”
--
Nile (and also fandom) like to guess how many times Nicky and Joe have been married. What if the answer is zero?Bookmarked by Inkspinner
09 Oct 2025
Bookmarker's Notes
The list of favorites is ever growing but man is this one up there. What an absolute DELIGHT