An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
For the Cameras
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Phil Coulson/Melinda May
Characters: Phil Coulson, Melinda May
Summary:
The origins of the banter from 4x14 - What happened on that mission? Was Phil really as bad at playing a husband as Melinda remembers? And why the hell was he trying to take off her bra?
There were two things he told her, and one thing he didn’t.
-
The first was in the middle of the night. His phone rang, and he hauled himself out of sleep, groaning. The clock showed two in the morning. His phone showed Melinda’s name. He clicked to answer.
“Melinda?” he croaked. “What’s wrong?”
“Hey!” she exclaimed. He winced at the volume of her voice. “Phil!”
“It’s me,” he mumbled, grumpily. “Are you okay?”
“Phil,” she said again, breathlessly. She didn’t sound worried, or in pain. Far from it. She sounded happy.
“Where are you?” he asked. “Are you okay?” She’d gone to dinner with Andrew the night before, and he hadn’t heard from her since.
“I’m fine,” she said. Her voice was breathy, and happy, and he couldn’t help but wonder if she’d been drugged. “Andrew’s here.”
“Where are you?” he asked again, sitting up in bed and rubbing his eyes with one hand. “Mel?”
“Sorry,” she laughed. “I’ve been drinking. I just wanted to call you before I went to sleep.”
“Why?”
“We got married.”
It hit him right in the stomach, and it was so much like actual physical pain that Phil cringed. Melinda and Andrew had eloped. He’d never considered that that might be a possibility.
“You got married?” he echoed, just wanting to double check.
“We went out to dinner,” she murmured. “He proposed, and I said yes, on one condition.”
“That you could elope,” Phil said, his voice quiet. She’d always said it was the only way she’d ever get married.
“I wanted to tell you,” she said. He could hear her smile in her words. It hurt like hell. “I just wanted you to know.”
“I’m really happy for you, Mel,” he told her, his voice barely faltering. Apparently she’d had enough to drink not to notice the waver in his words.
“Thanks, Phil,” she sighed, still sounding blissfully happy. “I’ll see you in a couple of weeks, okay? And… could you maybe tell Fury? Andrew’s too scared to do it.”
The line went dead and Phil fell back onto his pillows, staring at the ceiling.
-
The second came later. Phil had gotten used to carrying around that secret weight in his chest, but when someone knocked on his office door and Melinda May walked through it, he could barely contain his surprise.
“Melinda?” he asked softly. He hadn’t seen her for almost a year. She’d wanted space, understandable after what had happened. She had Andrew. She didn’t need him.
“Hey,” she said, quietly. He got to his feet, hovering behind his desk.
“It’s good to see you,” he murmured, trying not to make it sound as awkward as he felt. “I didn’t know you guys were back in the country.”
“It’s just me,” she said. Her tone gave her away, and Phil frowned.
“Is Andrew okay?” he asked, overcoming the small part of him that didn’t want to care.
“I divorced Andrew,” she said, bluntly. Phil reeled at the news, even as he moved around the desk. Melinda checked that the door was closed, glancing over her shoulder, and once she was satisfied, she didn’t resist as Phil wrapped his arms around her.
“Is this because of-”
“Don’t,” she interrupted. He sealed his lips. This wasn’t the time for questions. He wrapped himself around his ex-partner, comforting her as best he could.
“I’m sorry, Mel,” he told her.
“Thanks, Phil,” she mumbled into his shoulder, her hands bunching in the back of his suit jacket.
-
“How did you leave things?”
May was leaning against the cargo bay ramp, watching the space where Andrew’s car had disappeared. She jolted minutely when she heard Phil’s voice, and turned to him, shrugging.
“As well as we could have, given the situation,” she said. Phil gazed at her, and she softened.
“He’s got a family,” she said. “A real life. I don’t fit into his world.” She laughed, a touch bitterly. “Whose world would I ever fit into?”
Mine, Phil didn’t tell her.
“Come on,” he said, motioning for her to follow. “We could both use a drink.”
He took the truth and hid it. She didn’t need to hear it, anyway.
Bobbi is on her way past the lounge when she hears voices. She pauses outside the door, trying to work out who’s inside. She can only hear male voices, and from the sound of it, it’s Hunter, Mack, and Fitz. She almost goes in to join them, but then she hears Hunter speaking.
“Best weekend of my life,” he says. “Well, sort of. Back when we were married, it was kind of hard to tell.”
Bobbi leans against the wall, realising he’s talking about the old days, way, way back when they were married. Lifetimes ago.
“Man, what does that even mean?” Mack sighs. “Things are good or bad, that’s it.”
“Nah,” Lance says, and Bobbi imagines he’s shaking his head. “Not with Bobbi. It could feel like the best time of your life and the worst all at the same time. I’ve never felt anything like it.”
“So what happened?” Fitz asks, before Mack can object again.
“Right, so we were in Tuscany,” Lance continues. Bobbi feels her chest jolt as she realises he’s talking about a trip they took about a year into their marriage.
“Amazing at first,” Lance says. “Beautiful place, beautiful woman, it was…”
“Easy,” Bobbi breathes.
“Easy,” Lance says. Bobbi feels an ache in her chest.
“What did you do?” Mack asks.
“I’m offended,” Lance objects. “What makes you think I did anything?”
There’s a pointed silence, and he sighs. “Fine. The first few days were a dream. The hotel was amazing, we went walking and hiking, spent our nights in a beautiful little bungalow. Then she started getting work calls.”
Mack groans, and Bobbi has to smile. He always took her side back in the day, mostly because he never used to like Hunter.
“Let me guess,” he says. “You freaked out like you always did when she was in demand at SHIELD.”
“We’d only been married a year,” Lance protested. “I wanted to keep the magic alive.”
“You wanted her for yourself.”
“Fine,” Lance sighs. “I did. She left on the fifth day we were there, and I stayed behind.”
“You stayed?” Fitz repeats.
“What was I supposed to do?” he asks. “She was leaving to go to work, and we’d already paid for the holiday.”
“You could have gone with her.”
“And spent a week in a motel room in Montreal? No thanks.”
Lance’s voice is a little heavy. “So I met some students the day after she left, and spent some time with them. That was where I picked up the beginnings of Italian. I went to a few bars with them, wandered around the area, lazed around. Best holiday of my life.”
They keep talking, their voices low, but Bobbi has heard enough. She slips away and heads to her room, curling up on the bed with the door locked. She can’t help but think about the version of that story that she remembers – the emergency call in the middle of the night, the argument with Lance and the reluctant, hasty departure in the morning. She spent that whole week feeling so guilty, and she carried that weight with her for a long time afterwards. After Tuscany, they fought a lot more. He threw work in her face constantly, and they started on the downward slope that had led to their divorce. Hearing Lance talk about it has brought it all back up again, and she feels as raw as she did when she spent a week sleeping alone in a motel bed in Montreal.
He remembers things differently. That much is obvious. It breaks her heart that he doesn’t think she cared when she left. Of course she did. Bobbi blames that particular vacation for a lot of problems they had afterwards, which of course means that she blames herself. She’s sure Lance did too.
She’s still thinking about it when her door opens and Lance climbs into bed with her. They’ve started sleeping in the same bed without needing sex as an excuse, which is a good sign, she thinks. She rolls over and kisses him, snuggling firmly against him.
“Remember Tuscany?” he murmurs. Her stomach drops. Where is he going with this?
“Yeah,” she mumbles. “I remember.”
“I’m sorry,” he says. She looks up at him, confused.
“What for?” she asks.
“I was angry at you for leaving,” he says. “I guess now that I’m in the middle of it all, I get why it was so important to you. I never understood it before, that’s why I complained about it.” He nuzzles into her hair. “It was just hard to see you go.”
She wraps her arms around his middle. “I could have stayed,” she sighs. “I should have.”
“No you shouldn’t have,” he says, quietly. “You were doing your job, because you believed in what SHIELD stands for. You still do. It’s one of the best things about you.”
“Who are you?” she chuckles softly. “This doesn’t sound like you at all.”
“I guess anyone can change,” he mumbles. “Night, Bob.”
“Night, Lance,” she whispers, and rests her head on his shoulder.
Skye’s down in the basement again. She says she’s working on her boxing. Of all the people who’ve asked, May is the only one who understands what her charge is really doing down there. Being an SO again has been an upheaval to say the least, and it’s opened up a lot of closed doors May hasn’t explored for a long time. So when Skye says she’s working on her boxing, May knows better.
When she moves down the stairs, she can hear the sound of fists slamming against the punching bag, and Skye’s ragged breathing, amongst other sounds, and when she moves through the door, she knows Skye has heard her because the woman reaches out to still the bag and rests her forehead against it.
“I know what you’re going to say,” Skye mutters. May sighs, and crosses the gym mats to where Skye is standing. She ignores her charge’s red eyes and tear-streaked cheeks for now, and concentrates on her unstrapped hands, already bruising from the battering Skye has been giving the bag.
“If you already know, then why are you working without wraps?”
Skye makes a harsh sound that is somewhere between a sigh and a sob. She turns her head away as May inspects her hands, and blinks rapidly.
“Don’t,” Skye mutters, as her SO begins to pull her away from the punching bag. May can feel the energy vibrating off Skye, but she knows that the woman doesn’t need to do herself any more damage.
“Skye,” she says, warningly. Skye shakes her head and pulls away. May tries to catch her shoulder but Skye ducks, and steps back to the bag, throwing a wild punch.
“Skye,” May growls. She tries to catch one of Skye’s flying fists, but the woman pulls away from her.
“I want to,” Skye gasps. “I need to.”
“You’re hurting yourself,” May says, her voice hardening. Skye hesitates, but throws another punch.
May hears her knuckles crack, and she grabs Skye’s shoulder, wrenching her firmly away from the bag. Skye is still swinging when May pulls her around, and she’s ready to yell, or attack, when May puts her arms around her charge and hugs her.
Skye tenses instinctively when May’s arms go around her. It makes the senior agent suddenly self-conscious. She hasn’t done this in such a long time. Maybe she’s made a mistake. But no, Skye’s arms are hesitantly circling her waist, and her charge suddenly crumples against her, shaking.
May loosens her grip enough to lead Skye over to the pile of mats by the wall, and props her up against them. Skye’s hands fall into her lap and she rests her head on the mats, closing her eyes.
May leaves her for a moment to head over to the little bar fridge plugged into the wall by the door. It isn’t the most glamorous setup, but there’s cold water and ice packs for when they’re needed. May grabs two, along with a couple of cloths, and heads back over to Skye.
Wrapping her hands in ice isn’t the hard part. May’s done this a thousand times before, but seldom for someone she actually cares about. Skye winces as the cold packs hit her bruised knuckles, but May holds them firmly and slides down to sit next to her.
“They all think it’s Ward,” Skye mumbles, shaking her head.
“I know,” her SO replies. “They don’t understand.”
“It’s everything,” Skye sighs. “Ward, my dad, Fitz, Coulson… everyone. Everything. And everyone’s lost someone, I’m the only one down here not coping with it.”
“You know no one else is coping well,” May says firmly. “You’ve been through a lot in the last few weeks. It’s okay not to be coping.”
“Why are you being so understanding?” Skye asks, sounding the slightest bit irritated. “You’re supposed to do the tough love thing, aren’t you? Tell me to get up and stop moping or something.”
May is quiet for a moment. “I can’t imagine what finding out the truth about your mother must have felt like,” she murmurs. It’s true. Just thinking about her own mother suffering like that makes her feel sick, and angry.
“I wish I didn’t know,” Skye says, shaking her head. “At least when I was a kid I could pretend my parents were good people. And when the naivety wore off, at least I only thought they were heartless, or junkies, or dead. This is so much worse.”
She is crying again, but May tactfully ignores it. After a while, she mumbles something that May doesn’t quite catch.
“What?” she murmurs, touching Skye’s knee.
“It’s back,” Skye mutters. “The feeling I used to get when I got sent back to the nuns after another foster home didn’t work out. The feeling that I’m never going to fit anywhere.”
“You fit here,” May says quietly. “Never let anyone tell you otherwise. I can get Phil down here to make a speech in sixty seconds if needs be.”
That gets a quiet laugh out of Skye, and she glances at May.
“You and Coulson are better parents than any I’ve ever had,” she says quietly. May tenses, and Skye senses immediately that she’s said the wrong thing.
“I’m sorry,” she says, after an awkward pause. “I didn’t mean to say… I don’t think of you as my parents. That’s not… that’s not what I…”
“It’s okay,” May murmurs, though her mind is reeling slightly. “I never thought about it like that.”
“It’s stupid,” Skye says, shaking her head. May lets her hand rest on her charge’s knee.
“It’s not stupid,” she says firmly. “You’ve found somewhere you belong. There are people you can trust, people who love you. I’m glad you feel that way. And you’re right, Phil makes a better parent than most.”
“So do you,” Skye says quietly. “I meant that. You care about people so much, I never realised it before. But you protect us. You keep all of us safe, whenever you can.”
May clearly looks a little uncomfortable, and Skye chuckles.
“I promise not to start calling you Mom or anything,” she says, flexing her hands under the ice packs. “But I’m just glad we all have you. We’re lucky.”
“Let’s go and check there’s no damage to your hands,” May says abruptly, standing up. She blinks quickly, forcing any sign of tears back down before Skye can catch sight of them.
Skye follows silently, walking behind her SO. She doesn’t see the tiny smile on Melinda’s face as they climb the stairs.
He's the first one to speak, as per usual. His chest is still heaving as her head settles on his shoulder, and even though this is all so unglamorous (his ass is sticking to the leather of the car and they've fogged up the tinted windows) Lance winds an arm around her, pulling her further on top of him.
"I forgot what you looked like with no clothes on," he mutters. His hand creeps to her curls and he toys with them, an old habit he tried to bury a long time ago.
"Sure you did," Bobbi replies. He can hear the smirk in her voice and it makes him want to shout in frustration, and also fuck her into the back seat all over again.
"Fine, I didn't," he groans. "Can't blame me, sweetheart. You're pretty memorable."
"That's the nicest thing you've said all day."
He goes to argue, but he knows it's probably true, so he shuts up, opting instead not to ruin the moment like he always does.
"I wish I could stop it," he says, eventually. Bobbi's curls are wound around his fingers.
"Stop what?" she asks. She knows what, he can hear it.
"This... heat," he says. He's uncomfortable with the word. He's uncomfortable with the whole bloody conversation, but he wants her to know. "Whatever it is that makes us do this every time, even when we know it's a stupid idea."
"It's not like we're getting back together," she objects quietly.
"I know. I'm an arse, Bob, I'm not stupid."
"I never said-" She raises her head and stops when she sees him looking at her. He knows his eyes are warm, he can't help that. "What?" she asks, frowning.
"It's just nice to know you're as hung up on me as I am on you."
"I am not hung up on you," she says, glaring. His eyes flicker down to her breasts and she nudges his chin back up with her hand.
"Yes you are," he sighs. "You could have anyone you want. So could I. I do, pretty regularly, for your information." She gives him a look, and he relents. "But then you show up and suddenly there's nothing I want more than I want you."
Bobbi groans, and buries her face in his neck. "I wish we could fuck without you giving a speech afterwards."
"You used to love my post-coital speeches."
She laughs, and he laughs, and for a moment it's like there was never a bitter divorce and years of shouting, regret and occasional angry sex.
She's hovering above him when they both stop laughing, and they feel it at the same time.
"This," Lance whispers, sliding a hand onto the nape of her neck. "Feel that spark. I wish that would go away."
"So do I," she murmurs, and dips her head to kiss him again. His free hand slides onto her ass and she rolls her hips against his.
"I don't love you," she whispers.
"I don't love you too," he murmurs, and wraps his arm around her as they go on breaking the rules they set out for themselves years ago.
Something of Yours
Agents of Shield fic
1,436 words
-
It was far too quiet in her cell. The lack of sound was deafening, and Melinda almost wanted to scream, just to break the silence. She wouldn’t, though. She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.
They had taken her so quickly that she hadn’t even seen their faces. Getting the upper hand on the Cavalry was something to be admired, she supposed. She itched to get her hands on whoever had taken her away from the team, right when they needed her most.
After some time – she couldn’t be sure how long in this dark, soundless cell – the silence was broken by the sound of a key scraping in the lock. The door swung open and light flooded in, dim but still bright enough to have her shielding her eyes. They hadn’t fed her for days, and though she struggled, it didn’t take much for them to drag her out of the darkness and down the dank corridor. The place was so cliché that she could have laughed, if her situation hadn’t been quite so dire.
They strapped her down in a chair, ensuring she couldn’t move, and Melinda took a breath. She tried to steel herself for whatever was coming, and her stomach twisted as she felt electrodes being clamped to her skin. This definitely wasn’t good.
They started slow, questioning her, and letting sharp jolts of electricity flow through her each time they were met with silence. Melinda May was better than a few hours of torture, but by the time four hours had passed, the first scream issued from her reluctant lips, swallowed up by the concrete walls around her.
-
They were standing around the briefing table when the phone call came. Phil had been expecting it since May had vanished, but that didn’t make it any easier to press the button to accept the call. Fitz and Simmons were standing off to one side, still stubborn in their joint refusal to get any sleep as they tried to trace May’s location. Skye hovered between them and Coulson, offering quiet advice here and there. Since Ward’s betrayal, May had taken up the position of SO to Skye, and they had gained a lot of ground in the precarious area of friendship. All three of them watched as Phil answered the phone, clicking it onto speaker.
“Hello?” he asked, his voice hoarse. Skye moved over to her laptop and opened it.
“Agent Coulson,” a man greeted him. “I assume you know why we’re calling.”
“Yes,” Phil gritted out, his jaw clenched. “What do you want from us?”
“We want you to turn yourself in,” the man said, his voice languid and relaxed. Phil was tensing further and further, and Skye moved over to him, taking his arm as reassuringly as she could.
“Not going to happen,” Phil said, glaring at the phone.
“That is most unfortunate,” the man sighed. “Perhaps you have forgotten that we have something of yours.”
There was a shuffling sound, and suddenly the trio heard the sound of ragged breathing.
“Say hello to your friends, Agent May,” the man said, in a sickening imitation of a cheery voice.
“Go… to… hell,” the voice of Melinda May rasped. There was a crackling sound, and a scream laced with static echoed down the line. Jemma clamped a hand over her mouth, and Fitz held the edge of the table, his face pale.
Phil’s face was stony, and he looked over at Skye, who was tapping away at the keys. She made a circular motion with her finger, urging him to keep the caller talking.
“You’ll pay for that,” Phil said, his voice heavy and furious. The man on the other end of the line laughed, and there was another crackle, and another pained scream. Phil winced, and Jemma hid her face in Fitz’s shoulder. The line went dead, and Phil looked over at Skye, desperation in every line of his face.
“Got them,” she muttered viciously.
-
Lying on the dirty floor of the cell, Melinda considered giving up. She had enough strength to fight for a little while, she knew, but eventually they would overcome all her training and she would give in. They were good, and she was so tired. There was so much pain coursing through her, pain like she couldn’t remember feeling in her entire life. She tried to focus her mind, to think of something worse. Bahrain. That had hurt, hadn’t it? Not like this, but surely it had been worse. Phil’s death. That had torn through her like a bullet. She could recall the feeling of absolute loss when she had been told of his death. As morbid as it was, remembering it seemed to draw a little of the helplessness from her. She had survived that. Maybe she could survive this for a little while longer.
She didn’t know how long she lay there. Time didn’t seem to matter in this place. There was no light, no night and day. Only torture and not-torture. Those were the only two things she knew.
When the door opened again, she closed her eyes. She would think of Phil’s death this time. Maybe it would help get her through one more session.
“May?”
The hushed whisper didn’t sound like any of the voices she’d heard in the last… how long had she been here? She had no idea. It could have been an entire lifetime. She cracked her eyes open, and her heart sank. Hallucinations weren’t a good sign.
“Jemma?” she croaked. The scientist was trying to pull her upright. Wait- touching? Was she real? Melinda didn’t know if this was a dream or reality, but any chance of getting out of that cell was a chance she wasn’t about to pass up. She leaned heavily on Jemma, and at the door, she was confronted by another spectre.
“Skye,” she mumbled. Skye said something May couldn’t make out, and then there were two people propping her up.
“Phil,” May slurred. “Where’s… where’s Phil?”
She didn’t get a chance to hear the answer. The last thing she heard was shouting from up ahead, and then everything went dark.
-
When she opened her eyes, May was surprised to see the interior of the medical bay on the Bus. Another dream? She gazed at the ceiling for a moment. She felt no pain. If this was a dream, she wanted to stay in it for as long as possible.
“May?”
Turning her head was a mistake. She winced as her spine protested, but instead of waking up, she found Jemma looking down at her. The girl looked exhausted, but relieved.
“Good morning,” the biochemist murmured. “It’s good to see you awake.”
“How long?” May mumbled.
“You were out for about thirty hours,” Jemma told her. “Missing for five days. Coulson’s been absolutely manic.”
“You look… like you haven’t slept,” May managed, her words slurring together a little.
“We’ve all been worried about you,” Jemma murmured. Before May could ask any more questions, Skye and Fitz burst into the room, looking like they’d both just woken up. They were quickly followed by Coulson, who was in a similar state of disarray. Melinda knew him well enough to see that he’d quite clearly fallen asleep in his suit.
“May,” Skye sighed, slumping down against the bed in relief. “You scared the shit out of us.”
“How did you find me?” she croaked. Phil put a hand on her shoulder, silently telling her not to speak. Melinda ignored him.
“I traced the phone call they made,” Skye told her. “They didn’t make it easy, though.”
“How are you feeling?” Jemma asked, checking over the various monitors that Melinda now noticed were attached to her.
“Drugged,” she mumbled, earning a weary chuckle from Phil.
“You guys go get some rest,” Phil told the team. “You’ve earned it. I’ll stay.”
Jemma opened her mouth to protest, but Phil looked up at her and she closed it again. “I’ll stay,” he repeated, and the rest knew better than to argue. They filed out, and Melinda was left there with Phil.
“I’d take your hand,” she mumbled. “But I don’t think I can move mine.”
He gave the same tired laugh that made her chest ache, and laced their fingers together for her. “Try to get some rest, Mel.”
“Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you for coming for me.”
“As if I could have done anything else,” he scoffed quietly. Melinda managed to twitch her fingers against his, and he smoothed her hair off her face.
The good thing about freezing to death is that it’s largely painless. Melinda May had heard someone make a joke along those lines once. Maybe she had laughed. She couldn’t remember if she had. Probably. Had she?
Her mind was drifting. Now that the wind had stopped, she could see individual snowflakes as they drifted around her. Melinda’s legs had been burning not a minute ago, but now she could only feel dull thuds each time one of her feet hit the ice.
She was going to die.
The bullet wound in her shoulder from a few days earlier had opened up again, as had the one in her side. The one in her thigh would no doubt follow. Three days without painkillers, food and only melted snow to drink had numbed her entirely. Even the pain was gone now, which was nice.
The pain, though, she had discovered, had been hiding something else. And now that it was gone, that something else had emerged, crawling into the front of her mind where she couldn’t avoid it. It was a huge, empty feeling, vast as the tundra through which she was trudging. Her death. Melinda had never thought that it would end like this. Not slowly. Not for her.
She stopped, though she knew that there was a good chance she would not start walking again once she did. Melinda pulled off a glove with her teeth, and curled numb fingers around the phone in her pocket. It was still working, despite the cold, but even with every boost SHIELD tech could give it, there was no signal. Of course not. She was in the middle of fucking nowhere.
Shielding her eyes against the glaring whiteness all around her, Melinda surveyed her surroundings. It was no longer a question of whether she was going to die, but where, and how long it would take them to find her body. There was every chance they wouldn’t. Her tracker had given up the ghost days ago in the firefight, and her phone would freeze long before anyone could track it. That thought made a rusty sob choke up her throat, and she squinted around.
There. A hill. In the distance. Not high, but maybe high enough for a satellite to pick up the SOS beacon her phone would give off if she could keep it warm for long enough. Not enough to save her life. Nothing was going to do that now. But they might find her body. Phil might be able to say goodbye, get some closure.
Phil. Oh God.
Another hacking sob forced its way from her throat. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Her and Phil, they had promised each other that they wouldn’t go without saying goodbye. And here she was. The thought spurred her on, and she kept taking step after exhausted step towards the hill. It could have just been a mirage. Something brought on by exhaustion and starvation. Exposure. But it was her last hope of leaving a message for him. Something to let him know that she had been thinking of him in her last hours.
It took her what felt like hours before the ground started to slope under her feet. She could feel her energy being sucked away faster, it was the only way she could tell she was climbing. Melinda kept going, despite the overwhelming desire to stop and let the pain fade away. They had to find her body. It was a morbid fixation. It got her to the top of the hill.
She stood for a moment, swaying. She was higher up than she’d thought. She could see over the tops of the ridges around her, and when she looked down, she saw that she’d climbed much further than it felt like she had. That was good. More chance of a signal.
She pulled her glove off and it dropped onto the snow. Her phone wouldn’t turn on. She gave a low groan, and unzipped the neck of her suit, shoving it down into the minimal warmth of her thermal under layers. It took almost five minutes, but eventually she heard a ping, and pulled it out. She was no longer shivering with the cold. Being too cold to shiver surely wasn’t a good thing.
Melinda had to pace around the top of the hill, stumbling and swaying for a few minutes before one bar on her phone turned green. She activated the SOS beacon, setting it to the highest priority before she opened the notepad on her device and tried to type a message. Her fingers were so cold that the screen wasn’t registering most of her keystrokes, and after ten minutes, she realised that this wasn’t going to work.
She didn’t want him to hear her in this state. But she had no choice. If she wanted to say goodbye, now was the only chance she was going to get. She tapped his number three times before it acquiesced, and slid the frozen device under her hood.
“Hello?”
That was almost enough. Melinda felt her legs give way and she slid to the ground. There was something cold on her leg, and her side. Her own frozen blood, probably.
“Phil,” she murmured. Her voice was all but gone.
“Mel?” he demanded. “Melinda, is that you? Are you alright? Where are you? Melinda?”
“It’s alright, Phil,” she murmured into the handset. It was painfully cold against her skin. “There’s nothing you can do.”
His voice was rising, getting tighter and higher with panic. “What are you talking about, Mel? You dropped off the grid, we’ve been looking for you for days, what did you do with your tracker? Your GPS got knocked out, right? Where are you?”
“I don’t know,” she said faintly. “Phil… This is the call.”
He went silent, which was a little relieving. He knew what she meant. Years ago, they had promised one another that they wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye, and if either one of them was ever close, and had the chance, they would make a call. If I have to be listening to someone talk when I die, Phil had said, then I want to be listening to you. Now, it seemed, he would have to do that duty for her.
“No,” he said first, and Melinda tried to laugh. It came out as a cracked, pained sound. “No, don’t… don’t be stupid, Mel. We’re gonna find you. You’ll be fine, we’ll pick you up, get you checked out-”
“Phil,” she said gently. “You… you can’t. There’s nothing… I’m in the middle of the fucking tundra, Phil. I’ve got bullet holes all through me, I’m starving, I’m freezing… I don’t know what’ll kill me first, but it’s going to be one of those.” It was a surprisingly lucid statement, and Melinda was almost proud of herself. She was slumped against her pack, looking out over the wasteland. It was almost beautiful. “I can see the sea,” she whispered. She could hear Phil shouting away from the phone, but she was beginning to lose the edge off her senses.
“Mel- Mel? Melinda, can you hear me? Where did you go after Yeniseysk? We can track your movements from there. Mel?”
She gave a breathy laugh that was half pain and half despair. “They took me in a plane. Flew north, I think. Shot me and ditched me out with an empty pack and some clothes. They wanted me to die slowly.”
She leaned back against her pack. She could almost imagine she was feeling the warmth of the weak sun. Perhaps it was an illusion, but she was sure she could see the blue of the ocean in the far distance. “I can see the sea,” she said again.
“We’ve got you,” Phil said suddenly. May couldn’t hear him properly. “You’re seeing the Kara Sea. There’s a plane coming for you, Melinda. You stay awake, okay?”
“I’m sorry, Phil,” she whispered.
“Don’t you dare,” he warned. “Don’t you say that like you’re giving up.”
“I can’t feel anything,” Melinda told him. Her Phil. How could she ever have thought he’d just take a call like this lying down? “There’s too much blood. I can’t walk. I can’t… I can’t do anything.”
“You’re going to be fine,” he said, and it was breaking her heart to hear the desperation in her voice. “You’re going to be okay, Mel. Don’t quit. Don’t quit on me.”
“Please, Phil,” she whispered. “Please don’t. Please. I’m so tired.”
“No,” he said, and she could see him shaking his head as if she were there with him. “No way. You’re not going to lie down and die. Not without a fight.”
Melinda had no reply for him, because she’d already fought the fight. She could have given up and laid down to die at the foot of the hill, but she had climbed all the way to the top, expending the last of her energy just to hear his voice again. Just to make sure that they had a body to burn.
“Just stay with me,” she murmured. “Please, Phil. I want it to be your voice. Remember?”
He took a shaky breath, and Melinda knew she’d won her last battle. She closed her eyes, made herself comfortable, her head resting on her pack, and slowly let herself go, listening to the sounds of Phil Coulson’s voice. She fell asleep, not hearing him call her name, not hearing his panicked shouting, not hearing the line go dead. She simply slept.
-
Melinda woke, which was in itself a surprise. She didn’t open her eyes at first. Just became aware of her limbs. There was pain radiating through her body, a pain she realised she could feel because she was no longer numb and frozen. There was something warm underneath her, and something warm draped over the top of her.
She opened her eyes, wincing at the light.
A hospital bed. That much was clear. She turned her head, wincing at another wave of pain, and was not altogether surprised to find Phil sleeping in a chair beside her. So she wasn’t dead. That was a better outcome than she’d been hoping for.
She tried to sit up, and the resulting stabs of pain made her whimper, which woke Phil from his doze.
“Mel?” he mumbled, blinking at her. “Thank fucking God.”
“Hey,” she whispered. Her throat felt raw. “I’m not dead then.”
“You tried your best,” Phil said shakily, dragging his chair closer. “You scared the shit out of me, Mel.”
She tried to push herself up again, but was stilled by a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t,” he advised. “You’re hurt. Badly. I don’t think you’ve ever managed to get yourself banged up this completely before.”
“Lay it on me,” she groaned.
“Five GSWs total,” Phil said, “Shoulder, shoulder, abdomen, upper arm, thigh. Three stab wounds, one deep, two shallow. Exposure. Dehydration. Fatigue. I don’t even know how you made it to the top of that damn hill.”
His voice was catching, and Melinda suddenly felt incredibly guilty that she’d made that call.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Sorry you gave up?” he asked, looking up sharply. Phil relented when he saw her exhausted look of guilty defeat. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I was scared.”
“So was I,” she admitted.
“You’re not out of the woods yet,” he pointed out. “You’ve got a long way to go before you’re recovered. You’ve only been out for four days.”
“Four days?”
“They’ll be completely shocked that you’re awake,” he told her. “They had to induce a coma, but it didn’t take for long. I told you, you’re a fighter.”
“I’m sorry I gave up.”
Phil shook his head at the whisper, and leaned over to kiss her forehead. “You were afraid. You were exhausted. But you did everything you could to lead us to you. You didn’t give up.”
“I didn’t do it to be saved,” she said quietly, wishing she had the strength to lean over and hug him. “I couldn’t stand the thought of you not knowing what happened to me. Of there not being a body, something you could say goodbye to. You’d have spent the rest of your life looking.”
“I would have,” he said idly. May was glad of her exhaustion – her blood was too busy elsewhere to rise to her cheeks.
“I don’t suppose there’s any chance of you leaving to get some rest in a proper bed,” she murmured. Phil laughed tiredly, and took her hand under the blankets.
