An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
From the very beginning, up until the point we meet her in canon: a character study of Melinda May. A story that clings stubbornly to hope, and considers what it means to be a hero.
PART TWO: The Aftermath of Bahrain.
Coulson turned up at the checkout line with a tiny container of soup and an entire baguette, entirely too cheery about it. An old, somewhat hypocritical argument about nutrient intake still sprung to mind like breathing, but May couldn’t bring herself to start it. Coulson’s sideways glances kept getting more and more pointed.
“If there’s anything,” he said later, earnestly, because they’d agreed a long time ago that saying certain things right out and sounding stupid was infinitely preferable to wasting both their time beating around the bush. “I know you have a thing, with being anything other than okay, but I…”
“You have a savior complex,” May told him. She shifted the paper bag in her arms and wiped a rain-dampened palm off on her jeans, scowling at him. “Really? We’re doing this right now?”
He sighed. “You’re not on your own.”
May rolled her eyes. “Clearly.”
“I’m here,” Coulson said, because he wasn’t done with the pointed, obvious statements yet, apparently. May didn't answer.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
A story about many things, but mostly about the love between mothers and daughters, through the generations: born and chosen, lost and found.
The wind picked up, bright leaves sighing against the baby blue of a breakable sky. Daisy glanced across at May’s still profile.
“I’ll walk with you?”
May glanced at her -- was that a flicker of surprise? -- and nodded.
Coulson didn’t say anything, as they got out of the car. She saw them exchange a glance, brief and loaded and steady, familiar; May took the lead, hiking up the hilly ground. The flowers in her hand were splotches of color, her dark jeans and old leather jacket standing out stark against well-tended green. Daisy fell into step at her shoulder.
She’d known that May came here every once in a while. Not often. May hadn’t asked them to come along this time as much as she’d made it clear she didn’t mind if they did.
Daisy had negotiated her way into getting May to delegate some of her workload for the first time a few years ago, when there wasn't time for anything and May was busily pretending she wasn’t running herself ragged, trying to do a million things at once. She’d ended up on the phone with a list of florists local to various states, who’d made knowing aaah sounds when she said she was speaking on behalf of Melinda May. Lilies and roses, arrangements she didn’t even have to specify; she’d been handed a scrap of paper at least twenty years old, May’s spiky handwriting unchanged and the specifics unthinking in a way that told Daisy this had been routine for a very long time.
They came to a stop; Daisy's breath stuttered slowly out of her lungs, in spite of herself.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
“You ever considered going,” Elena says to May, just as they arrive at the checkout line, and in a panic changes vigilante to, “vegan?”
“No,” says May, deadpan.
The bored looking cashier gives them a weird look. May offers her the most obnoxiously pleasant hello Elena has ever heard, and spends the next six minutes doing her grim-faced version of trying very hard not to laugh.
A tribute to the delightfully chaotic duo these two became, and to the kind of friendship that starts with two people being lonely together.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
A story for the moment you realize things are going to be okay. Even if -- in that moment -- you didn't yet know you would be, too.
This was routine, in a lot of ways; they’d been here so many times together, so many different places. It made it feel a little less like the world had already ended, like the planet was cracked apart outside the window.
It was kinda a stupid question at this point, but Phil asked anyway. “You okay?”
May’s answering snort was soft, a little less sardonic than it might have been. After a long second, she nodded. “Been better, but.”
“It’s okay to not be, you know.”
She shook her head. “Pot, kettle.”
Phil huffed a slight laugh. May’s gaze flickered over to him, either looking for or seeing something no one else could see. Somewhere along the line, her shoulders had finally fallen into a sloping, exhausted line.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
From the very beginning, up until the point we meet her in canon: a character study of Melinda May. A story that clings stubbornly to hope, and considers what it means to be a hero.
PART THREE: New York, And What Happened After
Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.
Something you can only learn after the end of the world: even as the dust settles, the sun rises on a new day.
When Steve Rogers was recovered from the ice, alive in a world nearly unrecognizable from the one he had known, Coulson stepped away from his vigil of the unconscious Captain only to send three solid minutes of whispered screaming in a voicemail to Melinda May. She held her phone an exasperated two inches away from her ear the following morning, staring dubiously over the heads of clustered agents at the newscaster that seemed to be screaming with near equal enthusiasm on a monitor a room over.
New York was far from the beginning of the end. Unearthed with the sleeping super soldier was the Tesseract. Phase Two was born quietly.
May got a string of giddy texts and Coulson’s costume sketches in her email.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Jemma and May, and a story for a home and its memories; for lives lost and the still living, and for a different sort of joy than you ever imagined.
A story inspired by this snippet by @meanderings0ul.
They’d finally shared details of their plans once the team was all together, lights strung up all over the Lighthouse for New Year’s and the old base so much warmer than it had once been.
May had flown them out here two days later with nothing much more than a I know a place. She’d borrowed a jeep from a hangar whose elder occupants greeted her with startled recognition, tugged the keys from her pocket upon arrival and opened the door for them in silence.
The house had been dusty inside, in almost perfect condition otherwise. It had that quietly melancholy air of a house long since empty, the faint scuffs on the wood polish and memories of warmth that meant it had once been lived in, loved. It wasn’t until Jemma saw the absent way May leaned her hip against a cabinet that wouldn’t shut properly unless you shoved it just right, the way she watched them walk around more than she looked at the house, that it finally clicked.
A collection of non-chronological moments from a different sort of happy ending. Family feels, pointless fluff, and important conversations. Rated G.
Read on ao3.
chapter 1 -- strawberry-stealing squirrel
“Hey.”
May blinked contentedly at him, lit up with warm lamplight. “Hm.”
Coulson got into bed beside her, slow and aching. There was warmth in that too, somehow. May curled up, setting her head against his shoulder, her weight solid and still somehow light against his side. She wasn’t actually reading any more, just flipping idly through pages.
There was moonlight fading gently through the curtains. It was like they could see all the world’s stars out on the porch, most nights -- but it was chilly out there on this one. The stars would still be there tomorrow.
“You tired?”
May’s voice was soft. She was in better shape than he was, these days, because of course she was, but the hot water bottle half-tangled in blankets said she ached, too.
“Mm. A little.”
Tired meant something kind of different, these days. It was the years weighing down his bones, the way everything was somehow going so much faster the more they slowed down. It was a good feeling, most days, the way certain kinds of melancholy wrap around you like a blanket.
May hummed again.
“How are you feeling?”
That slight shift of her weight was surprise. May leaned over to put her book down before she answered, switching off the lamp. She still insisted on sleeping on the side by the door, still carried those old specialist reflexes; unlikely reaction times and the almost cat-like effortlessness to it. He’d lost most of that to those months of deterioration, years ago; but the vigilance, the automatic, constant analysis was still there. They still went people-watching every once in a while, mostly to watch the world go by and be judgy old people in peace (May zeroed in on every leather ensemble that passed and ran background checks on stores instead of people, these days). They’d fought their wars.
May moved slower these days, limped more days than she didn’t, but she could still take Yo-yo’s entire STRIKE team. She didn’t teach much any more, but Yo-yo still wheedled her out to do demonstrations every once in a while. She said it kept the youngsters in their place.
Phil got to spend every day beside her steadiness, steadfast as the mountains, and that was as safe as he could ever ask to be.
“A squirrel stole all the strawberries off the plant,” May stated, as she curled up beside him again. Coulson wrapped long arms around her as she huffed, one arm draped warm over his belly. “All three of them.”
Phil jostled them both with a startled laugh. “That does not answer the question.”
“I feel like the squirrel.” May told the darkness, and also him, prim and matter-of-fact. The drowsiness in her voice was getting thicker by the moment. “Like I stole something nice and I’m happy about it.”
Phil was outright belly-laughing by then, trying to get the blanket untangled from around his ankles without having to sit up to tug at it. So much for philosophizing. May lifted her head in annoyance at all the jostling, dropped her cheek back on his chest once he paused to gasp for breath.
“Ask me how I’m doing next time,” she muttered, mostly asleep already. “ Please. ”
“Ohohoho, like hell. You, Melinda May, just told me you feel like a strawberry-stealing squirrel. I am never asking you anything other than how are you feeling ever again.”
There was no answer. May could feign sleep as well as anyone -- better, actually, since she’d finally trained herself to stagger the length of each exhale so you couldn’t crack the rhythm by counting to it. Phil lay still for a long minute, grinning into the darkness, just listening to the quiet snuffle of her peaceful breathing.
A collection of ficlets set in the 'get out my machete and battle with time once again' universe. And yes, I'm realizing I definitely need a catchier name. Full series on Ao3.
chapter 3 -- as we lay our wars to rest
It was a restless night.
Pines whipped, thunder crashing like someone was bowling with furniture on the roof of the world. May lay awake for a long time, listening to the rain, and thought about myths that bled just like they did, about the pieces this world would never be.
It was hard to reconcile how small it was, in the grand scheme of things. The world. May had spent so much of her life flying over greens and blues and browns, looking down, but that had still been under the sky. You couldn’t see it the same way once you’d looked down from the other side.
Her dreams, when she finally fell asleep, were a jumble of familiarity. A warehouse, a little girl; but this was a girl with faraway eyes and trust in her hands-- and another girl, with rumpled blond hair and her father’s eyes, her mother’s nimble, curious fingers. It was an old home, not a warehouse, walls that were no longer hers but that she remembered loving. May dreamed of her cockpit, no splinters in her palms; peaceful evenings and threat she’d spent years comfortable in, safety she was learning. She awoke slowly, as dawn arrived, like her body hadn’t decided whether it had actually gotten any rest or not.
It was an indecisive sort of morning. Melinda liked those even less than the bad ones; she’d spent years learning to live with those, live through them, and they didn’t come around often any more. The indecisive, thin unease was just annoying.
Tai chi helped. There was a reason why she’d settled herself into routines, why she’d built them into herself and her time even when nothing much else in her life had been predictable. Phil did fine with less structure to his days, could unwind easily in that flexibility, but these had always been her hours, the first rays of sun crawling into a drowsy sky.
It had brightened into a pale, breakable blue by the time Phil was up, the air cold and crisp and no longer so heavy with damp. There were pine needles scattered everywhere, a thick bed of leaves that swallowed up sound instead of crackling, but the storm had come and gone without doing any damage.
May went out to coat her boots in mud after breakfast. There was a worn old trail out back that looped around on itself, that brought her back home if she just walked far enough.
Phil had been gentler than he needed to be, that morning, patient enough for the both of them. He'd set the kettle like there were at least five people waiting for tea. It just wasn’t a day for talking, at least not yet, and there wasn’t any urgency to their days any more. She hadn’t known how to breathe without it, at first, but she’d had a handful of years now to ease into the relief of it. She was starting to be able to feel like they’d been doing this for a long time.
May stepped back onto the wood of the porch with her pockets full of wild golden raspberries (she hadn’t been planning on going that way, but once she did she couldn’t just walk past the bushes). Her thigh was aching again, knees putting up a protest she was staunchly ignoring, but she felt steady for the first time that morning.
She came through the front door to the sound of music.
It was acoustic, earthy tones. Folky. Phil was sitting by his desk, but he’d gone still, probably forgotten all about whatever he’d been doing. She knew he’d heard her come in, but she leaned one shoulder against the wall and just listened, eyes on the window and the sunlight tumbling in.
Their tastes in music were as wildly different as ever, but this was nice, whatever it was. Something about sunshine and the time that you have.
May watched the curve of Phil’s shoulders, rubbed a gentle palm against the wood paneled walls.
They had grandkids now. They’d get to watch them grow.
She stepped across the floor as the song ended.
Phil stood to meet her, eyes soft and damp, and she smiled at them, at him, at how easy the peaceable emotion still came to him, after everything. She would never have that. She didn’t mind. She was learning her own peace, laying down her arms without needing it to feel right. This was a choice, calmness and patience and birdsong in the birth of a new dawn.
She was burying her wars in long walks home and raspberries in her pockets. There were ghosts to both their names, hanging around this little cabin, and they were welcome to stay as long as they needed, provided they held their peace.
