Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It takes an age for her to finally locate Daisy. An age that began with her striding and ended with her hobbling, struggling to keep on through the long dark hallways, checking every corner of disused rooms for a huddled figure.

When Daisy’s upset she hides.

It’s Daisy’s default behaviour - too many years of uncaring parents punishing a little girl for feeling. There’s a persistent ache in her heart at the thought of Daisy hiding from them. Hiding from her. There’s a more insistent ache in her leg as she keeps on pushing herself on through the miles of hallways she’s traversed on each level. She brushes both aside as she pushes yet another frankly indistinguishable door open to check yet another darkened store room for a human being.

Despite her care, she almost misses Daisy. The small form sitting in the furthest corner of the room, partially hidden by empty storage racking casting slight shadows even in the darkness. Only the bowed head tells that Daisy has probably been crying.

She can’t hold back the sigh of frustration at Phil doing this to them, to her. Then lets the door swing shut loudly and forces her leg the short distance remaining. She’ll deal with her own feelings about this later. Just now, she’s more important concerns. She lets her back thud against the same wall Daisy sits against, before sliding steadily down, her aching leg outstretched until she’s sitting right beside Daisy, close enough to touch, close enough to be of comfort when Daisy’s ready. The cold of the floor almost immediately seeps in to her bones.

Daisy pointedly ignores her presence. She just as deliberately sits in questioning silence, waiting Daisy out. She will wait as long as it -

“How the hell are you not angry!” Daisy erupts expectedly. They’ve only been sitting in silence for seven or so minutes.

She scoffs at the thought. “Not angry? Daisy, I’m furious!” she can acknowledge it out loud even if she can’t afford to let herself get bogged down by her own feelings just now – the distress, the anger, the betrayal, the indescribable depth of sadness that echoes throughout her very bones as though draining her very life force alongside his…

She has to forcibly pull her thoughts back to Daisy. She can’t afford to give in to the tears here and now. She has too much to do before she allows herself to succumb. Too many people come first. She swallows it back. “I am furious. I am furious that he’s dying. I’m furious that he’s not fighting it. And you can bet your ass I am furious that he did not tell me before now!” if she ends on a growl telling more of her fragile emotional state than she intends, well that’s okay too.

“But you’re not gonna waste it, right?” Daisy’s tone mocks her. “You know, we’ve done this conversation before.” Ward, her mind recalls. The two situations are nothing alike and even comparing them -

“Good,” she snaps out unimpressed. “Then I don’t need to waste my time convincing you that sulking in your room is stupid.”

Daisy looks up then but it’s only to communicate her roll of the eyes. She loses the flash of anger upon seeing Daisy’s tear streaked face. Her fingers reach up of their own volition to brush gently across Daisy’s soft cheek to wipe away her tears. She tries not to let it bother her when Daisy pulls away, wiping her own face far more harshly with a sleeve, keeping her face turned down and hidden from her.

“He lied to us,” Daisy justifies more honestly, her quiet voice expressing the weight of emotions she cannot hide so easily.

“I know,” she acknowledges.

“And he’s dying,” Daisy continues, her voice breaking between the words.

“He is.”

There’s a pause. A breath of space where Daisy clearly tries to regroup, to find the words, and she simply waits her out.

“He… he doesn’t even want us to try to save him.”

“I’m well aware of that too,” is all she can offer. She doesn’t understand his reasoning – how can she when he sprung this devastation on her without so much as a seconds warning too!

Daisy’s pleading eyes look up to her, seeking answers and a spark of hope. She sighs so heavily she fears her heart might break from the oppressive weight. She’s no miraculous answers or false reassurances left to give. “Daisy…” she takes a breath. Simple in and out. She’s not deliberately stalling for time, she just can’t find the words. “Phil is dying. He may have weeks. He may have hours. Do you really want to waste what ever little time he has left sitting in here being pissed at him?”

She pauses and lets the thought sit there in the air between them.

Then she finds the words, a few that might make the difference to Daisy… and to Phil. “If I’d walked in here a moment ago… and told you that he’d died… would you have regretted the last hour you’d sat in here feeling betrayed instead of out there, spending his last minutes with him?” That thought doesn’t even have time to settle before Daisy’s on the move, standing, reaching down trying to physically haul her up off the floor by her left arm alone.

“Oh God, May, you should be with him!” Daisy’s reasoning explained she can’t help but smile a little as Daisy’s care for others far over and above herself. “What if-”

She nips that in the bud. “I’m not playing ‘what if’, Daisy.” There is no more dangerous a concept for an agent or anyone else! “We don’t go start down that road, not ever.” That’s a lie. Every agent questions their decisions after the event. She is no exception.

“No but, what if he’s not well now? What if he’s out there and he’s dying and – you need to be with him!” Daisy is insistent bless her but she resists.

She shares a sad little smile and explains so that Daisy can try to understand. “If he dies in the next hour… my being here, my not being there with him… it’s still the right decision. I wouldn’t regret taking the time to follow you, to talk with you.” This is about Daisy, not her. Daisy would regret forever if she lefts things like this, if she left Phil thinking she hated him and he died before they could ever resolve it. “If you didn’t get the chance to speak with him before-”

“Yes,” Daisy mumbles looking down to the floor that she slowly slumps back down to sit upon, arms cuddled around her legs in a poor comfort to herself. There’s few times that Daisy’s ever looked so young. So vulnerable. May reaches out to catch her chin, encourages her to look up at her, tilting her face in to the limited light only to find fresh tears racing wet tracks down her cheeks to drip uncaring to her lap. “Yes,” Daisy says more firmly, “I’d regret it. I’d regret missing what could be my last chance to speak with him, to tell him that… that I think of him as-”

“Daisy,” she interrupts gently. “Go tell him.”

Daisy nods. Repeatedly. As if she’s trying to convince herself even before she finds the energy to instruct her body to actually move again. May forces herself up to her feet as well, moves to the small sink in the next room, wets the corner of a small towel, who knows how long it has sat there unused waiting for this moment (decades?). Although Daisy raises an outstretched palm in expectation May simply veers around it, stepping in to her space and reaching up to wipe delicately but purposefully at Daisy’s face, stroking repeatedly to remove the worst traces of her tears. She can do this much at least. A questioning eyebrow is directed at her as she turns the towel to dry Daisy’s face thereafter. This close, more personal, care is not her normal modus operandi but she feels adrift, useless, and she needs to feel useful even if its only in doing this minor task.

The eyebrow doesn’t lower despite her continued focus on patting dry every single inch of Daisy’s face. She sighs lightly before answering the unasked question, “Yes, you still look hideous.” Her smile might just twitch the corner of her lips when she’s unable to hold it back. The squawk that erupts when Daisy deliberately digs her fingers into May’s sides in retaliation she certainly cannot control, flinching away from the attack to find her feet and swiftly move to a safer distance from the ‘threat.’ “I’ll make you pay for that-” she threatens.

“You and what inhuman army?” Daisy tosses back cockily in challenge. Daisy’s been far more confident in her abilities since her powers have given her the advantage in combat. Honestly, it’s a relief that Daisy is ready to step up to take her place as the team’s main fighter if she’s forced to take a step back. The team still needs protection. She’s little concern leaving that in Daisy’s hands.

“Daisy,” she interrupts and her sensible tone brings Daisy straight back down to serious. “Daisy… go talk to Phil.”

“How,” Daisy starts but stops almost immediately running out of words. She takes a breath, tries again, “How do I talk to him when all I want to do is scream at him?! And cry! And make him feel this pain I feel!” Daisy’s voice breaks on a sob that wrenches at her own heart. “How do I even look at him when all I want to do is put my fist through his concerned looking face!? HOW?! How do I do that May?” Daisy’s turned to her in desperation, fresh tears running streams from her eyes.

“You want to hit him?”

“Well, no I-”

“Do it. He won’t blame you. Hell, he probably expects a few punches out of this fubar! You want to scream and cry and shout? Do it. Rail at him. Let it out.”

“I-”

“But if you do, be very prepared to feel bad about it for the rest of however long you have afterwards to regret wasting the breath and the tears and the time you could have used oh so much better.” She’s been telling herself the same. Repeatedly. She’s still not convinced herself enough. It’s why she daren’t follow him first. It’s why she can’t go to him now. It’s why she’s running and hiding in her own way instead. She may tell herself she’s caring for their team, but she knows she’s putting off the inevitable in the hopes she somehow finds more control over her own emotions in helping them.

Silence fills the room and she lets it sit, simply reaching forwards to once again wipe at Daisy’s wet face trying to help erase the tear tracks as best she can for both of them – for Daisy and for Phil. He knows he’s causing them pain. He doesn’t need to see the reminder in Daisy’s tears.

“Daisy?” she pushes gently when she’s finished. “Go see Phil.”

She’s not above begging. For both of them.

“Please, go to him.”

"Please, Daisy."

X

Chapter Text

Jemma Simmons is by far easier to locate.

The people hurriedly fleeing what they’ve designated as the lab and the sounds of her voice snapping out orders in a clipped British accent confirms it even before she enters through the open doorway.

The lab is chaos.

Jemma’s five foot tall presence clearly at the centre of the tornado of panicked humanity that scurries around her. There’s flapping. Barking orders. Frustration directed at her limited staff – agents from all walks of life dragged in to a medical laboratory and trying desperately to follow her instructions but with only basic field medic knowledge struggling to do as she asks. Nay, demands.

“Simmons, with me,” she instructs simply, pivoting on a heel to find them a space more private to have the conversation they clearly need to have. She senses almost immediately from the guilty silence of the others in the lab that Simmons has not moved to follow her. She turns back, a raised eyebrow and a glare making very clear her position on disobeying a direct order.

“I gave you an order.”

“And I’m still the superior agent here, Agent May. You have no right to issue orders to me and I do not have to follow them.”

Her glare increases in its intensity but its wasted on ‘Agent Simmons’ as she isn’t even looking up to catch it, still focused alternating between the screen in front of her and scribbling notes on the papers on her desk, seemingly ignoring even her other 'subordinate' agents, who continue to stand in stunned silence. It must be like watching a train crash – they know disaster is impending, but they cannot look away.

“If you’re all done wool gathering,” Simmons snaps at those who have paused in a manner that is so totally unlike her its even more worrisome, “then get back to work! I don’t pay you to stand around watching!”

Snapping back at her is not the way to go here, no matter how much a part of her wants to smack the girl down for the attitude and force a little respect back in to the equation. Superior agent, her ass!

“Out. Now,” she says softly. There’s no need to shout when every single agent is hanging on her very breath, waiting for her response. The reaction is immediate – Simmons may think she commands but real authority comes from respect. It comes from your agents knowing that they’ll lay down their lives for you if you ask it and knowing that you’d lay down your own to protect them in turn. It’s earned, freely given. The room is cleared without hesitation. Without comment.

Simmons doesn’t even try to call them back just snorts derisively and pointedly ignores her presence.

“You know we don’t pay them, right?” it’s a simple question to try to break the ice.

She’s ignored.

Its not wholly unexpected. Jemma is no more likely to want to give in to her feelings and cry on her shoulder than any of the others are. It doesn’t mean she’s leaving though. She shuts the door behind her as the last one leaves, confirming her intention to stay without having to say a word.

After three minutes she’s feeling a twinge from standing for so long unmoving after straining her leg hunting Daisy through the base.

After five minutes she leans back against the wall, aching leg outstretched and arms folded feigning a relaxation she does not feel.

After seven and a half minutes she’s considering moving to one of the few stools positioned at various desks around the room.

After eight minutes Jemma snaps!

“What the hell have you done?” It’s not a question but an accusation. She’s surprised to find herself pinned by fierce glaring eyes from where Jemma looks up from her work. “I told you to rest that leg!” Jemma continues furiously, rising from her stool and approaching only to grab at her now unfolded arm and insistently escort her through the lab doors separating them from the medical bay. She allows it but maintains her silence in the face of Jemma’s continued berating. It’s not undeserved - she’s well aware that she isn’t supposed to be pushing her leg at this stage of her rehabilitation. Doesn’t mean she regrets it.

“Strip,” Jemma instructs simply, tersely as she pushes her towards a cot she’d rather not admit she needs to sit upon. Jemma cleans and gathers the supplies she needs with a painful familiarity before turning back. The gauze sticks as always, pulling away belatedly as Jemma persistently insists it concedes. She ill disguises her gasp at the pain. A concerned flicker of Jemma’s eyes up to her face confirms it. “You’ve torn three of the external stitches again,” Jemma explains quietly, her previous outrage briefly soothed as she makes the switch from anger to caring; from agent to healer.

She grimaces at the thought of the renewed pain to come only once Jemma has turned her back to fetch more supplies. Damn it! Waiting for this leg to heal is slowly killing her! But of course hot on the heals of that thought is that something else is slowly killing Coulson. Actually, really killing him. She’s grateful when Jemma turns back to her, cleaning the area, distracting her, muttering under her breath about ‘idiot specialists’ who ‘don’t know the meaning of taking it easy,’ working herself up in to a frenzy as she works.

“I’m sorry,” she says simply, a hiss following as Jemma catches a more sensitive area, probably not deliberately.

“How you expect this leg to heal when you are constantly pushing it beyond what’s safe, I do not know,” Jemma continues in a normal tone. “Honestly, its like you don’t even listen when I say ‘take it easy’ or ‘stay off that leg’.”

“Simmons, I said I’m sorry.”

“Do you think I say these things just out of spite,” Jemma asks rhetorically. “Or do you maybe think that I’m applying my admittedly limited medical knowledge of muscular groups and tissue growth rates to recommend the more efficacious treatment programme towards-”

“Do you want me to apologise again?”

“How can I be expected to heal you when NONE of you will listen!” Jemma snaps ignoring her apologies. “I’m not even a doctor! How can you expect me to heal you and treat you and CURE you when -” Jemma’s voice breaks on a sobbed inhale and turns away. Honestly, she’s almost grateful that the release of pent up emotions has come. The girl’s right that they put too much on her. Generally. Repeatedly. Every single day she rises to the challenge.

She reaches out, a hand on Jemma’s shoulder turning her back around so that she can look her in the eyes. “Jemma, you are brilliant. You constantly amaze me with both your knowledge and your strength of being... But even you cannot cure death.”

Jemma breaks and sobs anew at the simple truth. She pulls her in closer, wraps her arms around shaking shoulders as Jemma half collapses on to the bed with her. Exhausted and bone weary emotionally just as much as physically after all they’ve been through. “I’m not even a real doctor,” Jemma mutters out, speaking in to her chest but the meaning of the words are heard anyway. Jemma doesn’t think she can cure Coulson. That’s fair enough. Probably no one can. It’s a thought that chills her to her core… but it is not Jemma’s fault. “I can’t – I can’t do this, May! I can’t cure him! I can’t- can’t save him! I can’t.” Jemma breaks down anew. Gasping breaths between sobs used to speak the repeated words that tear at both their souls. “I can’t. I just can’t.”

She inhales deeply, swallows back her own tears that want to spill over the dam she raises trying to keep it all inside. “No one can,” she admits her deepest fears out loud.

She holds Jemma as she cries. Holds her and rocks them gently swaying back and forth. That Jemma holds her back just as tightly is something she personally needs just as much. She's not sure how many minutes or hours they spend like that, just holding one another in what little comfort they can bring when the devastation lies so close around the corner when they both must accept that there might be nothing that can be done to save him. His death could be inevitable...

“I should get back to work,” Jemma mutters eventually pulling away half-heartedly.

“Ten minutes,” she barters, resisting Jemma’s attempts to move simply by tightening her arms and holding her in place. She’ll let go if Jemma really wants to escape. The fact that she settles back down without argument says she needs this too. “Even if someone could…” cure death, cure him, she can’t speak the words. “Ten minutes are not going to make a difference here. But those ten minutes… they could make a world of difference to him and to you.” Jemma is listening intently. That’s all she asks. She rubs a palm across the girl’s back in comfort, long soothing circles trying to calm the sobs that are more hiccups of breath now as Jemma rests against her heavily.

“Take ten minutes,” she suggests simply. “Stop trying so hard to do the impossible. Just go see him. Be with him. For ten minutes or as long as we might have left.” It’s devastating to admit it to herself, never mind out loud. There is little hope here. He is dying and there’s no cure.

Jemma’s mind is probably running far faster than her own can comprehend even as she speaks the words.

“Can you do that for me, Jemma? Just ten minutes?”

She can feel the nod against her chest in answer and she can breathe again.

Ten minutes is at least a start. Ten minutes is acceptance.

x

Chapter Text

It’s dark and usually silent in most of the hallways of this base but a heavy sounding crash of something metal to the stone flooring up ahead has her immediately on alert. Her body has taken up a balanced stance in readiness, arms raised protecting her body and face - training so often practised it has become instinctive.

She curses herself silently for the lack of a weapon. With the fear dimension trickling into their newest, and dullest, underground base without pause or apology she should have thought to be better prepared. That her mind has been focused upon other concerns is an excuse that could get her killed. More worryingly, it could get someone else killed.

Another mechanical sounding clunk from a similar point ahead means the intruder cares little for concealing its intrusion into their world. She prays its not Lash

The light filters through the hallway as she advances steadily, cautiously. Each step a careful shift of balance to ensure her shoes remain silent against the hard floor. If its more than she can handle alone then she’ll benefit from leaving undetected to find back up. If she can take it down, then she’s damn well taking the advantage that surprise will lend her!

An all too human sounding grunt of effort and a crash moments later lets her breath more freely.

Fitz isn’t sitting alone, crying in silence. Nor is he snapping out words, barking orders at easy targets in frustration at his inability to do the impossible.

When Fitz is upset…

When he can’t cope with the feelings and he can’t find the words to make himself heard…

When he cannot fix the impossible…

Fitz… Fitz breaks stuff.

“Because that’s a healthy coping mechanism,” she whispers to herself sarcastically. The word ‘hypocrite’ flashes through her thoughts but she ignores it and pushes her way in to the comparative brightness of the underground rooms that always simply feel dull and colder than they should.

His workshop, usually so clear and ordered, looks like the aftermath of a disaster site. A complete shambles of broken parts strewn across the worktops and floor in scatter patterns that tell of the force with which they’ve been flung, as violently as possible.

She knows that he’s heard her enter from the uncomfortable silence that pervades throughout the room. That unnatural stillness that raises hairs on the back of a neck and says something or someone wants to go undetected. For good or for ill.

His intent is neither, she can assume that much. He’d be happiest if they both pretended she didn’t know he was in here trashing the place in anger, unable to give a voice to his rage and his usually tight control over his emotions unravelling. His silence in the face of her presence is a refusal of the comfort she might be trying to bring to him. It’s a refusal of the help she might be able to offer. Of the listening ear of a friend and the shoulder to cry on. He’d be happiest if she accepted his silent refusal, left him be and walked away.

He should know her better than that.

None of them might have been here for him the last six months as he struggled on alone, as he was left behind still so very broken. On the outside he seems none the worse for his ordeal in the framework. On the inside…

On the inside they’re all a little bit broken.

“You know destruction of SHIELD equipment is against regulations, right?” she questions eventually, trying to elicit some kind of acknowledgment of her presence at least, as she steps carefully over broken pieces to make her way further in to the room, around haphazardly tossed benches towards the sounds of his destruction.

The crash of something mechanical sounding is her answer.

“I hope that wasn’t expensive,” she mutters aloud as she rounds a rack of shelving dividing the room to find a dark figure standing in the even deeper shadows. His back turned to her she stutters to an abrupt stop, hesitates, the form of the two so very clearly the same… The Doctor doesn’t only inhabit his nightmares. She was in there for years.

A blink and he’s Fitz.

Of course, he is. She snorts at her own foolishness.

The Doctor is a figment of the framework alone.

“Fitz-”

“Go a-away.”

She scoffs but doesn’t bother responding verbally. He should know better than to think she’s just going to leave him here when he’s like this. She spots the light on the wall, makes her way carefully over broken pieces in the dark and blinds them both with a flip of a switch. He says nothing but turns to grace her with a glare for forcing him to face the light. She will not let him hide down here alone in the darkness. He’s spent too much time along in the darkness whilst the rest of them had been flung so very far away. They’re here for him now. She’s here now.

He’s a mess as he turns to face her. A bright red face tells tales of his anger, the tear track of how he’s cried. His eyes though… his eyes are the worst. Filled with the deepest kind of longing and loss. Of utter hopelessness and despair. Her heart aches to see him like this.

He spins abruptly away, his lightly trembling hands fixing on a large dark storage box for a moment of indecision before he hauls it up overhead. The struggle showing its weight as he launches it without mercy against the wall opposite her. It breaks on impact. The hinge swinging open with a creak of protest. The contents tumbling down all around. A smattering ciphony of sound.

“Fitz-” she tries again, but the next object is selected without hesitation, thrown as he pivots around, she barely breathes as it crashes heavily in to the wall directly next to her. She doesn’t flinch but it takes everything within her to hold herself still in the face of that all of that pain.

“Okay then,” she concedes simply. Her words will not help him here. He won’t listen until he’s ready to hear them so there is little point in her continuing to try.

She turns her back on him. Her tongue darts out to swipe across suddenly dry lips. She doesn’t want him behind her, out of sight. It’s only Fitz, she has to remind herself. Fitz won’t hurt her. Fitz wouldn’t hurt any of them.

She picks up her intended target – a dull metallic shoe box sized item, lighter than it at first appeared, but satisfyingly loud as it collides with the floor violently. She looks up just in time to catch Fitz’ nod before he turns away to take up a piece of what might once have been a metal girder, using it to strike out at the already broken lockers along the length of one wall. The strikes clang loudly, echoing throughout the small room. A repeated staccato beat that she finds echoed in her heart. Irregular. So unlike him. He doesn’t show any signs of stopping so she joins him in the destruction. A smaller metal pole making a higher pitch as it dents and warps the sides beyond any possible repair or use.

After the lockers, there’s the desks. After the desks, the benches. After the benches, they return to throwing things. Down at the floor, overhand at the walls, it doesn’t matter. None of it matters!

None of it. Even in the harsh bright light nothing seems quite real. Nothing is how it should be. She’s losing control, allowing her own fury to take over her limbs, to thrash everything in reach, to rage and destroy indiscriminately! This base isn’t how it should be – their base is light and airy and clear and. This base is dark and damp and terrifying and evil! Her team is lost here. This isn’t their home! The crash of something irreparable causing a crack in the stone floor that will remain for decades. It’s more satisfying that she can put words to explain. This is a shell of a bunker they’ve been forced to hide in because it might become their only salvation in the future. The future that is already damned. The future that has already been played out! The future where she is alone. Where Phil is dead and humanity is in pieces!

A roundhouse kick that shudders down her leg with the force sends a set of dark racking crashing to the ground with a satisfyingly thunderous sound.

She’s breathing heavily from the exertion but she feels…

Exhilarated.

Weightless.

Free is a way she hasn’t felt in oh so long. Free to lash out in violence. Free to revel in the destruction. Free to let her emotions express themselves through force when she can not find the words…

She grins up to find an answering smirk on Fitz’ face. There’s a long moment where their eyes meet and hold, both breathless, both exhilarated. A moment of perfect understanding. They’re two of the same in the here and now – both feeling too deeply, neither able to express it; both finding freedom in the simple destruction without constraints.

She’d normally bury the feelings. Maybe hit the gym when it gets too much. She doesn’t know what he does. It seems likely he finds somewhere quiet to break things. Now she knows, she’ll drag him to the gym instead. Somewhere with fewer breakables.

He turns away and the moment is broken. The feeling of companionship, of togetherness in this, remains. He’s turned only to select his next target from the wreckage all around them. Some metal item he can wrench free and haul up over his head to launch with all his might across the room. It clangs in to the wall, dust dropping silently down from the impact point, before the metal crashes down to the ground in a deafening show. His eyes glow in childish delight as he turns back to face her and she can’t help the small leap of her heart at how infrequently she sees that younger side of him peek out from behind the harder man he’s been forced to become. Their lives are too hard right now. Too full of pain and the forced loss of innocence. She chases the thought away. She will not allow herself to drift in the past when the here and now needs to be dealt with. There’s a reason they’ve both surrendered control – Coulson is that reason. Ignoring it isn’t going to help anyone.

“You know… we should take this show on the road,” she says breaking the silence. She hefts something heavy, testing its weight before hauling it overhand towards the wall to crash quite satisfyingly loudly. She pushes deliberately to bring things to a head: “Coulson’s office maybe. I mean, he’s the one we’re mad at right?” She walks to an already opened locker, its broken door hanging crookedly from worn hinges, to collect five smaller projectiles from various shelves given that their potential projectile weaponry around the room has been vastly depleted. “He’s hundreds of collectibles in –”

“NO!” Fitz finally snaps. Grabbing the items from her hands surprisingly quickly. He glares at her in barely restrained, breathing heavily as he regains his breath. His eyes are too wild yet too controlled. Deep and dark and terrifying on a primal level. Instinct urges her to flee. But she blinks and its just Fitz. Just Fitz cradling his little machines to his chest like he’s protecting them from her. “No,” he repeats more calmly, more firmly. “Not these,” he explains, returning them to the cabinet and pulling the doors shut, repeatedly when they refuse to stay, before conceding with a half laugh that sounds nothing like humour. “And not his collectables either,” he adds quietly without turning back to face her. His anger suddenly depleted with his outburst leaving only a heavy weariness in its wake. “I don’t want to hurt him.”

“Staying away is hurting him,” she’s quick to jump on the thought. The fact that he’s calm and that he’s finally talking gives her hope that he’s ready to hear her.

There’s silent introspection for a minute. Maybe two.

He’s only a stride or two away but he feels so very distant and alone.

She has to remind herself that he won’t appreciate a physical hug the way Daisy or Jemma would. He won’t want to take the risk that compassion allows his emotions to take over or the tears to overspill. The two of them are the same in this. They’d both rather face the anger than the hurt. They both feel so deeply that they dare not let go of every control.

After a long exhale, he simply concedes with a quiet “Yeah, okay.”

There’s far more that they don’t say. Far more that they don’t need to say. That she’s here for him when he’s ready to talk it out. That she’s here for him even if he doesn’t want to talk or can’t find the words. That he’s there for her in turn. Not that she’d ever take him up on it. But he’s there just the same. Things they both understand without the need to put words to them.

He won’t accept her comfort just yet. But he might accept her help. “You want help clearing up?”

Another sigh and a quiet “Yeah, okay” are enough to draw out a small smile to share.

Then, together, they start fixing things.

He’s always been good at fixing things.

X

Chapter Text

She’s almost hesitant to dial the list of numbers she found two years ago. The only reason she had for thinking any of these numbers might still work in an emergency is that the list was so well concealed within various personal effects that it could only have been meant for one of their team to find.

The first five are a disappointment of disconnected dial tones. The number she has dialled has not been recog-

The sixth rings out without answer.

The number she has dialled has not-

It’s the eighth that brings tentative success. The almost soundless click of an answer and simple silence that follows. It could be a number for anyone. It could have been compromised. It could be very very foolish for her to speak in to that questionable silence.

She does it anyway:

“Coulson is dying and I need back up.”

There’s an infinite pause where the thought that she’s made a terrible mistake rebounds around the inside of her mind and a bitter taste rises in the back of a dry mouth. She swallows, considers hanging up in the hope it might limit the damage she might have caused.

“Where and when do you need us?” a voice replies over the line and the relief is instantaneous.

She rattles out the coordinates of a desolate area they’ve used successfully for pickups in the quinjet before.

“That’ll take us 18 hours give or take. We’re in southern Malaysia so it’ll take us a little while to get across the ocean. If you need help sooner-”

“18 hours is fine. We’re not working to a fixed timeline. We just-” she doesn’t care for how her voice breaks uncertainly, coughs to clear the frog that’s found its way in to her throat and start up again. Factual. A plan to execute. She can do that. “Rendezvous at 13:00 hours tomorrow. Dump the vehicle in the local village. You’ve three clicks of decent hiking from that point to where I can safely land. Any problems, call this number.”

She can hear a door click open on the other end of the line. Hears as she speaks to someone that has presumably just entered. “You need to go tell Francois that we’re pulling it.”

The words aren’t clear but she can just about make out the expletives that follow. Then the whining complaints about how its taken them months to get set up in the operation they are presumably undertaking and forever to build the relationship with this contact. There are further expletives, the dull thuds as something it struck in frustration, the ultimatum that if they leave this now there’ll be a bounty on their heads.

Yet another one.

She’s about to excuse them, withdraw her plea for aid, because honestly they’ve been through more than enough and she cannot ask them to sacrifice even more for SHIELD, but she’s spoken over before she can issue the words: “It’s May and they need our help.” A succinct explanation from her to him. Too succinct to her mind but apparently its enough.

“Well why didn’t you bloody say so,” is the very clearly heard response as he comes so much closer to the phone. “We would love to play cavalry to the cavalry,” he jokes at her expense. She hears the expected slap land on her behalf for the jovial insult, but she honestly hasn’t the slightest inclination to be mad at him over it. It’s enough that they’re coming. Coming home. Coming to help.

They’re all fugitives now anyway. There’s little point in them being fugitives apart when they can be a team together again. They’re going to need the support of the team around them if the worst -

“Bobs, you pack,” Hunter’s voice interrupts her thoughts for the better. “I’ll go tell Francois we’re screwing him on this one. If you bring the car to the southside I’ll probably be forced to exit through the second-floor window. He is not a guy who takes bad news well.”

“Just be sure to fall carefully this time. I do not want to do another midnight run hauling your ass because you’ve inconveniently chosen to break a leg again.” The bickering between the two of them is almost like old times and it brings a smile to her lips. Nothing has really changed.

“That wasn’t even my fault, that-”

“Hey,” she interrupts simply because they are all going to be pressed for time but she can’t let this go unsaid even now. “I just… thanks.” That’s all. Just thanks. It seems so small a thing to say in response to the huge thing she’s asking of them.

“We’re a team,” Bobbi says. It’s simple and yet it means so much more than that.

“And I’m always up for rescuing a damsel in distress,” Hunter proclaims gaily.

“I am no one’s damsel,” she protests on a low growl because as much as she might be internally thrilled that they’re coming to help her, to help the team, there is no way she is feigning that it’s anything other than-

“I didn’t mean you oh scary specialist…” Hunter continues not the least bit cowed by her tone or her rebuke. “…I meant Coulson.”

Maybe she smiles just a little at that.

Maybe.

X

Chapter Text

5. She finds herself finally alone

She finds herself a space alone and cries

Brokenly

Until she has no tears left to shed.

In the privacy of her own quarters, she allows herself to fall apart. She promises herself it is just for a little while. She promises herself that she, like Jemma, can afford to take ten minutes. Can let herself be overwhelmed by the emotions that have threatened to erupt all day. Just for ten minutes.

She cries out aloud… some part of her clamouring for the help that will come running at the sound… but contrarily muffles her cries in to a wet pillow to ensure that nobody might overhear and actually come to her with comfort. She’s not ready. Not ready to be comforted about this. Not ready to be comforted by any of them. Not ready to accept it might -

No.

She consciously forces herself to accept the possibility that there might well be no hope. No cure. No recovery. No matter that it tears her soul apart to acknowledge it as truth. No matter that her heart bleeds out in despair.

She cries out at the unfairness of it all. All that escapes is a low moaning of such fathomless pain. To have finally found him, to have finally confessed their feelings and agreed to take things to the next level, only to be cursed with this after everything they’ve been through. All that they have suffered through. All that they have lost. Why must she lose him too?

Like Fitz, she’s unable to find the words. Wholly unable to express such devastation with words and speech and voice alone. They’re all so… insufficient. She trials wanton destruction; the heavy furniture in the room trashed, sacrificed to her temper but not really hers. This room is not filled with possessions she recognises. There’s no physical item that means anything to her here. Not in ‘her’ room. Not on this foreign feeling base. Not on this planet. All that she has is her team.

Her team and him. She has him. For now but not forever. She forcibly reminds herself of the regrets she won’t let Daisy have. She repeatedly, firmly reminds herself of the regrets she’d rather not have. She allows herself to remember that their time might be so very limited now. Thinks of the time she could spend better with him, with them than here in her room all alone and afraid of the possibilities that the future may hold.

She forces herself to breathe steadily.

In and then out.

One and then another and another after that.

She takes her ten minutes to fall apart and to let everything out and to accept the possibilities and to acknowledge the regrets she’d rather not have… and to call for help. Ten minutes.

Then… she painstakingly pulls herself back together. She wipes at her eyes, changes to a fresh shirt, re-rights the furniture that can be salvaged. The things that can be fixed though she accepts not all things can.

And then… she goes back to work.

x

Chapter Text

That evening she finds Phil.

She uses his codes to access his private rooms.

She simply strips, turns back the covers and crawls unapologetically into the bed beside him

He protests quietly. Repeatedly.

But not determinedly. He is a man already facing a losing battle.

She shuffles until she’s snuggled in besides him, her front pressed flush against his own, her head fitting so perfectly beneath his chin that she wonders anew if they were made for one another by a higher power. Her palm rests above his scar, her concerns over blackened flesh silenced by the hour and the steady heart beat she can feel beneath her hand.

“Calm down before I give you a heart attack,” she mock threatens him but there’s a note of serious concern underlying her words. It remains a devastating possibility that any minute she might lose him. She won’t have any regrets.

She tilts her head up to move to capture his lips before he can come up with any more excuses to try to force her from his bed and distance her from his heart. “Please don’t say any more,” she pleads simply. She’s not sure her heart can take any more rejection from him. “Don’t send me away.”

He sighs heavily but concedes immediately to her whispered pleas. His arms come up around her back, encouraging her to lie back down against him, holding her tightly to him, warm and comforting in his embrace. She wishes he might never let her go.

“You’ve been crying,” he states rather than asks.

There’s nothing she has to say to that, she won’t admit it out loud but she’s little ability to plausibly deny it. It doesn’t take a man of his observational skills to deduce that much from her presence or the cause. He dropped an emotional bombshell on them all only hours ago and she is not the robot she’s been accused of being previously. Of course, she’s been crying!

“I’m sorry, Melinda.”

There’s nothing she can offer to that either. She won’t say it’s okay. It’s not. It’s not okay that he’s dying. She won’t say she forgives him. She doesn’t. She can’t forgive him for keeping this from her. She won’t say that she understands. She doesn’t understand his decision not to fight this with them. She can’t.

He seems to accept her silence for the answer it is. A deep sigh and a change of subject:

“They all came to see me today,” he lays out the opener, the prompt to try to elicit her confirmation of matters he will already have guessed, the pieces of a puzzle his mind will already have put together.

She doesn’t answer… because he already knows.

“I take it you had words with them,” he states more than asks. She’s no knowledge of how each of their conversations with him have gone and so unable to tell from his carefully blanked tone whether he’s angry at her sending them all to find him and moving so blatantly against his wishes.

She says nothing but she knows he’ll clock how her body suddenly tenses next to him. An instinctive reaction to an anticipated attack that she’s unable to immediately curtail. That its emotional rather than physical does not change her body’s fight or flight reflex in the moment of its occurrence.

There’s a deep sigh she feels run throughout his body. A press of lips softly to her forehead that clues her to relax even before the breath of words, warm across her skin.

“Thank you, Melinda.”

The air between them is too heavy with relief and with things unsaid.

“I’m taking your plane out tomorrow,” she opens simply to try to bring them back to normality, drag them back to an even keel. She conveniently ignores that as both owner of said plane and director of shield he should probably be the one to make that call.

“Oh?”

“We’ve a few strays out there to pick up,” she says, leaving him to puzzle out the pieces.

He thinks for a minute before guessing, “Bobbi and Hunter?”

Her silence is her confirmation and the smile that spreads across his face when she glances up makes it all worthwhile.

“You’re a little bit amazing you know.”

Her heart swells at the praise but she’s she’d too many tears today to let any more rise in her eyes.

She pulls away from him instead. Offers a mock glare before responding, “Only a ‘little bit’?”

The sudden gleam of mischief in his eyes should have forewarned her but it’s been a long day and she’s not quite anticipating the ‘attack’ whilst resting so peacefully within the comfort of his arms. She’s overthrown without warning, his hand to her side and sudden momentum pulling her beneath him even as he rolls himself into position above. His fingers dance mercilessly across her sides, her body immediately succumbing to such underhanded tickle attack! Writhing and squirming uselessly trying to escape the tortuously tickling fingers that play so deliciously across her bare skin. The giggles that she cannot escape erupting from between pursed lips between gasping breaths as she tries to recover.

Let the record show that she thoroughly regrets the drunken confession about her ticklishness!

“You know all this smiling and laughing is going to ruin your reputation,” he teases her as she twists and writhes beneath him trying desperately to escape his dancing giggle-causing fingers. It’s both wonderful and a little bit terrifying to be so out of control of her own body even if there is only Phil to witness it. She can’t catch her breath as he continuously forces the laughter out of her.

She elbows him in the ribs none too kindly to deter his attack, let her catch her breath, but it’s the knock at the door that has them both freezing like naughty school children who’ve been caught.

“Sir?” comes Daisy’s distorted voice through the door. His wide eyes meet her own in panic whilst she simply lies temporarily exhausted beneath him… and smirks.

“Sir,” Daisy repeats a little louder despite the lack of answer, “Hunter called to speak to May. He said to pass on that they’d like their taxi earlier. Apparently, they were forced to leave the party before ‘all the fun stuff started.’”

Daisy doesn’t ask if he knows where May is, so he doesn’t need to lie about it, but she starts to move anyway. If Hunter and Bobbi will be at the rendezvous earlier then she should go start gearing up the plane.

However he doesn’t let her slide out from under him without a (silent) fight over it – his arms trying to curtail her movements ineffectively as she counters, ducking down intending to slip beneath his arm and off the side of the bed. His bodily dropping down atop her forces a huff of breath out and puts an end to her attempts. She digs her fingernails in to his sides in retaliation but can’t do much more without risking a noise and giving herself away. Giving them both away.

“We have more than one pilot on base now, Daisy,” he says loudly towards the door but she knows he means the words for her just as much. “Take Agent Davis with you and go collect our strays.”

“Will do,” Daisy confirms happily but they maintain their silence for a little longer, both of them very certain from knowing Daisy as much as the lack of footsteps that Daisy has not moved immediately away. They’re both frozen in the pause, chests barely rising against the other. Seemingly realising that she’s not going to hear anything out of place, Daisy’s voice comes again from the door, “Good night, Phil” and they both breath out a slow sigh of relief. “Good night, May,” Daisy says more quietly, more cautiously. Testing them.

It takes her only a heartbeat to decide. “Good night, Daisy,” her reply spoken clearly enough even as his hand quickly comes up to her face in a ridiculous attempt to muffle the sound. The whispered “YES!” from Daisy outside the door makes her smile widen beneath his fingers.

The shocked expression on his face, nee horror, when he shifts so that he can meet her eyes makes her lips widen in to a smirk. To be fair to him, it was her that avoided PDA and suggested that they keep things under wraps whilst they tried whatever *this* relationship was between them. To be fair to herself, Daisy - “She already knew,” she justifies in a half grumble, words duly muffled, “She’s always ferreting out secrets she shouldn’t.” She leaves it a half breath before getting annoyed at the fact that he’s still not moved his hand from her face and moving his hand herself. “She gets that from you, you know,” she fires up at him.

The smile that is slowly stretching across his face says he doesn’t take it as she half intends but his eyes are grinning down at her like she’s some kind of soft -soft person for telling Daisy about them when she certainly is NOT! She pushes him none too gently over to lie beside her on the bed rather than hovering above her with that gentle expression that makes her want to hide in embarrassment. She pushes until he’s laid back enough that she can snuggle in to his side more comfortably, hide her face down in his chest and simply breathe him in for as long as they may have to breath and be together.

This is perfect.

He opens his mouth to speak - some joke no doubt or teasing at her expense - but she beats him to it. Her finger pressing firmly against his pursed lips before she whispers simply, “Shhh… don’t ruin this, Phil.”

Spoiler alert: he doesn’t.

x