Work Text:
For the first few weeks Coulson barely sees May except at training exercises and classes. Otherwise she spends most of her time alone in her room. The other cadets have started hanging out in the hallway outside their rooms, talking and playing cards. Garrett loves using the card games as an opportunity to recount stories about his heroism as a Navy SEAL, which make Blake and Coulson roll their eyes. Tonight they have set up a card table at one end of the hall and are drinking whiskey and playing poker, and Coulson takes childish pleasure in the fact that he is beating the others soundly.
May comes out of her room wearing her dress uniform.
“Hi May. Want to join us?” Coulson asks. Blake and Garrett share a knowing look, and Garrett kicks Coulson under the table, but he ignores them.
“I can’t. I have a meeting.”
“A meeting? At this hour? With whom?”
“Former Director Carter,” May says. Seeing their shocked expressions she adds, “She has me over for tea once week.”
Coulson manages to keep a straight face, but Blake and Garrett both start laughing. “You’re going to a tea party?” Garrett chokes out.
She rolls her eyes and starts to walk away.
“Well when you’re done, you should join us. We’ll probably still be here, unless Blake and Garrett run out of money before then,” Coulson says.
“Maybe,” May says.
“Hey, May,” Garrett shouts after her. He must have had more whiskey that Coulson thought because he asks, “So what’s your deal anyway? Are you ever going to put this guy out of his misery?” He gestures at Coulson. “Or are you gay?”
May freezes and slowly turns around. They are all expecting her to let Garrett have it. They have seen enough of what she can do during classes and training exercises to know that she could easily kick his ass. Her face is expressionless as she walks towards their poker table and stares him down.
“Are you?” she asks.
Garrett smirks. “Why don’t you come back to my room and find out?”
In one smooth motion her left foot shoots out and sweeps his chair out from under him. Garrett crashes onto the ground, sputtering with surprise.
May rolls her eyes. “Asshole.”
That is the first of many run-ins between May and Garrett. Coulson does not understand why, but Garrett cannot seem to resist needling May whenever he sees her, and she does not take the teasing lying down.
“Having trouble, sweetheart?” he smirks at the firing range. “I can give you a few pointers.”
“No,” she says.
“Really?” He looks pointedly at her target and then his own, which has a much tighter cluster of bullet holes. “Seems like those lessons with Coulson aren’t really paying off. Maybe you need a real expert to show you how it’s done.”
May glares at him. “There’s nothing you can teach me that Coulson can’t.”
Garrett smiles suggestively. “I can think of a few things. Come by my room tonight, and I’ll show you.”
She drops her weapon to the ground and steps towards him, fists raised. Garrett gestures only at their instructor who is regarding their conversation with interest. “Careful May. You wouldn’t want to be written up again for striking a fellow cadet.”
May pauses to consider her options, then takes a step back and picks up her gun. She glares at him. “Watch your back, Garrett.”
“I’m sorry you have to deal with that,” Coulson says that night at dinner. “I don’t know what his problem is.”
May shrugs. “Assholes like that just like to show how tough they are. They need to be taught a lesson.”
Coulson looks wary. “What kind of lesson?”
She smiles mischievously. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to get thrown out because of him. I was thinking of something more subtle. But I’ll need your help.”
Which is how he winds up standing lookout in the hallway one night while May picks the lock to Garrett’s room. Most of the cadets have snuck off to a party at the Communications Academy, and the floor is nearly empty. Not for the first time Coulson wonders what it was that May was doing before joining S.H.I.E.L.D. that she knows how to pick a lock. He keeps his questions to himself because by this point in their friendship he knows that asking will only earn him an angry glare or a cryptic smile.
“These doors are not very secure,” May says as the lock opens with a soft click. “It’s almost as if they want us to break into each others rooms.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Coulson says dryly. It is true that while there is state-of-the-art security everywhere else on campus, the dorms are surprisingly unsophisticated. He wonders if maybe this is another way to test the cadets’ skills, but puts that thought out of his head. If it is, then they are certainly being watched right now, and he does not want to think about what the punishment might be.
“So what are you looking for?” he asks from the doorway as she searches through his room. The rooms are small, and the standard issue furniture takes up most of the floor space.
May does not answer, but she immediately goes to his dresser and pulls out some underwear. “I think these would look better with a little decoration.”
As he stands guard outside her room, she quickly embroiders an array of flowers and butterflies along with his name onto the stolen underwear.
“What now? He’s not going to wear those once he sees them like that.”
“He doesn’t have to wear them. I have other plans for these.”
The next morning all of the cadets see just what those plans are. May has strung the underwear up the flagpole at the entrance of the obstacle course that the cadets run every morning. When their class arrives at the obstacle course, all of the other cadets snicker as they see the underwear flapping in the breeze. Garrett stares dumbfounded at them. It takes a minute for him to notice that the only other cadets besides him not laughing about this are May and Coulson, who are standing off to the side, watching him carefully. May smirks at him, and he looks surprised.
“Garrett!” the supervising officer comes over to him. “Care to explain how your underwear wound up on the flagpole this morning?”
They expect him to point the finger at them, but he just says, “No sir.”
Afterwards as they are waiting to climb the wall, he winks at May. “Not bad.”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You know, if you wanted to see my underwear, you could have just asked.”
May rolls her eyes.
A few days later, geopolitical theory runs late, and when Coulson makes it back to the dorm everyone else has already left for dinner. He drops his books off in his room and goes next door to see if May is still there.
“Just a minute,” May says after he knocks.
A second later he is shocked to see Garrett stumbling out of her room. He is carrying his clothes and wearing only his boxers and a smug smile. May emerges a second later, fully dressed.
“Ready for dinner?” she asks calmly.
“Yeah.” Coulson stares at Garrett’s room. “Do you want to wait for Garrett?”
“No.”
As they walk to the dining hall he says, “I didn’t know you and Garrett were so close.”
May rolls her eyes. “It’s just sex, Phil.”