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All things considered, May is glad that she has something else to focus on other than her own anger and hurt, and disappointment. She should have been the one to know better, she should have seen all the signs from a mile away; that was her job, to be the eyes of this team, and she failed.
She failed spectacularly.
The less she can do is push down her shame and her remorse and help fix the pieces of everything that got broken to the best of her capacity.
That’s why she does physical therapy with Fitz and doesn’t get mad at him, no matter how much he gets mad at himself and lashes out at her instead as some form of self-preservation.
That’s why she told Phil to let Simmons go undercover. They worry about Fitz so much that sometimes they forget that Simmons was there too and has demons of her own to battle. She needs to process, yes, but she also needs to cope, and if she needs to leave in order to do that, they had to let her.
That’s why she trains Skye.
She has to give Ward credit: the girl has potential and he didn’t do a sloppy job on the physical training. But she doesn’t only need the training to make her body stronger and better, she also needs it to make her emotional defenses stronger and better, and well, May can relate to that, and therefore no one better to train her.
(Or so Skye seems to think, and May lets her, because what good would it do to her to know the truth?)
Again: they are doing damage control with what little they have, and it feels sometimes like they have to let some things burn down just because they have bigger fires to put out.
Fitz’s shaking hands and his struggle with words are so blatantly obvious that sometimes May forgets about Simmons quietly panicking in the shower, and while she rubs dry shampoo on Jemma’s hair, she can’t take care of Skye beating her own hands to pulp against the punching bag.
There is only one her, and even though she knows this is all her fault, there is only so much she can do before she wants to take her own skin apart, and if she destroys herself she wouldn’t be able to be there for them the next day, and she is not going to do that.
May had given up the idea of children of her own a long time ago because she thinks they are too soft and too pliant to be managed with her scarred hands; how did she end up anyway with this bunch of brave, traumatized, amazing kids that she needs to help so hard and for whom she feels responsible?
(And that is not even counting Phil going quietly out of his mind. May sometimes think that she should have retired while she could, but how could she, when all these people need her so much? It doesn’t matter that she can’t help them with the bigger things, the things that count; she is willing to put enough effort into the small things to make a difference.)
But she can’t do much more for Fitz than try to help him get better, and she can’t do much more for Simmons than let her go, and she can’t do much more for Phil than make him promises she is not sure she will be able to fulfill. But Skye wants more from her, Skye is avid for a hand to take her out of her misery and lead her somewhere her anger can be useful, Skye is desperate for someone to tell her that life can be okay despite the world dragging her down and people being shit.
May is not sure she can do all of that for her, be the defender of the optimism, use the it gets better slogan on her. Yes, she is the bearer of the show must go on concept, but anything else? It’s just not her style.
But one night, when it’s so late that it could be called early, and she is still in the kitchen sipping tea, Skye barges in, barefoot and with red-rimmed eyes, and May understands suddenly which card she should play, because, yes, she blames herself for a lot of what happened, but she has been so focused on them and what they need that she has been forgetting to hate herself for a long time. Skye startles a little when she sees her, and May makes a gesture to make her feel welcomed.
“Tea?”
Skye snorts.
“If it is the strongest thing we have, yeah, sure.”
May gets up and turns on the kettle before answering.
“It’s the strongest thing you can have. You have to be up in three hours for training.”
Skye sits down on the breakfast bar, and May notices that she is wearing a sweater that is too big for her.
“Thank god. I would go out of my mind without training.”
That makes May stop because she can see, clear as a picture, how high are the chances of Skye becoming just like her, and while there is no shame in doing your job well, and liking it, May still can remember the things she wanted and let go.
(Because there is nothing wrong in being addicted to your job if that is what you want, to be Jemma Simmons and have two Ph.D.’s by the age of seventeen, but you have to choose it for yourself, not let a shitty life choose it for you.)
“What happened?”
Skye is on the defensive in two seconds flat, and May goes to her and takes her wrist, to show her the watch with her increasing pulsations, which speaks louder than a thousand words. She looks down at the floor, part ashamed and part upset, but May doesn’t let go of her wrist.
“Fitz and I had a fight, okay?”
Well, that explains a lot: both of them have taken both Fitz’s injury and Simmons’s absence to heart, the way they do almost everything. Skye is uncomfortable with Fitz’s disability and ashamed for feeling that way, and hurt and angry at Simmons for leaving; Fitz is disappointed in himself, in war with the world, and in denial of Simmons’s leaving. Not even a miracle could have saved them from being an explosive cocktail.
“You and Fitz more or less fight all the time,” May points out while she goes to pour the water on the mugs. “What was different about this time?”
She can hear Skye sigh and she pointedly looks away to give her privacy to gather her thoughts.
“I usually try to carry on, you know that. Life is hard, I’m not the first person ever to have shitty things happen to them, and I won’t be the last. But sometimes it’s… harder somehow, you know? Because I have to go talk with the freaking traitor in our basement, and then I come back and Simmons is gone, and Fitz is not coping, like, at all, and the only ones keeping me slightly sane are you and Trip.” May doesn’t acknowledge the implicit gratitude, because she knows there is still more Skye needs to say, and she can’t be interrupted. “They were my very first long-term friends, that truly liked me for who I am. They were my fundament out there in the field when this insanity started, and now there is this chasm open between us. And it wasn’t supposed to be this way. It isn’t fair, and I don’t want it, and sometimes I can’t help but wonder if it wouldn’t have been better to not know them at all.”
May has a reputation to upkeep and, most importantly, she knows that she is being Skye’s support now, and she can’t fail her. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt like hell, but the mug he puts in front of her is still warm and perfect tea, and her voice doesn’t falter when she talks, and that is something.
“There is a couple of things you need to know. First of all, life isn’t fair. If you were under the impression that this wasn’t true, change your mind now because you are too young to hate the world already because it didn’t give you something that wasn’t promised in the first place.” There are unshed tears in the corners of Skye’s eyes, and May continues like she doesn’t see them. “Yes, they are amazing people, and so are you, and terrible things happened to all of you. You have to deal with it, because life is going on, with or without you. And there are also things that make all of this worth it. The single fact that you love them so much that it hurts this badly, doesn’t make everything worth it?”
Skye is full-on crying now, and May doesn’t move from her side of the bar, she just stirs her tea in silence. Skye might need a lot of things from her, even some that May isn’t sure she can provide, but a hug right now is not one of them. She seems to feel better after a couple of minutes of inhibited crying, and while she dries her eyes with the sleeve of the sweater, May pushes the mug closer to her. Skye takes it with shaking hands and takes a sloppy sip and pulls a face at the bitter taste, and only then May recognizes the sweater as Fitz’s. Poor boy, between Skye and Simmons, May is not sure he has enough clothes left to put on. Not that he would mind much, probably.
“I don’t know. I honestly don’t know if it’s worth everything.”
May nods.
“That’s okay. You don’t need to figure it out overnight or in a rush. But eventually, you will have to, and then I want you to have thought about it. Remember, life isn’t fair, but that doesn’t mean that it only takes and takes and never gives you anything back.”