Phil Coulson x Female!Inhuman!SHIELD Agent!Reader: Guard
Summary: Phil doesn’t know where the path you’re on will lead, but he’ll be damned if he lets you walk it alone.
Rating/Tags: T (Post-Season 2 (or maybe during? I can’t remember when half this stuff happened); Phil & May; established Phil/Reader; Reader’s powers are not described; angst; fluff; manslaughter)
Challenge: “160 Collective Drabbles” challenge by BobaPop on Lunaescence Archives.
Tag List: @imaginesfire
Notes: Please keep in mind that I didn’t watch Agents of SHIELD very far into season four (I think...Ghost Rider was there), so it is not likely to be anywhere close to canon compliant.
Guard
Phil Coulson had seen S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters under innumerable moments of distress over his years working there. Certainly sometimes distress could bring out the best in agents, sometimes even the best in humanity. This time, not so much. Although the stressful event itself had concluded hours ago, the entire Hub still rang with the odd silence that had started things off. No one moved except for him, and no one spoke but May beside him:
“I don’t think this is a good idea.”
She said this because she believed it. That Phil knew. Normally, he would have listened. He respected May a good deal; she was intelligent, strong, and unafraid of saying what needed to be said. If anyone had a handle on the situation, it was her.
This, unfortunately, was the one time he had no choice but to ignore her advice.
“You don’t have to stay,” he answered mildly.
May snorted. “Like hell I don’t have to. You think I’m going to trust Bobbi to watch your back on this one?”
“My back is going to be fine.”
“You say that,” said May, “but I’ll only believe it when I see it.”
“She won’t hurt me.”
May’s eyebrows rose, and for good reason. Two good agents had died that day. Mack would make a full recovery, but only because he was tough. Phil hadn’t been out in the field much before making the decision to go toe to toe with the person who had killed and hurt his team.
His companion did not bring any of this up, however. She was well aware that Phil already knew. Instead, she simply allowed him to move forward.
“I’ve got the door,” she said, and added, “be careful in there.”
“You know me. Careful is my middle name.”
He watched just long enough to see her roll her eyes, then turned his attention to the task at hand. Said task was opening a door–a solid, latched door keeping danger away from the rest of the team. Phil knew what lay behind it: a shaking, sobbing, unsettled young woman. He knew because there were about two dozen security cameras trained on her at every minute, as well as agents whose only task was to watch the video feeds and make an immediate report if anything inside the room changed.
He also knew because he knew [F Name] [L Name], perhaps better than he knew anyone else in the entire galaxy.
Already he had put things off too long. With a last steady breath, he pressed his hand to the flat expanse in front of him, approximately where a knob should have been. A line of blue light slid up his palm, then the whole door flashed and dissolved.
Phil stepped through the space left behind just before the door rematerialized behind him. He was sealed inside with a woman most people were now calling a monster.
You didn’t look like a monster just then. In fact, you didn’t seem as though you noticed Phil was there at all. Your eyes stared unblinkingly at the feet you had pulled up onto the cot. Every few seconds, an agonizingly tremulous breath would shudder out from your lips. Your hair was a mess, your fingernails bloodied, and your cheeks streaked with tears.
Phil cleared his throat.
You jumped about a foot in the air. When you had composed yourself enough to look over at him, said composure did not last long. Your face crumpled immediately. Despite how quickly you hid it in your knees, he saw your miserable expression.
“[Name],” he said carefully.
A pause. A tremendous sniff. You lifted your head. “D…Director.”
“How are you doing?”
Slowly, your eyes drifted away to stare blankly at your toes. “Does it matter?” you asked hoarsely. “How I am?”
Phil glanced behind himself, as though making sure that May really couldn’t hear him. He knew how she felt about the way things were, and Mack, and Bobbi, and Hunter, and most of the rest. But that wasn’t how he felt. Not even close.
“It matters. Why wouldn’t your feelings matter?” he said
You didn’t reply, at least not right away. With one arm still wrapped around your knees, you pushed fiddled with your tangled mess of hair. “What are you doing here?”
It wasn’t the answer he expected. It wasn’t even an answer, really. Still he would accept it. You could refuse to look at him all you wanted; you could pretend you were angry and that you didn’t want to see him if you wished. Phil didn’t care, so long as you kept talking. Ideally, he would have called Dr. Garner in to get you to talk. Unfortunately, Dr. Garner really wasn’t an option anymore, was he?
“I thought it would be good to have a little chat.”
Your silence was not exactly an invitation to make himself at home in your cell. All the same, he shrugged and leaned against the wall opposite you.
“Besides, it’s not the same out there without you,” he said.
Much to Phil’s surprise, you looked surprised. “Don’t say that.”
“Don’t say w–”
“You’re Director. You can’t say things like that about a…about a…”
“About the woman I love?” he suggested.
“About a murderer. I killed those men, Phil. Me. I killed them.”
Your voice grew quieter and quieter as you went on; your chin sank to your knees. To Phil, the distance between you and him felt endless. All he wanted was to cross that distance, sit down next to you, and make everything okay again. He was S.H.I.E.L.D. director now. Wasn’t he supposed to have that sort of power?
“You were right to leave me in here,” you whispered.
Phil looked sharply over at you. “Leave you in here?”
“When are they going to kill me?”
“Kill you?”
Apparently, you cared nothing for Phil’s obvious distress. You shook your head dazedly and still refused to look at him. “I killed three people today. I killed Mack.”
“Okay, first things first,” he started, “you didn’t kill Mack. Mack will survive because he’s always prepared. That’s the great thing about Mack. That’s why I sent him with you today. Secondly, why on earth would you think we were about to kill you? Third of all, I did not leave you in here.”
Maybe it wasn’t really fair of him to get so frustrated. You were clearly going through a terrible time. He was well aware that it could not have been easy, coming back to base to turn yourself in after what had happened. Knowing that most, if not all, of your friends were frightened and out for blood couldn’t have helped. Yet to find that you lumped him in with the rest hurt. Perhaps that was obvious enough, because you didn’t answer him this time either. All you did was press yourself into a smaller ball.
Sighing, Phil straightened up. “I should have come sooner,” he confessed. “Daisy thought that, considering the circumstances, you might want a bit of space.”
You made a noise at that, but what the noise meant, Phil had no idea. A few moments of absolute silence followed, then you made the noise again. It went on and on and on, a dejected, bubbling cry that you couldn’t seem to smother this time around.
He took a hesitant step forward, paused, then decided. Staying on the other side of the room wouldn’t do. Not anymore.
The cot creaked as he settled onto it. Most people who wound up in a S.H.I.E.L.D. holding cell weren’t offered comfortable amenities like real beds or real food or real visitors. If Phil could have offered you any of these, he would have. For the time being, all he could do was offer himself, sitting there and listening to you weep.
You did not react to his closeness like he had thought you would, not even to shift further away. He did not reach for you, much as he wanted to. He simply waited.
“I-I-I didn’t want this,” you moaned, and whether or not you intended him to, Phil heard. “I didn’t want to be Inhuman. I didn’t mean to be.”
“Everyone knows you didn’t mean to, [Name].”
“I don’t even kn-know how it happened. I just–got infected”
“The Terrigan Crystals are everywhere now. You could easily have eaten some when no one else was around to notice the change. It’s not your fault.”
You hiccupped, and closed your eyes as though the thought caused you great pain. It probably did. “I never wanted–even if I did, I wouldn’t want this…”
“[Name],” said Phil, “I know.”
Finally, you wrenched your head up so that you could face him. Your eyes appeared scarlet in the dim light–from crying so much, he assumed, not your powers–and snot glistened on your upper lip. Never in his entire life had Phil ever seen anyone look so hopeless. Somehow, he managed to refrain from touching you still.
“I’d be better off dead,” you said brokenly.
Phil’s heart burned inside him. “Daisy had trouble at first, too. It’ll take practice, but we’ll figure something out for you. We’ll have Fitz and Simmons rig up a whole training facility. You’ll get used to it. No one will hurt you before then. I won’t let them.”
For a long while, you just stared at him. Quiet tears continued to course down your cheeks, but your gaze was steady. He had a good idea of what you were thinking about while you stared at him: That Daisy’s powers were never like yours, that there was no Afterlife to learn from anymore, that no one on the team or in the entire world would ever look at you as a human being again. But the last was a lie. You were still human, and Phil could see that. Human blood ran through your veins, red as his own, even now.
You did not remark upon any of that, though. Instead, you reached your arms out toward him, and your face crumpled once again. “Hold me,” you murmured.
So Phil did, closing the gap to put his arms around you. You pressed your head to his shoulder, quickly soaking his suit through with tears. He didn’t mind. If that was what it would take, he would hold on to you for the rest of the night and into the morning.
No one else would lay a finger on you–not while he was there, and he didn’t plan to leave until he saw a real smile light up your face once more. It might be weeks before that happened; it might be years. But he wouldn’t leave your side until it did. Never again.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D Imagine: Wolf!Reader Scared They’ll Hurt Coulson
Requested by: Anon
Warnings: None
(Not So) Lone Wolf
“Do you really think that I am that incapable?”
Your eyebrows furrow, stopping mid-rant. “What?”
Coulson stands there, folding his arms over his chest. “Do you really think that I am that incapable?”
You sigh. “No...no..of course not.”
He tilts his head. “Because if you have this much doubt in me...”
“Phil, I turn into a wolf with no warning.”
“And I’m the director of SHIELD! I’ve come back from the dead.”
You groan. “Not this again.”
“What do you mean not this again?”
“Just because you came back from the dead doesn’t mean you can do it all the time, Phil. I can’t do this. I can’t hurt you with my powers-”
He suddenly cuts you off with a hard kiss, and you grip the front of his shirt hard.
When you finally break away for air with bruised lips, he stares at you. “Breaking up would hurt me more than any damage you could do with you powers. I promise.”
You sigh, resting your head on his chest, giving up. “Fine. Stubborn man.”
You can almost feel his goofy triumphant grin. “And don’t you forget it.”
Request: im having a bad day and i was wondering if you could write something about coulson helping? im not feeling good in my body (i gained a lot of weight bc of my antidepressants). hope this isnt too annoying
Fandoms: Marvel, MCU, Agents of SHIELD
Pairing: Coulson x Reader
Warnings: Mentions of depression
Author’s Note: This takes places around the first season of Agents of SHIELD.
*******
Everyday, it was getting harder and harder for you to get out of bed. You had been laying there for twenty minutes when Coulson found you in your bunk.
He gently informed you, “Hey, Y/n. Today’s briefing was ten minutes ago.”
Coulson’s voice brought you back from wherever you were. “Coulson!” you shouted, shooting up out of bed to stand for your superior. “I’m so sorry. This will never happen again. I know it’s completely unprofessional to--”
The agent put his hands up in surrender. “Whoa, whoa! Calm down, okay? Why don’t you take a seat?”
Biting your lip in embarrassment, you followed orders.
Phil moved to sit down next to you. “May I?”
You nodded.
He took a seat. “I’ve noticed something about you lately, Y/n. Is everything okay?”
“Yes, sir. I am so sorry that it affected my work. I--” You were rambling hard, and completely avoiding Coulson’s eyes.
Your boss interrupted you, again. “It’s not affecting your work. Y/n, you’re one of SHIELD’s best agents. This hasn’t changed any of that. I just...would like to know what ‘this’ is, if that’s okay.”
“Coulson, y...you don’t want to know about my problems. They’re nothing compared to all this stuff we have going on--”
Once more, he interrupted you. “It’s something to me.”
There was a pause, and you searched Coulson’s eyes for anything but sincerity. You couldn’t find anything else. With that, everything came pouring out.
It started with your depression. You didn’t know where it originated from, but you knew you had had it your whole life. It was your team at SHIELD that had talked you into getting help. It was the help that got you the antidepressants, The drugs helped for a while, but you could always count on yourself to find the downside in everything. You had noticed you had gained weight, and a lot of your old feelings were back. They weren’t as bad as they had been before, but they were there.
Honestly, you were surprised Coulson didn’t interrupt you again to tell you that he had changed his mind about hearing you rant. Instead, he patiently sat, clearly listening intently to every word you said.
Phil Coulson was quiet after you were done talking. You were, too. You were out things to say, anyway.
Finally, after some time thinking, Coulson admitted, “I’m glad you’re still taking the pills.”
The admission took you off guard. You vaguely remembered telling him that through all the bad stuff that was going on in your head, you continued to take your antidepressants.
He continued, “Even though they might sound crazy, it’s important to listen to the professionals with this kind of stuff. If they tell you to take the antidepressants, then you should take the antidepressants...And as for the weight gain, you...are gorgeous. You’ve always been gorgeous, and you will continue to be gorgeous. You’re amazing, Y/n. I am so proud of you.”
You started crying earlier than you would’ve liked to. Actually, you would’ve preferred not to have cried at all. Forgetting that, you hugged Coulson close. “Thank you, boss. You don’t know what your words mean to me.”
Coulson chuckled, “I hope they mean something good.”
“They do, Coulson,” you assured, “They do.”
*******
Author’s Note: Thank you for reading! Fill up that heart and reblog if you liked it! If you would like to read more, I have more fics on the MCU over on my page. You should go check it out. Also, REQUESTS ARE OPEN. I take requests for one-shots, multi-chapters, headcannons, and preferences. No smut, please. I write for a variety of fandoms. If you’re wondering if I write for a specific fandom, please ask me. Have a nice day, night, or whatever time it is for you.<3
Request by madithemagicalfangirl : I wondering if I could get a aos imagine where the team rescue the reader who is a teen off a hydra base where they were training her to be a weapon and didn’t even give them a proper name just like subject 28 or something. The reader has telekinesis (kinda like eleven from stranger things) and they find a family in the team they never had and they teach her about the world and everything since she never got to with hydra and it’s all fluffy and cute in the ending? Thanks!
Of course you can! Sorry for the delay!
———————————————————————————————————
The whole room was painted red as alarms flashed, and all you could hear was a conglomeration of sirens, gunshots and shouting. In an instant you were up against the metal bars of your cell, unable to escape but still wanting to know what was happening. You had gathered from fragments of passing conversations that someone had broken into the base but that was all you knew.
“GET BACK!” a voice shouted and you turned towards the source of the noise just as a flashing device was attached to the door of your cell. Your eyes widened as you realised what was happening and you pushed yourself off the bars as hard as you could, sending your body to the floor at the back of the small room.
You heard a bang before your vision was filled with smoke, then suddenly a pair of hands emerged from the smoke and grabbed onto your arms which you had raised above your head. The sudden contact caught you off guard, allowing your instincts and training to kick in as you ripped your arms out of the mysterious person’s hands and placed a kick where you thought their torso was, causing them to fall to the floor and giving you an opportunity to bolt out of the room.
You ran around the compound which was both familiar and unfamiliar, as you had spent most of your life there but had rarely been outside your cell, only for medical tests and training. You didn’t know where you were going, you just knew you had to run. As you rounded a corner, you heard something like a gunshot but somehow gentler and before you could register that it was you who had been shot, you were falling to the ground, your vision going black.
***
You forced your eyes open and blinked rapidly, adjusting to the light which illuminated the small room you were in.
‘Oh great’, you thought, ‘I escape from one cell just to be thrown into another.’
You sat up and glanced around the room. It was mostly empty, just the bed which you were lying on, but outside the cell was a chair and some stairs leading to what you presumed was the only way out.
You had started walking around the cell, getting a feel for the space and checking for any possible escape routes when you heard a door open at the top of the stairs, followed by the sound of footsteps. You sat back down on the bed and watched as three people approached the cell. The first was a male with a stern yet kind face and a lack of hair on the top of his head, dressed in a suit. Next was a female with dark hair, more serious than the first, not showing any emotions on her face and dressed all in black. Lastly was a girl in her early twenties with long brown hair and obviously more relaxed than the other two, dressed in casual clothes and holding a tablet of some sort.
“Hello,” the man said, affirming your guess that he was the one in charge, “how are you feeling?” You didn’t answer and kept staring at the wall directly ahead of you.
“Are you hurt?” He tried, eliciting only a brief shake of the head from you which almost went unnoticed.
“Good, I’m glad. Now, what’s your name?”
“Subject 28.” You replied instantaneously, being used to being asked this on a regular basis.
“I mean, what’s your real name? The one you had before you were taken.” He asked, only gaining a blank stare in reply.
“You do have a name, right? Everyone has a name.” The younger girl said, a look of mild confusion appearing on her face.
“My name is Subject 28.” You repeated.
“Okay, how about this.” The man started, trying to bring an end to the cycle, “What would you like us to call you?” This shocked you as you couldn’t remember the last time in your life when anyone asked you what you wanted. You thought for a moment, remembering your time at the Hydra base. You couldn’t recall ever seeing another name for you on any documentation, but one memory did spring to mind. You remembered a scientist, the only one who ever treated you as something more than an asset. You remembered asking what her name was and thought of her response.
“Y/N,” she had said, smiling kindly at you, “My name is Y/N.”
“Y/N.” You said after a moment. The man smiled gently at your reply.
“Alright then Y/N. We just have a few questions for you. First, do you know where you are?” You shook your head, unable to remember how you ended up in the room. “Next question, do you know where you were before?”
“In a Hydra base.” You replied, remembering the symbol printed all over the walls and the constant repetition of the phrase ‘Hail Hydra’.
“Good. Last one, do you know why you were being kept there?” You felt all eyes on you as they waited for your answer.
“They wanted to use my ability against their enemies.” You said, eliciting a shocked sound from the girl.
“What? But she’s not a weapon, she’s a kid!” She cried.
“You think Hydra cares about age?” The other woman responded.
“Sorry, one more question.” The man interjected. “What exactly is your ‘ability’ that Hydra wanted to harness?”
“I can move things by thinking about it.” You said simply.
“You’re telekinetic? No way! That’s so cool!” The girl squealed, earning a look from the other two.
“Would you mind showing us?” The man asked kindly, his tone being one you weren’t used to. You glanced at the group for a moment before nodding, deciding you had nothing to lose, they couldn’t be worse than Hydra was. You stared at the tablet in the girl’s hand and imagined it moving up towards the ceiling. You heard the girl give out a startled yelp as the tablet started floating up until you stopped, allowing it to fall back down.
“Well, Y/N. I think we should introduce ourselves. My name is Phil Coulson, this is Melinda May and Skye. We work for SHIELD, you’re currently on one of our jets. Now it seems to me that you’re not used to being in the outside world, right? What do you say to us letting you out and showing you around a bit, help you to familiarise yourself with your new home?” You were shocked, you barely knew these people and they were offering you a home, something you hadn’t had in a very long time. You looked at them, wary of their unexpected kindness but you couldn’t see any hidden emotions in them, they seemed sincere in their offer.
Slowly you nodded. “I’d like that.”
“In that case, welcome to the team Y/N.” Coulson said. Skye pressed a button on her tablet and whatever was keeping you trapped before disappeared, allowing you to take your first steps out of the cell and into your new life.
———————————————————————————————————
So I’ve been thinking, and I’ve decided that if enough people want it, I’ll write a second part to this where the reader meets the rest of the team and bonds with them as they teach her about life. If you guys want to see that, let me know.
The four year old little girl sat at the wooden oak table in her family’s quaint, little house, doodling on the scraps of printer paper she had stolen from her father’s office. The colorful glitter pens rolled around the table as he hands grasped from one utensil to the next. If anyone would walk in on her they would think it very odd she was doodling with her eyes closed. She never knew what the picture would look like until she was finished and very seldom had memory of actually drawing the items on the paper. The nice pictures in her head that showed her what to draw, always seemed like they should be kept hidden. (Y/N) didn’t know why, she thought all the bright red was pretty, but when Daddy found one of them, he asked her where she had seen the symbol in her doodle, she had to lie! (Y/N) did not like to lie, but the images in her mind hurt when she tried to tell Daddy about where she had actually had seen the symbol, so she told him she had seen the picture on the television. She wasn’t allowed to watch her cartoons anymore.
Phil Coulson sat against his office chair with his daughter’s drawing of Hydra’s notorious symbol in one hand and holding his phone in one hand, while (Y/N) sat watching a Disney movie in the living room. The ring of his phone finally caught an answer to which he quietly talked into the speaker, “Fury? We have a problem.”
2011
(Y/N) was lying on dusty red ground as she stared up into the sky. The rain pouring down caused the red dirt to form into a dense mud, but her clothing and body was still dry. She carefully sat up and looked around, noticing a large structure surrounded by military vehicles and fencing. She slowly arose to her feet and made her way over to what seemed to be the entryway. There was echoed yelling raging in her head and she stumbled against the clear fence. She held fast to the openings and peered to the the dome like creation. A man stood in the center, endlessly tugging and pulling at what seemed to be a hammer? He was very large with blonde hair to his shoulders and a short beard. The spotlights were surrounding him and so were the agents. She looked up and saw someone standing in the tallest part of the structure who looked like her father’s friend Clint?
(Y/N) sat back against the fence when she caught a glimpse of her father in the structure, also, staring down at the man. He truly was beautiful, she thought, even covered in mud.
(Y/N) sat straight up in her bed, breathing heavily. The lack of sleep the past few nights was blamed on the excitement that was that Saturday, April 16th, her birthday. Deep down (Y/N) knew it was not just because she was turning eighteen in a few days, but she could try. Her father had been very open about the fact that she was adopted, which wouldn’t take too much to tell, since they looked nothing alike. (Y/N) was (short/average/tall), with (h/l) (h/c) hair, and a serious talent for art. She surveyed the walls of her room which were just about covered from floor to ceiling with sketches of random events. What nobody besides her father knew was that the sketches were drawn before the events took place.
She grabbed for her sketchbook and graphite pencils and began to mark down her dream, only stopping when the whole side of her hand was gray with graphite, and her dad had called her for breakfast. “I had another one. You were in it, and so was Agent Barton,” (Y/N) announced to him as she sat down for pancakes. Phil turned to look at her and smiled.
“About?” He asked. (Y/N) did not start telling Coulson about her visions until he blatantly asked, after seeing too many of her predictions come true. Fury and himself were the only ones that knew.
“You were in a desert, and it was raining, but there was a man there trying to pull a big hammer off the ground,” She scrunched her eyebrows trying to remember all the details, looking at her father for answers.
“I’m being sent out to New Mexico with Agent Barton for a galactic interference. Which I did not tell you if anyone asks,” He puts his finger to his lips in a sign of silence.
“Got it. Keep my mouth shut. Do you know who the guy is? And can I come?” She fired off her questions with wide, hopeful eyes.
“No, too dangerous.” She immediately began to plead her case.
“Oh come on, Dad. You know my visions would be helpful! Even Fury said training would be good for me! Please!” She had her head tilted in a way that she knew always helped and was two seconds away from saying she would clean the house perfectly for the next two months.
“You know I don’t want you becoming an agent, (Y/N). I love my job, but I’ve had to give up lot of things I wanted, too. And, I know you want to go to that art school,” He continued though she was past reasoning with by now.
“Well, let me come with you and I’ll see if I like it!” She reasoned.
Phil groaned into his hands, ”Alright! But you stay out of sight, and no telling anyone you’re there- Even Agent Romanoff! I know you and her get together and talk somehow” (Y/N) ran at him and began shouting her ‘thank yous’ over and over.
“Okay, okay go pack, we leave in three hours.” (Y/N) immediately dashed to her room, muttering about which sketchbook to bring.
