Monthly Challenges for All - Harmony of Souls Eternal

Fill #10

Representations: Phil Coulson, Jasper Sitwell, Maria Hill, Triad, Unacknowledged soulmates

Bonus Challenges: Schooner, Obscure

Word count: 1,444

He ignored them, he had no desire to have any soulmates. There was nothing in his life that meant soulmates would be beneficial. He would be in the army and that was no life to put a soulmate through. So, he worked on building up walls around those empty parts in his mind that were where his soulmates would be when he met them. He ignored everything anyone else said about how great having a soulmate was. What good was a soulmate when you were off fighting a war and the possibility of dying at any time was high?

After so many years of blocking them out, he almost forgot they existed. Those walled off empty spots in his mind sank into the background and were no longer important. Instead he focused on the outside battles that he was in, he focused on the friendships he made in the squadrons he fought with.

Throughout all this time, there was no niggling or banging from behind the walls. They remained as strong as they ever were. Until he followed Nicholas Fury to SHIELD. All was fine at the beginning. He focused on making sure that everything was working as it should, that there were no outstanding requisitions and that every agent and specialist had all they needed to get their jobs done.

And then he heard the knocking. It was polite at first, slightly hesitant but rather persistent. He wasn't in the army now, he was no longer being shot at by every person on the other side of the battlefield. But he was involved in classified missions that he was unable to talk about. Soulmates were supposed to be completely honest and open with, he couldn't provide that.

So he ignored it, built a few more walls and went on with his life. He knew somewhere in that life recently, he had met one of those people who would fill in the empty spaces within his mind. The thing was, he didn't really care. He had lived for this long without having a soulmate, he had no need of one now. He continued onwards with his life, he let the rumours of his calm, unemotional nature drift through the halls of SHIELD.

Phillip J. Coulson was the good eye of Director Fury. He looked after the agents and specialists in his care. He made plans with backup plans and backup plans for backup plans. In his years of running operations, he managed to keep the death toll low. He knew that some of the people under his command had soulmates waiting for them to come home safe. He did everything in his power to keep those people alive. He may not want to acknowledge those spaces in his mind but others did and there were consequences that accompanied that decision.

Through the walls he had built, he felt the remaining empty space fill and he knew that he had crossed paths with the two people linked to him. Still he ignored them. Every time they managed to create a crack in the walls he built with their knocking, he shored it up and built stronger defences. He worked late nights that sometimes ended with him sleeping in his office and sometimes ended in him collapsing in his own bed for a few hours before getting up to go back into work.

He could barely keep the one succulent he had alive with how little attention he paid to it. If he couldn't keep up with an extremely hardy plant, what hope did he have with soulmates? Phil sighed slightly as he went to refill his coffee cup from the small machine in the senior agent's lounge, he knew just from the group of people also in the lounge that there was a discussion about soulmates happening.

Sure enough, Agent Jasper Sitwell was cheerfully extolling the virtues of his soulmate as Deputy Director Maria Hill combated his expressions of perfection with her own about her soulmates. Jasper had Delilah Gardner waiting for him at home and it was clear to see how much he loved her. Maria was tethered to David Miles and Jessica Lane. Not one of those three people truly knew what Jasper or Maria did when they went into work.

Eager to ignore the conversation and get back to his paperwork, Phil tried to silently slip by the small knot of people and get to the coffee machine. He was stopped by a loud call of, "Phil!"

Suppressing a groan, Phil turned to look at Sitwell and rose an eyebrow. "Yes, Jasper?"

Jasper gestured for Phil to join the group, "Me and Maria need you to solve something for us." He motioned between himself and Maria, just in case Phil wasn't aware who the two people he mentioned were. Which was illogical seeing as he had worked with them for quite a few years.

Mourning his lost quiet cup of coffee, Phil asked, "Is that so? What is this dilemma that has you needing my assistance?" He blamed the lack of coffee for his rather formal way of speech, it often happened when his brain wasn't quite awake enough to process words.

"We're trying to figure out who has the best soulmates," Jasper explained eagerly and Maria glared at him.

"You were informing everyone that your soulmate was the best person to ever exist. I merely decided to try and open your eyes to the fact that there are other marvellous people in the world which you then turned into a competition!"

Phil hummed, fiddling with his still empty cup which should be holding coffee, "I see."

Jasper gave him an expectant look and Maria rolled her eyes before huffing in frustration and also looked at Phil in a manner that suggested she was waiting for a bit more than I see. Given that he had heard the two of them talk about their soulmates so very many times, Phil felt as though he knew the three himself when he had in fact never met them. That knowledge allowed him to speak even though the two in front of him hadn't actually told him with what information they had been using to try and decide who had the better bargain.

"Delilah Gardner is a very down to earth woman who experiences flights of fancy on occasion. You, Jasper, are the type of person that will work until they drop but will also laugh and joke around with co-workers." Phil's mind flashed back to a time when Specialist Clint Barton AKA Hawkeye had decided that clambering through the vents of SHIELD's headquarters (with Phil's permission) and placing music players in random positions was a good idea and Sitwell joined in outside of the vents. HQ had been victim to hours of Christmas music during the month of May.

"She knows you as well as she can given your job and does not resent the fact that you can't tell her much about your day. When you have had a particularly rough day, she will offer to hunt down and grievously or permanently harm the person or people that have made your day so terrible. This causes you so much amusement that you feel better after she has said it, something she likely continues to do because she knows just how much it helps you regain your equilibrium.

"As such, Delilah is the perfect soulmate," he pressed on through Maria's indignant cry, "for you. You, Maria, have two soulmates that counterbalance each other along with yourself. David Miles is the calm and quiet one that will happily talk your ear off when you need to be distracted. He has the ability to solve problems your mind has been working through silently as he chatters which is one of the reasons he is invaluable to you.

"Jessica Lane on the other hand will drag you out of the house when she knows you haven't seen the sun in far too long and have instead been couped up in these offices. She will direct the two of you to small, private cafes that give the three of you time and space to just be the three of you. David is your rock and Jessica is your ocean. Given these facts, it can only be concluded that David and Jessica are the perfect soulmates for you."

"So, what you're saying Coulson, is that we both have awesome soulmates?"

Phil nodded sagely and then determinedly left the conversation to finally fill his neglected and cold coffee cup. The magic of coffee would allow him to remove the thought of soulmates from his mind and continue reinforcing his walls.