five times kissed bc i didnt send it to you but i suppose its my time to be hurt
ONE | HE WAS A GIANT.
" it's all the in the back swing, slugger, " phil says with a laugh, readjusting roman's grip on the sammy sosa wooden bat - it's pint size, one he had to get at a walmart because the ones he had at home were practically the size of roman himself. the boy pulls his arms back and tries for a practice swing, one-two-three times, and with a fresh determination, adjusts the yankees cap phil had pushed onto his head before they got to the cages.
like this? " yeah, just like that. come on, now, chin up. focus and don't dare look away, 'cause that's what gets you -- taking your eye off the ball. " from the other side of the batting cage, carol whoops and shouts go roman! and shoots phil a wink. he's a good kid they tell each other at night when he's gone to bed. he's a good kid with a good head on his shoulders and he's got a hell of a life stretching out in front of him.
there's a long break before the next ball flies out the ejector and a longer pause between the shunk of the piston, and the crack of roman's bat finding leather. naturally, phil goes wild. " that's what i'm talking about! " they applaud obnoxiously and phil kisses the top of his head, ruffling his hair.
TWO | WICHITA LINEMAN.
things go wrong. it is the nature of the beast, it is what happens to people like them in this job and maria tells him this was always going to be the risk, that if anything were to go wrong, it may as well be now when nobody is in too deep. are you in too deep? i heard he's living with you. but phil knows now what he didn't before: he can't live without roman.
when maria mentions transferring roman into someone else's caseload, he grabs her wrist, keeps his voice low so as not to wake the sleeping boy in the hospital bed that looks so obscenely large next to his tiny frame. if you take him away from me, i'll burn your fucking house to the ground. he's my boy. the pause had been volatile. had been hard to process, for both of them, but when he let go, she had nodded. okay, she had said with an oddly proud look on her face, okay. get some sleep, coulson, you look like shit.
he waits until she's gone before he turns back and kisses roman's forehead, careful not to jostle any of the wires attached to him; when he sinks back into the too-small, shitty uncomfortable plastic chair, he opens a book and starts to read.
THREE | EVERYTHING ALL THE TIME.
she's not coming back, is she? roman stands in the threshold of the bedroom doorway, looking into the dim light cast by the bedside light; phil is awake with a report scattered over the duvet - not a usual move, but the living room still has a lot of boxes from the move, both his things and roman's - so needs must. he looks over at roman, over his glasses. he's always been a precocious kid. he's always been a good kid -- thirteen years old and already half a man.
a sigh pushes out between them, phil rubbing at the frown cutting into his own forehead. " no, slugger. she's not. " there must be some sort of sadness, some heaviness that he has not managed to cover quick enough because roman pads into the room then, in his pyjamas that look a little smaller than they did last week. (they'll go shopping tomorrow. he'll get him new clothes, and they'll have ice cream and he'll say to the waiter my son was wondering if you had the chocolate milkshakes again?) it is careful the way he puts his hand on phil's shoulder, but in a strange moment, he's almost the caretaker -- roman leans over and presses a kiss to phil's forehead. it's okay, dad.
FOUR | COURAGE, MY BOY.
jess watches the young man on the edge of the wellwishers carefully; he's hung far enough back, stood beside a red-head she doesn't recognise, that it shouldn't really draw her attention as much as it does, but the utterly devastated look on his face catches her breath. it's a deep sorrow - the kind she feels herself, in some small way. her brother was not the most forthcoming person. never mentioned friends or girlfriends -- or boyfriends? no, it doesn't seem the grief of a lover. it looks... christ, it looks like the grief of a son.
(that makes her baulk, makes her immediately dismiss the idea. because phil would have told her, surely, and their mother if he had a son. he would have mentioned it.)
somebody presses a folded flag into her mother's hands and says we thank your brother for his dedication to his country -- fucking steve rogers shakes her hand when he says it. she does not know what phil did for a living but it seems overwhelmingly important with the sad, sorrow filled face of captain america staring over at the white stone marker. the boy she'd been watching - twenty-ish maybe, she thinks - steps up to that marker after the priest disappears kisses his fingertips, pressing them lightly against the front, just above the words chiselled into it.
PHILLIP J. COULSON. FRIEND, BROTHER, SON.
THE RIGHTEOUS SHALL GO INTO ETERNAL LIFE.
FIVE | ONE SMALL VICTORY.
phil is running a little late -- he doesn't mean to be and he texts roman to say he's on his way as soon as he leaves the office, apologises for the delay and that dinner is his treat. that he cannot wait to meet the mystery girl. he's so eager, in fact, to get into the restaurant that he even tosses the keys to the valet with a cheerful don't scratch it, chief and takes the steps two at a time upstairs to where the hostess had told him they've been seated.
the girl is facing away from him and carol forces a smile when he walks in, but roman stands. roman stands and hugs him and phil kisses his temple, " hey, slugger, sorry i'm late, i had a nightmare at the office -- "
phil turns then, to greet the girl and say hello and has his mouth open to introduce himself but -- he knows the face. he knows the exact shade and shape of the girl in front of him and she looks equally thrown off, looks slightly nauseas when roman says josephine, this is my dad, phil.
𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐫𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐛𝐢𝐭 𝐚𝐬 𝐢𝐭 𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐰𝐬 𝐢𝐭'𝐬 𝐰𝐚𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐧 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐝 𝐩𝐢𝐞𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐥𝐮𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 , 𝐢𝐭'𝐬 𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐞𝐱𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐥𝐲 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐢𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐬 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐚𝐥 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐚𝐝𝐣𝐚𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐡𝐞𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐬 . if he hadn’t needed to twist back towards his toolbox , he might’ve not known he’d been there at all . “ --- roman . “ the boy pours in like a heavy fog , sometimes . you put your eyes to one thing , and then , just somehow settled in . heugh removes the bit , places it back in the drawer with a metallic mutter once he’s pushing it shut . “ was just gonna call and see if you wanted any of the tamales the valasquez’s left me . think that woman’s starting to like you two . “
❛ i'm worried about you. ❜ Roman, post Phil death.
there’s an obnoxious ticking coming from the other room. it’s an old clock that once belonged to her grandmother — a woman she never met from a life she never got to live, one of the last connections she still has to a time and family she has done so much to remove herself from. ivan had it restored after some criminal had destroyed it in a fight, years ago. she isn’t sure why she still keeps it, but listening to its incessant noise now, she remembers how often phil complained about it, too.
there isn't much of your life that isn't touched in some way by someone if you know them for nearly forty years.
roman had brought something over, she'd made him tea, and now they sit in the living room, listening to the old clock, and he's telling her he's worried about her. she's spent enough time worrying over him to give herself something to do that it nearly surprises her that he asks.
is it her silence that has him worried? the shadows under her eyes because two months later, she still cannot sleep because she dreads the feeling of waking up without him next to her? maybe it's the way she's been staring ahead at the folded flag in its case, already collecting dust on the bookshelf, and wondering if she still has it in her to cry.
this isn’t the first husband i’ve lost, she wants to say, and in some ways the truth of it is a balm. she had sworn a long time ago never again to marry, so if phillip was now the next in a line of dead husbands, she has no one to blame but herself for it. then, there isn’t anyone to blame at all. she knew ( they both knew ) that eventually, the day would come when, unless by some miracle someone managed to finally kill natasha and mean it, he would die, and leave her alone. they had spoken about it briefly, earlier on. she had told him that it didn’t matter how much time they had left together, she just didn’t want to squander anymore of it by not being with him. they left it at that.
"i'm fine," she tells him, forcing a smile she doesn't mean but feeling no guilt for it because she knows, in time, that she will. natasha knows intimately the shape of her own grief, the many forms it can take and has taken over the years, how none of them have been truly alike. she will always love phillip, just as she will always love everyone she has lived beyond and lost. a long time ago she had come to terms with the weight of it ; that the widow's curse she had lived with was never about bringing death, but rather about living with the weight of memory when those she'd shared them with passed on. so, while she busies herself and searches for distractions every day, while she still smells his cologne and sees his clothes and will never be able to wash the heartbreak of his kisses from her skin, she knows that eventually, she will be okay. she always will, in the end.
natasha presses a hand to his shoulder and squeezes gently. "i will be fine."
@illwriteatragedy said: 🔪 - a starter where my muse kills to protect your muse.
EMOJI MEME STARTERS
❛ ----- no! ❜ it happens before he can stop it, a candle snuffed out in the blink of an eye. his arm outstretched, fingers curling to grab something, anything to stop it.
( what have you done? )
his stomach plummets out of his rib cage, heartbeat raging against it. james rushes forward after the gunshot crack fills the room. he looks at up at yuri, standing there, back down at the red spilling out everywhere, the lips turning blue.
there’s too much blood, everywhere, warm & wet against his knees on the floor. when he touches his fingertips to the man’s neck he already knows that they’ll find nothing, just quiet, just the last lingering moments of a life.
❛ it’s okay, ❜ he says dully, even though no one has asked. he doesn’t have to look to know that this was done with his gun, that he is a weapon who has now honed another weapon. swallowing sticks in his throat.
( how will he tell natasha? )
❛ it’s okay, ❜ james repeats; he turns his attention to his son. he starts to raise a hand, stops when he sees it slick, crimson. ❛ --- tell me you’re all right. ❜
" 𝐦𝐞𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐥𝐚𝐝𝐲 . how’d you get yourself a nice gal like that ?? “ ah , a tease of course , the crow’s feet crimping at an eye says as much as jacob heugh takes a moment to refill roman’s glass . “ she what’s calmed you down so much ?? “
i’m not a fucking dead beat is the first thing waiting in the back of a mouth bleeding; cankersores line the inside of a cheek, the aftermath of a bad bite, and the wash of black coffee stings every one of them. fucking ridley. he’d laughed when willow said it but a few days to ruminate and it sits uneasy. the diner rustles around him and when roman enters, stevie bangs his knee against the underside of the table in his rush to get up and hug his uncle hello.
after everything –– after the truth comes out, and he knows more about her than he did before, and she knows more about him than she did before –– she knows that things are going to change in ways neither of them can wholly control. her first reaction, as it always is, is to drop away, disappear, cut the ties that bind them, but that isn’t –– possible, is it? not with everything he knows about her now, and everything he’d learned about her before. it leaves a sharp, trapped feeling clawing at her ribs, but roman couldn’t –– roman wouldn’t –– roman isn’t like that, is he? she’s never thought of him that way, but he’s kept secrets from her in the same way she’s kept secrets from him. when it comes down to it, she doesn’t know what roman might do.
they take some time apart, expectedly. the text that comes from him a couple of weeks later isn’t, and her agreement even more so. but here she is, sitting in a coffee shop that’s closer to his apartment than hers, waiting for him. when the bell above the door dings, she looks up, watches him wind through tables to where she is in the back.
“so,” it’s difficult, still, to be upset with him; it’s difficult, still, to not reach out and touch the back of his hands. “–– you wanted to talk?”
the first year, sympathy is the motivating factor behind the small box wrapped in neat silver and red paper. he’s a kid. he’s without a family on christmas. she barely knows him--certainly not well enough to avoid standing in the middle of an aisle in the store staring at the shelf for a good ten minutes before coming up with any kind of idea. she’d almost settled on socks. phil had said something about space, right? or was she projecting? screw it.
she leaves the box but forgets a note and never works up the courage to ask if he liked the puzzle. she does, however, make a mental note to ask her cousin what her boys got for christmas.
ii.
the next year is better. she finds a silver model of challenger during a visit to cape canaveral for work--she’s very proud. especially when he rips open the package and immediately runs off to clear a place of honor for it in his room. carol has to take off for boston fairly soon after they open presents but she sticks around for the french toast and hot chocolate and wears the red sox cap he gives her until new years.
iii.
they’ve had mostly good christmases since the first. carol got better at picking out presents. roman didn’t complain much when she sang along to the holiday music on the radio, or when she dragged him out into the snow to look at the lights. the first christmas after she leaves shield and all that entails, she doesn’t come home. stays on base in afghanistan and doesn’t wander far outside the barracks. her mom calls on christmas eve and her brother shouts a greeting from the background. her father makes no comment and carol doesn’t ask for him. she begs off the big dinner in the mess hall, avoids the party going on in one of the rec rooms, and settles in for a night in front of her computer looking for anything else to think about but the people she’s left behind.
sometime past midnight, a call request comes through. carol accepts before she can think about it and by the time the video connects and roman’s face is on her screen, she’s moving to disconnect. his smile makes her chest constrict painfully, makes her think about the last time they saw each other, in a hospital room where he told her she was family. carol doesn’t disconnect. roman doesn’t yell about her not calling more often. it’s a shit christmas, but a good call.
iv.
technically speaking, charlee is her first child. she’s the first kid carol buys a baby’s first christmas ornament for, the first kid she makes take a picture with santa at the mall. but when she puts up the decorations, there’s an ornament with a picture of her and roman’s faces smushed together at rockefeller center, a stocking with his name is glitter glue, a hand-painted snowflake ornament from some christmas craft fair they had stumbled across years ago. even when she and phil are together again and they’ve got their kids, when roman and jo have kids, when all those kids slowly start becoming adults--there’s always that stocking on the mantle next to carol’s and always a place at the table for him.
