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“I’ve lived a life surrounded by heroes, none bigger than all of you… we sign up to lose each other, to get close to good people and have them taken away.”
———
If you ask anyone at SHIELD, everyone knows the mission comes before the man. Your life is expendable if it means getting the mission done. It’s brutal and cruel, but it’s the truth. The world won’t protect itself, and the moment they all signed up, they knew that if there was a choice to save themselves or save the mission, the mission will always come first.
They signed up to lose each other. To lose good people, good friends, good partners. There’s always a real threat that you’re not going to come home so it’s an unspoken rule to not invest in relationships. They chose this life. They chose the uncertainty, and in the process gave up a chance at a normal life; the white picket fence, pta meetings, ballet recitals, and soccer games. They dug their own grave, now they had to lie in it.
Though, lucky for them, Phil Coulson and Melinda May were never ones to follow the rules.
They make it work, prioritizing the mission, protecting each other, coming home to one another. They were partners, in every sense of the word, and they’ll be damned if they didn’t make it work.
That is until Gods started falling out of the sky.
everything was in chaos, agents were scrambling to and from their posts trying to do their jobs, and in retrospect she should be as well, but they could do it without her, she had more important things to do. Her heels were clicking loudly as she ran past the blazing lab, purposely ignoring the calls on her comms until she reached the containment module. Loki was the priority. Nothing would matter if he wasn’t contained. And if she were to die trying to stop him, then so be it.
Unknown to her, another agent had already thought of facing Loki.
May walked in the containment room and felt her stomach drop at the sight of Coulson bleeding out on the floor holding a massive weapon.
She ran to him, palms sweaty, heart beating erratically in her chest until she stopped, kneeling in front of him.
“p-ph-phil?” She took his face in her hands and felt tears build up in the corner of her eyes.
He was bleeding quickly through a wound in his chest, his eyes were unfocused, darting all over the room, his hands lay limp under the gun he had gotten in the armory.
“Phil, please. eyes on me” she begged as she tried to make his eyes focus on her.
“m..m..mel..?” he whimpered softly as his eyes focused on her face.
More tears started falling from her eyes as she saw him smile weakly up at her.
“phil please, just- just keep your eyes open okay?! just- just look at me! Please! You- you- you can’t! After everything we’ve been through, you can’t leave me! Stay with me, Coulson, god damn it!” She was in hysterics, her hands released his face and tried to stem the wound on his chest, eyes blurred with unshed tears.
“hey…. love… look at me…” he croaked out, his hands moving towards her own. She forced herself to look up at him and saw the tears rolling down his face.
“you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me mel..” he whispered smiling weakly at her
“Phil Coulson shut up! Shut up! Stop talking! you- you promised- you promised me i- please! You- you’re everything! Without you there’s nothing! please, Phil…why! Don’t do this to me!” her shoulders started shaking with her sobs as his breathing got fewer and farther in between.
with the little strength he had left, he gingerly wrapped his arms around her waist and tugged her towards him. His chest burned as her side rested on him, his hands were shaking with the effort, and dark spots were dancing on his eyes, but despite the pain, he managed to hold her tighter. It would be worth it. He knew this would be the last time he ever held his wife, and he’ll be damned if he didn’t do it properly. He could feel her tears mixing with his blood as it soaked his suit. For a second, he felt his eyes close unconsciously, but he managed to open them, just a sliver, but it was enough. In his peripheral vision he could see Nick and Maria shouting for a medic, but it didn’t matter, he was dying, he knew that. But he had his whole world in his arms, and nothing else seemed to matter. The pain in his chest fades away as he stares at Melinda’s grief-stricken face, and he knows, without a doubt, that she’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen, and his only regret in this life is leaving her behind.
Burrowing herself in his chest, May finds it more difficult to contain her tears as she tried to listen to his strained heart beating. His arms squeezed her own as she closed her eyes, and for a second she could almost imagine that they weren’t in a helicarrier. That he wasn’t dying. Instead of him holding her as he bled out, he could be holding her on his chest in a magical tropical island; instead of him struggling with every breath, they could be at home laughing at a poorly made spy movie.
“you- you mean a lot to me, Phil.” She sobbed, imagining what could’ve been.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this! It was her job to protect him. She always had his back. Always. And when it mattered the most, she was helpless. It was supposed to be her! Not him! If only she had run faster, thought of Loki quicker, then maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t be dying. Maybe he would be safe.
Instead of dying, he could be alive, getting excited about seeing Cap and asking for photographs instead of leaving her. Maybe, in a perfect world, it would’ve been the other way around.
It should’ve been her.
He breathed in the smell of her jasmine shampoo as he pressed his lips on her head for the last time, and whispered,
“I love you, Melinda.”
Her eyes are shut tight, her hands are clinging to him tighter, as if it would make him stay and stop death from taking him away from her. More tears leak out of her eyes at his dying confession. She reluctantly lifted her head from his chest and saw him looking back at her with the most beautiful smile she’s ever seen on him.
“I'm sorry,” he mouthed, as he smiled down at her. If it was possible, her heart broke even further. He didn’t want to leave her. He didn’t want to die, he wanted a future; with her, and she knew, as she watched the light fade away from his eyes, Phil Coulson loved her more than anything.
His head dips, his vision dims and his heart beat slowed. In his last moments he recalls their wedding, his vows, and her smile, as the scent of her hair soothes him to a restful sleep.
“no matter the distance,” his hands fall limp on either side of her.
“no matter the time,” he stops breathing.
“i’ll come find you, i’ll always be with you,” his eyes shut.
“and not even death will separate me from you,” his heart stops beating.
Distantly she takes in Fury, Hill and a dozen or so medics watching her, but as she leans her forehead onto his, all she could register is every piece of her heart shattering inside her chest and the steady stream of tears pouring from her eyes.
Her whole heart belonged to Phil Coulson. She was nothing without him.
and he was dead.