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1.
"They told me in Afterlife," she says. "That if I used my powers too much I'd need to recover."
Coulson is a bit surprised he hasn't considered this before. He tends to get willingly obstuse when it comes to Skye's powers. He imagined that once she stopped breaking her own bones – and he never wants to revisit something like that again – the rest would be smooth sailing.
"This usually happens with enhanced individuals," Coulson says, remembering FitzSimmons' reports on Mike Peterson. "But since your powers are natural..."
"Doesn't mean I have endless suppy of them," Skye points out. "The more I learn to control them, the less they take a toll on me. But it happens."
Coulson nods and thinks about it. This information requires action. He smiles at her.
"Well, then we'd better stock up on some protein-filled stuff before we leave for the mission. What? Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Nothing. It's just – I'm not exactly used to people thinking about how to make my life easier like that. People taking care of things for me."
"Well, I'm happy to help," he says, regretting it immediately, such a lukewarm reply to Skye's heartfelt confession.
So he tries to make it up for it by actually bringing some nice stuff with them for the mission. Something sweet, something she'd like. It makes him happy, being able to help, yes. Not that he minds but Skye has no need for any other kind of help on the field these, that her growing powers make it laughable, the idea that someone like Coulson could be at her level out there, even protect her. So he takes care of the food. That he can do.
On the trip back to the base in the Quinjet he hands them a batch of cookies – the good ones, the blueberry ones, the ones Bobbi was hiding even from Hunter, but she couldn't hide them from Coulson – and Skye looks strangely touched at the gesture, even after saving everybody's asses on the field, and honestly it's the least the team can do, feeding their own particular superhero.
2.
Uniontown wasn't supposed to be a problem so she wasn't supposed to be needing so much food.
Coulson finds a place in town that does burgers and pizza and sandwhiches and brings a bunch of stuff back to their hotel room, stumbling into it with heavy steps, just wanting to be done with this damned day. But then of course he sees Skye, looking tired and beautiful, crossed-legged, waiting for him, and he cheers up a bit.
"This is called the Atomic burger, it has chipotle sauce," Coulson explains while he presents his offers on top of the king-sized bed. "And this is called the Juicy Lucy burger. Uh. Which one do you want?"
"Both," Skye says, basically tearing the things from his hands.
"Okay."
"What do you have there?" she asks, seeing him unwrap his sandwhich.
"Turkey," he replies. He notices her expression. "Do you want it as well?"
She gives him an apologetic look. Coulson gives her the sandwhich. He brought a humble garden salad just in case, knowing Skye wouldn't touch that.
"Well, we did skip lunch," she points out. "With all the commotion and the town trying to run us out of here. Did you remember the cheese-ee fries?"
"And the onion rings."
"You're amazing," Skye says, almost very seriously, giving him a disarming smile and Coulson has to swallow, because he hasn't been doing long enough that he is used to the fact that Skye does that know, openly and wholeheartedly, tell him how much she likes him, how much she wants to be with him.
He still finds it disconcerting, the idea that they are a couple now, new enough it makes him dizzy, and it makes it hard to believe.
After consuming food enough for a whole family Skye passes out over the bed covers, ungracefully sprayed over greasy wrappers. This is a mess. Coulson takes all the rubbish away, not wanting to fill the room with more disgusting scents than it already has been subjected to.
He lies down besides her, exhausted from the trip as well. Not the nicest of experiences. The Welcome Wagon went well enough, but the town people hadn't been very welcoming in return. This time because they thought he and Skye might hurt their local gifted. It was nice to see a community rallying around like that, instead of steeped in prejudices, but trying to convince everybody – including the young gifted boy – they weren't the villains of the piece had been stressful. Skye thought that showing them her own powers would soothe them, but apparently that only made them consider SHIELD even more dangerous and things had escalated a bit.
Coulson is happy to just catch a few hours of sleep and go home. He looks at Skye's sleeping – and snoring – form, thinking that he's fooling himself if he pretends he doesn't like this, travelling the country together, eating junk food and sleeping in forgettable hotels, as newly-discovered lovers, like a surreal vacation to get to know one another.
He looks at her and even though she smells of mustard he still wants her, wants to kiss her. He's hopeless.
Skye stirs awake against him, both still in their clothes.
"Are you going to tell me to go brush my teeth?" she asks in a sleepy voice.
"You're an adult woman," he says. "If you want to be disgusting, that's your choice."
"But you won't kiss me goodnight?"
He makes a grimace. "Ugh. Of course not."
He would, though. But he has to keep up appearances.
Skye sits up, with her eyes still closed.
"Okay, I'll brush my teeth," she says, stumbling towards the bathroom.
She must really want that goodnight kiss. Superheroes shouldn't let people know their weaknesses so easily, Coulson thinks, feeling a bit smug.
3.
It was her battle against the gravitonium (and the dark soul controlling it) the one that finally brings her to her limit.
It's the first time Skye is so drained afterwards that she actually loses consciousness. Everyone is a bit worried, not knowing what to do, until Simmons assures everybody that she is just sleeping really deeply and that she hasn't gone back to hurting herself because of her powers. Fitz says that it makes sense, how hard it was for her, and how Skye's powers were the only thing that could stop this particular disaster.
And even though they haven't officially told anyone other than May about their relationship nobody in the base bats an eyelid when Coulson suggests that they move her to his bedroom to rest.
"What happened?" Skye asks, when she comes around.
She's in his bed, stirring under the covers. She hasn't rested anywhere near enough.
"You passed out, exhausted," he says. He could admonish her about being too reckless but, like it's usually the case, her recklessness saved lives. A lot of lives.
"And the gravitonium?"
"Inert, it seems. FitzSimmons are doing some tests to determine how we can keep it safe."
"And everybody–?"
"Is fine, yes."
"Except Doctor Hall, presumably," she says, something ugly clouding her eyes.
"You didn't kill Doctor Hall, Skye," he tells her. "I did. A long time ago."
Skye nods and lifts her fingers to Coulson's cheek. He can feel how weak and tired she still feels in the hesitant touch.
"I made you some soup," Coulson says.
"Thanks."
She still sounds strangely and quietly touched whenever he does something for her. Coulson wonders if that ever goes away.
He gives her an extra pillow and she manages to sit up in bed while he grabs the food.
He's trying to develop some sort of fix for this, for what to do when her powers exhaust her. Sugar and junk food work, but he'd like a better diet for her. He's trying to figure out some meals which could pack a punch but healthy and quickly. The quickly part is important. It's like Coulson is trying to develop his own cookbook her. A cookbook to take care of your superhero, that is. Maybe he could publish it someday.
He watches her eat in silence.
She looks really worn out this time. She's not making any joke about it, or trying to convince Coulson she feels better than she does. She must still be thinking about Hall.
She thanks Coulson again, and he almost winces at it.
When Coulson notices her eyelids dropping he takes the bowl of soup away from her and tells her to lie down.
She's not normally this docile after a battle, which means this one really took a toll. Her limbs feel heavy when Coulson helps her lie down again.
"Hey," she calls, when he is about to stand up from the bed and leave her to rest.
"What?"
"Maybe I should have said this before entering a life-or-death battle with a freaking element but... I love you. You know that, right?"
He smiles at her. It's not like at this point he needed her to say it, but it's been long enough that it felt weird neither of them had. They are pretty relaxed about this stuff – they have to be, they are not exactly the picture of conventionality – but Coulson guesses the limit is when one of them faces certain death against a rare artificial element.
"I know that," he tells her. "But you should rest. We can talk about that tomorrow."
"Promise?" she asks. Coulson thinks it's the first time he's seen her kind of needy. She probably just wants to feel loved right now.
He kisses her forehead.
"I promise you I will compose a sonnet about my deep abiding love for you tomorrow. Okay?"
"Sounds good," Skye replies, her voice and face back to normal. "Can it be free verse though? Sonnets are kind of stuffy."
"You're horrible," Coulson says, kissing her mouth.
4.
"Hey, don't judge me, I need to replentish," she says, brandishing the chocolate bar at him, after she has already amassed quite the little mountain of snack bags from the vending machine.
Coulson hopes no one else in the hotel plans of buying snacks tonight.
"I saw you eat something called a Pizza Burger in Ohio," he reminds her fondly. "The time for me to be judgemental is long past."
She shrugs. "Well, it's your money."
He really doesn't mind spending a few dollars on the girl who saved his ass so thoroughly today. He rubs his left side, under the jacket. The bleeding has long since stopped and after changing his clothes only the slightlest discomfort remains. If it hand't been for Skye's last-minute gesture, he'd have a bullet in his lung now and a second gravestone to his name.
Instead he's here, they are here, anti-climatically stuck in a motel somewhere in New Mexico.
There's a pool but it's full of winter leaves.
They sit down to eat – Skye sits down to eat, Coulson normally just watches – by it.
"This brings back memories," she says. "Do you want half of my chocolate bar?"
She kicks his ankle under the poolside table, gently, flirty.
"Yeah, why not," he says, distractedly accepting her offer.
There has been an element of why not in all of this. He means them, him and Skye. Today's brush with death has forced him to confront that possibility. The possibility that love and their line of work might not be a good combination. And he did jump into it, they both jumped into bed and a relationship with very little consideration to the consequences.
Skye looks up from her snacks and notices Coulson's face. She licks the unflattering yellow-ish dust off her lips.
"What's wrong?" she asks.
"Nothing."
"Have I explained this thing I can do where I can tell when people are lying to me through their vibrations?" she says.
"I thought you said you were still working on that," Coulson remembers.
"Yeah, but you're easy."
He gives her one of his I'm-trying smiles, not sure if they ever amount to much.
"Close call today," he says.
"Yes, but I've got your back."
"I know that," he tells her. "But it's a possibility that one of these days we might not be so lucky."
Skye holds his gaze.
"Probably," she says, and Coulson wonders how she can be so calm about it. "But I was meant to be killed by Hydra when I was a baby. Or I was supposed to die in a wine cellar in Italy. And you... Well, I don't have to tell you about being alive when you should be dead."
"No."
"So we're going to keep surviving until luck runs out. But at least that's not tonight. Right?"
He has to smile at the sobriety of her approach.
"You're very philosphical this evening," he tells her.
"Actually, I think it's this bag of Fritos Chilli Cheese," Skye says, pulling back on the seriousness. "It's very inspiring."
Coulson chuckles.
But yeah, he gets it.
He kicks Skye's ankle under the table.
Being alive and being glad you're alive is a good combination.
5.
Coulson frowns at her and the pint of chocolate peanut butter ice cream she's attacking.
"I got hurt, so I pick the food," she says, maneuvering her broken leg to rest it across Coulson's lap.
She has a point, Coulson guesses, so he settles down the couch and wraps his hand gently around her cast, letting her enjoy her ice cream.
He feels bad about it but he is beginning to look forward to these moments, these quiet bits after a tough mission, where their hectic lives they just have to pause so that Skye can recover. They're nice moment, he wishes he could keep them in a pocket for when things get too crazy and too hard. These subdued, almost-ordinary moments with the woman he loves.
"I'm glad we got this place for now," she says, like she can tell what he's thinking. "A superhero needs her privacy to indulge in disgusting eating habits. I couldn't do this at the base."
"Yeah, I'm happy to be here too," he says. Although the flat is technically SHIELD's – not a safe house, more like a house of rest and transit – it's actually really theirs, for all intents and purposes. "I'm glad to have some privacy with you."
"Oooh," Skye says, pressing her healthy foot against Coulson's groin. "Privacy."
He laughs. Well, at least he knows he will never get bored, with her.
"Hey, hey, you can't be hurt for some things," he points at the ice cream, "and not for others."
Skye lets out a disappointed sigh, but she returns her leg to its previous folded position, away from his – definitely interested, but trying to keep up appearances – dick.
"What I mean is," Coulson adds, shifting in the couch to try to contain his, er, interest, because this is a somewhat serious conversation and he doesn't want to conduct it while having an erection. "I wouldn't mind having some sort of permanent privacy with you."
"Permanent? You mean like getting married or something?" she asks, casually.
Coulson swallows hard, suddenly aware of the possibility that Skye might laugh at him.
"Well, yeah. That was the idea."
Skye stops eating and looks at him, widened eyes. She places the ice cream and the spoon, very carefully but never breaking eye contact, on the coffee table.
"You mean it?" she asks.
It's too late to back down now. "Yes, I guess I do."
Skye sighs loudly.
"Oh thank god. I thought I had to be the one to bring it up," she says, looking relieved.
"Bring it up?"
"Well, yeah. I wanted to, but I felt weird asking," she explains, hands in nervous gestures. "Not because of some gender crap about waiting for the guy to ask or anything. It's just that every time I thought about doing it – bringing the issue up to see what you thought – I felt... shy. You know?"
He smiles, thinking only this means she does want to get married.
"So we are going to do it?" he asks, because he needs the comfirmation like he needs the next breath of air. It means nothing, don't be oldfashioned, Phil, he keeps telling himself. But it mean something to him, and he is old-fashioned. Sometimes.
"Hell yeah," Skye answers, then she blushes. "Sorry. I meant to be more romantic. It's the ice cream. I'm on a sugar high."
"It's okay," Coulson says, leaning over and kissing her.
Okay, she tastes a bit disgusting, the the too-sweet chocolate and peanut flavor still on her tongue. Coulson doesn't mind. Hell yeah is very romantic. Chocolate or not, he spends the next several minutes kissing her.
"Come on, grab your coat," she tells him, breaking the embrace.
"What for?" She can't be thinking about going out, her leg is broken.
"We can't celebrate with ice cream, we're getting married," she says, grabbing the collar of his shirt and shaking him sweetly to make the point. Coulson is pretty sure he's made the most disgracefully stupid grinning face when she said married. But she goes on: "You have to go out and buy champagne. And burgers."
"Burgers? Champagne and burgers?"
"Don't question it."
"I won't," he says, untangling himself from her arms and standing up. Whatever she wants. From here and to the day he dies it's just going to be whatever Skye wants. "Okay. I'll get my coat. I'll somehow find somewhere to buy champagne and burgers and I'll come back here and we'll celebrate."
"And then we'll celebrate," Skye says, with the least subtle wink in the history of winks, which makes him love her about a million times more.
He puts on his coat. He rubs the back of his hand against his mouth, in case he's all chocolate-stained on top of thoroughly-kissed. Other than that, he doesn't care if he looks decent enough to get to the street.
"Yes, we will celebrate," he promises, excited at the prospect, and nervous. "We'll eat the burgers and drink the champagne and – and we'll get drunk and I'll go down on you for hours and it will be absolutely disgusting."
"Best proposal ever," Skye says.
And he's not sure about that. Skye probably deserves better. He had imagined something more elaborate to ask a superheroine to overlook the fact that he's a fifty-three year old ex-Director of a semi-failed secret agency and just marry him. He had a plan. This wasn't it. The plan didn't involve him bringing cheap champagne and expensive burgers back to the apartment and trying to figure out a way around Skye's leg cast to make love to her while she drunkenly laughs at his attempts at being careful. No, this wasn't the plan. This is much better, though.
6.
"I'm not joining the Avengers, you didn't have to cook me a fancy dinner."
He tries to give her a smile while he sets the plate before her.
He's not sure why he felt he had to do this. The last thing he wanted was commemorate.
"Today was big for you. I wanted to do something special," he says, taking his seat. "Instead of some junky takeout."
"Okay, but this has vegetables in it. You know how I feel about vegetables."
She's just mocking him now.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm eating now," she says, chuckling. "Is this veal? Do I like veal?"
He just watches her. Imagines she looks completely different than she did this morning. He knows it's not true. She's even wearing the same denim shirt. Hanging around the Avengers and saving the world in front of god knows how many cameras and it didn't even warrant a change of clothes. Coulson can almost feel her slip away from his grasp.
He walks around the dinner table and crouches by her side, touching her knee.
"You're an international sensation," he says, kissing her.
"Yeah, mysterious earthquake hero is trending."
He kisses her deeper, wrapping his other hand around her hip. It's not about her teaming up with a couple of Avengers, but he feels like he has lost something of her today. That from this moment on Skye is going to be a bit more everyone else's and a little bit less just his. And that's okay, but Coulson feels suddenly nostalgic. There was a time – way before Skye even got her powers – when the wonder that is this woman was a secret Coulson was keeping, even though he had tried to tell anyone who would listen about it.
He kisses the side of her neck, making it quite difficult for her to keep on eating.
"Hey, respect the veal," she says, but her voice is playful, and her body arches towards Coulson's kiss easily, soft little moans at the back of her throat.
Coulson's hand creeps up from her knee, coming to press between her legs.
She threads her fingers through his hair, pulling to lift his face.
"Hey, I would never leave you for the Avengers," she tells him, quite seriously, like she fears that's his concern. Then she tilts her head. "Well, at least not until I met Thor."
"That's supposed to be reassuring, right?" He draws his hand up and down her thigh.
"What's wrong?" she asks.
Coulson knows better than to try to lie to his wife.
"How are you feeling?" he asks instead.
"You mean apart from tired?"
"I mean all the attention."
She strokes his cheek.
"You know I didn't really do anything," she says. "That the press is just exaggerating."
"You're life is about to change radically, Skye," Coulson says. He didn't want to say both their lives, that would be unfair. "People are going to recognize you when you're on a mission. People are going to have... a lot of unwanted opinions about your existence."
"Yeah," she says, heavily. But then, because she's Skye, she lights up. "It will be pretty cool though, have the villains recognize me when I enter the scene."
"Pretty cool."
"When I go rescue you, they can be all terrified when they see me because they know who I am."
Coulson frowns. "What makes you think I'll be needing you to rescue me?"
Skye rolls her eyes at the question.
"Because you always need me to rescue you," she says.
Coulson doesn't argue.
Tonight's her night, after all.
Plus, it's completely true.
7.
She saves the world so it must be a day of the week that ends with Y.
He helped a bit – hey, he always helps a bit – getting some nasty bruises for his trouble.
He tries to maneuver her into their bedroom, take care of her a bit, do things for her, but Skye has been gripped by the adrenaline rush that follows each dangerous mission. She tries to make out with him while Coulson holds on to the doorframe before she makes them both stumble and fall. He laughs for a moment, low, because how the hell is this his life.
"You're hurt," Coulson tells her.
"I'm not. This is nothing."
"Look at your hand."
"Well, you look at your mouth," she replies. "And you're still kissing me."
"You are kissing me."
"It's adrenaline," Skye says, strangely aware.
"Yes, it is."
"So what? Ride it with me?"
She throws her arms around his neck and tries to pull her down the bed.
He's not buying it.
"I don't want to go to bed – I mean go to sleep. I'm still hungry," she tells him, her voice is still a littl too sharp and frayed.
"What about the protein bars?"
Skye winces. "Ugh."
And yet it seems she ate them all already.
Coulson rolls his eyes and reaches for her boots.
Skye pulls away.
"Stop babysitting me," she says, a moment of honest and heated frustration flashing across her face. "I'm thirty."
"I'm not babysitting you, you're hurt." Then, softly, "I'm sorry."
He lets her unzip her boots and slip them off. She might be right, who knows. Coulson doesn't want to be that guy. He just wants to help. He just wants to make this superheroine's life a bit easier if he can. He thinks she's winding down when suddenly she tries to push him down the mattress and climb on top.
Coulson sits back up, grabbing her arms.
"You should rest," he tells Skye.
"I am trying to rest."
"Not on me," he complains, a bit amused at her voraciousness.
Skye wiggles her eyebrows. "What about under?"
He grabs her shoulders to keep her at bay. He wonders just how many painkillers Simmons gave her – well, the fractures on her fingers seemed pretty serious, Coulson was actually worried, for once. But whatever Skye has taken Coulson is not about to take advantage of his own drug-addled wife, obviously. He rejects her gently and tries to deposit her back on the bed, but she keeps sitting up.
"You're the least disciplined superhero I've ever met," he tells her, trying to sound a bit stern at least.
Skye tilts her head enticingly.
"But the sexiest," she points out.
Coulson sighs. Maybe if he plays along he can get her to rest sooner. Also, he always wants to play along.
"Definitely the sexiest."
"Sexier than Thor?" Skye asks.
"Sexier than Captain Rogers," he tells her, very solemnly, imagining she'd like that.
Her eyes widen.
"Oh My God Oh My God," she says. Then, like she's only just realizing this: "You're crazy about me."
Coulson can feel himself almost blushing, before he remembers there's no reason to be embarrassed about that.
"I'm your husband," he argues.
"You're absolutely head over heels for me. Phil loves Skye, Phil loves Skye," she begins chanting, almost bouncing on the bed.
He smiles, benevolent.
"Skye, you're heavily medicated," he points out.
She replies by pressing her palm against his belt buckle.
"And you are heavily end–"
"No, no," he cuts her off, taking her hand away. "Why don't we do that tomorrow?"
She frowns, scrunching her nose, cute and familiar. But she lets it go. The adrenaline is beginning to dilute, leaving only the complacent drowsiness of the painkillers.
"Tomorrow, tomorrow," she pouts. "You always say that. You still owe me a poem, you know."
"Okay, here's your poem," he says, cupping her face in his hands. "Phil loves Skye."
He kisses her.
He can't complain, there's still no danger of getting bored.
"Free verse!" Skye comments, cheerfully. "I love it. Thanks."
"You're welcome."
She ruffles his hair like he's a kid.
"You're sexier than Steve Rogers, too."
He narrows his eyes at her. "Okay. Clearly you're either on drugs or you want a divorce."
"The first one, definitely," she says, realizing her transgression, dropping her head in shame. "I apologize."
"Good."
She lies back, obedient, head on the pillow, finally. She looks up at Coulson for a moment yet. He doesn't need help translating that glance. Skye loves Phil.