Phil stood just behind the couches where his team, no his family, were sitting having a conversation about their lives off the Bus.
"Well I still speak to my mum and dad but not as often as I like." Simmons spoke. "They understand that this job doesn't exactly give us a lot of personal time. And obviously I still have Fitz."
Fitz nodded, shoving popcorn into his mouth.
"So you are telling me that no SHIELD agent has a proper family? That every single one of you has given up hope in having a family and having a proper home, until you retire?" Skye questioned, waving her drink about.
"No, but most field agents agree not to have families until they quit the field and take a desk job or retire." Ward said grabbing a beer of the table.
"He's right most agents never have families because they never want to quit, but there are no rules against it. It's just not advised." May agreed.
Phil smiled moving to sit next to May on the couch, across from where Skye was sitting with Ward.
"Surely there are agents that have families?" Skye asked, leaning forward on her couch.
"Yeah there is but who wants to settle down, when you can travel the world and have all these big adventures?" Fitz said grabbing more popcorn.
Skye turned to look at Phil.
"You can't agree with this, can you?" Skye asked, demanding an answer.
Phil leaned back in his chair and glanced over at May.
"You can tell them if you want." Was all May said, keeping her eyes on Phil.
Phil lets out a sigh and looks back to his team, his family.
"I don't disagree with it Skye." Phil said calmly.
Skye stood up, walking over to the bar to pour herself another drink.
"What does that mean? In English not spy speak." Skye asked, walking back to sit down.
"Well I believe that having a family is a personal choice, so if an agent doesn't want to have a family then it's a choice for them, just as having a family is a choice. But it is a more dangerous choice." Phil answered.
"How would you know if it is a more dangerous choice? One of your agent friends had a kid?" Skye asked anger in her voice.
"I think what Skye mean sir, is that unless you or someone you know had experienced it how would you know that it is the dangerous option?" Simmons interjected, trying to keep the leader of the calm.
Phil smiled as he reached into his pocket and pulled out his SHIELD badge. The rest of the team all looked at each other confused. Phil reached behind his SHIELD badge and pulled out a picture of a little girl.
"The reason I know that it is the most dangerous choice is because the little girl in the picture is my daughter." Phil said handing the picture to Skye.
The picture showed a little girl smiling up at the camera. Her hair the exact same shade of brown as Coulson's hair and big doe-eyes which had a dark blue colour which expanded into a dark black ring. The girl had her hair pulled back into a ponytail with little wispy bits flying out of the bobble. She was wearing a red t-shirt with the Captain America shield on it and blue jeans.
"She was around 5 when that picture was taken." Phil said as the group, apart from May who had placed her hand over Phil's, crowded around Skye to see the photo.
"I never knew that you had a daughter." Fitz said looking up at Phil from the picture.
"She looks like you." Simmons added.
Skye handed the picture back to Phil, who put the photo back into the holder.
"Why did you never tell us about her?" Skye asked.
Phil took a drink from the beer that Ward offered him.
"She doesn't know I'm alive. She was on the helicarrier when I died. When I came back I tried to contact her but Fury wouldn't let me. He kept saying that she wouldn't take it well. I ..." Phil spoke but stopped. "I can't contact her now."
May squeezed Phil's hand.
"She will be fine. You know that right?" May asked worried for her oldest friend.
"Do any of you know her?" Skye asked to give Phil a moment.
Ward nodded.
"Yeah I have worked with her a few times. She is a brilliant agent. Just like her dad." Ward said facing Skye.
"She is only five in the picture. How old is she now?" Skye asked thinking Phil's daughter was a little girl.
"26, she will be 27 soon." May answered not taking her eyes off of Phil. "She really is fantastic, you would really like her."
Phil took deep breath.
"It was only me and her. Her mother, another SHIELD agent left when Fury said she could never be put on active duty. So I was left to raise my daughter alone and as one of Fury's most promising agents, he wouldn't let me take any time off. My daughter spent most of her childhood at a SHIELD train facility, and by the time she was 14 was being sent on active missions." Phil answered. "I never really blamed my ex for leaving, she didn't know what to with a kid, she was agent through and through. It was all she knew how to do and in the end she gave me the greatest thing on the planet so I never blamed her."
May shook her head. "I never liked her."
"All she was doing was trying to live up to a name. We can't blame that on her." Phil said.
"Who was she? Your ex?" Simmons small voice filled the room.
"Her name was Christina, but her family was famous within SHIELD. Her grandfather was a Howling Commando. Her dad went on to work with SHIELD and became really famous within SHIELD and Chris could never quite live up to it so she left."
Phil took another deep breath.
"My daughter should know that I'm still alive but it's been nearly a year and I can't do that so right now she had to be lost to me or I won't cope. Fury still sends me little messages about her and she still speaks to her Aunt Melinda." Phil said smiling at May. "I know where she is, what she is doing but it kills me not to be able to hear her voice of see her smile."
Ward pulled his phone out of his pocket.
"Sir I want permission to make a phone call." Ward said. "I want to be able to put it on speaker can I?"
Phil nodded confused but let Ward proceed.
Ward placed his phone on the table as it rang.
"Hello?" A female voice rang through the bus, Phil's eyes going wide as he heard her voice.
"Hey Coulson. What you been up to?" Ward asked.
A squeal came from the phone. "Grant, I have been working with Steve Rodgers. It's been amazing. What about you?"
"Super secret SHIELD stuff." Ward smiled as he spoke. "How you doing? I mean about New York."
A sharp intake of breath was heard over the phone.
"I still can't quite my head around it. I mean he was always there and then he wasn't. He wasn't just my dad, Grant you know he was everything to me. I know it sounds ridiculous but I honestly thought he was indestructible and to think an alien or a god or whatever the hell Loki was, could just kill him doesn't quite add up in my head. I still go to phone him whenever I need to talk and then want to smash my phone up because I know there is going to be no answer. Or I sit and watch all the silly little home videos that he is in just to hear his voice and see him again. I just wish that I could talk to him again, I would give anything. I try talking to Clint but then all he wants to do is drink and all Nat want to do is go on another mission. I feel like anyone I could talk to about him doesn't want to cause it hurts too much and it is driving me insane. Aunt Melinda said to put all the anger into a project, that's what he would have done. So Steve has been training with me like mad. He is really the only one who listens." A laugh rings out from the phone on the table. "Sorry, I got really depressing there. We need to meet up soon."
Phil stares at the phone, tears in his eyes from hearing his daughter's voice.
"I saw May the other day. She found an old picture of you." Ward teased into the phone.
"OH MY GOD. Sent me a copy cause I'm going to assume you took one." Coulson's daughter said.
Grant pressed a few buttons on the screen of his phone.
"I am going to kill her." Laughed the voice from the other side of the phone.
"A fight between the Cavalry and the Reaper, I would pay to watch that." Grant joked. "Well why don't you send me a more recent photo so I can print up some flyers for the fight."
The phone screen brightened showing a photo.
Coulson's daughter had on a black tank top and black shorts; both had the SHIELD logo on them. Her wavy brown hair sat around the middle of her back and was pulled back into a ponytail. A pair of silver glasses framed her blue and black eyes. A sparkling smile flashed across her face. Captain Steve Rodgers stood just behind her shirtless, his blond hair a mess, his blue eyes focused solely on her and an amazing smile on his face.
"There. A new picture to show Melinda, when you see her. I should probably get back to training before Steve complains. Talk to you later Grant."
"Yes definitely. See you." Ward said before hanging up the phone. "Thank you sir." Ward said looking at Phil as he sent Phil a copy of the photo.
Phil wiped his eyes, with the back of his hand, as his phone lit up with the message that Ward had just sent him of his daughter and his childhood hero.
"No thank you Grant. Actually thank you all of you for listening. It makes me feel a little bit less lost." Phil smiled.
"Any time" The team chorused.
"Just one last question. Ward called her Reaper but what's her real name?" Skye asked.
Phil smiled having gotten to see and hear his daughter even if she didn't know it.
"Reaper is her SHIELD code name as in Grim Reaper, which fits her but her real name is Alex." Phil beamed, his smile making his eyes sparkle. "Alexandra Cassidy Buchannan Barnes Coulson."