Safe in My Arms
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the canon characters in this fic; they belong to Marvel and Stan Lee, may he rest in peace. Also, this one-shot is based off of the drabble prompt I found online that reads "You're safe now. I've got you." I hope you all enjoy! Please note that I have only seen the first fourteen episodes of Season 1 of A.O.S., but I already am in love and wanted to write this as my first fic of 2019!
Word Count: 1,700
With the plane safely on auto-pilot to give her enough time to go to the restroom and stock up on snacks and a drink, Agent Melinda May shuffles through the interior of the flying vessel, doing her best not to wake any of her sleeping teammates. Passing by Fitz' room, May can't help but roll her eyes as the engineer mumbles formulas in his sleep, almost as if the young man is planning a new invention out in his dreams. Leopold Fitz, even in sleep, never could quite seem to make himself take a break, always needing something to stimulate that genius mind of his. Agent Grant Ward's room came next, and May didn't look into it, afraid that she would catch sight of the heavily-muscled man sleeping without a shirt on, and she knew she was extraordinarily and uncharacteristically weak upon seeing that certain feature on the younger agent. Upon reaching the plane's bathroom, May silently shuts the door behind her, the door making a slight creak in protest before it too is drowned out by the sudden downpour of rain that breaks from the heavens and into the clouds surrounding the S.H.I.E.L.D. plane Fury gifted to Coulson. Realizing that she would have to be twice as fast about returning to the cockpit to take the plane off autopilot faster due to the now limited visibility, May decides to forgo her snack run and instead heads in the direction of the center of the plane, a shortcut to get back to her assigned position in half the time.
However, May had not yet factored into her planning that she would pass directly by Agent Phil Coulson's room when using her shortcut to return to the plane's controls. Her oldest ally and best friend- whom secretly she hoped would someday be more than that- had recently received the life-altering news regarding the circumstances of his death. Coulson hadn't been dead for eight seconds, or forty seconds, or whatever lie the S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives sold him on per Director Fury's orders. Agent Phillip Coulson had been dead for days, almost weeks after Prince Loki of Asgard stabbed the man through the heart. Melinda May of all people should know this about him. After all, she had been there to mourn him from the time Fury found out about the attack to the time when they were exposing the strongest man she knew to tests, medical procedures, and experiments, all of which broke every moral code in existence and the very Hippocratic Oath itself. May had been there when she heard Coulson begin to speak, first in a whisper and then in a desperate, shouting plea.
"Please, just let me die!"
As Melinda May passes by his room, the words echo in her mind, growing louder and stronger with the more time she spends just standing in front of Coulson's bedroom. The words root her to the spot, immediately transport her back to those dreary days in which Phil Coulson was treated no better than a lab rat, in which Phil Coulson practically begged for someone to put him out of the misery and torture they were inflicting on him. Oh, and what hurt the most was that May couldn't be there for him. She couldn't tell Phil that this was just like that time in Budapest where the two of them had to go in and form a second attack squadron to help Agents Barton and Romanoff because no extraction team had come to save the pair of master assassins. She couldn't tell Phil that she'd never been through worse pain before than just having to watch him writhe on the operating table for weeks as they first repaired his heart and other tissues and then proceeded to erase his memory of that time in order to trick him into believing he had been in Tahiti all along. Fury had his best agent conned into believing he had earned a magical vacation and recuperation period in Tahiti, when he was, in reality, dwelling in his own version of Purgatory.
Still rooted in her tracks, May is standing outside of Coulson's room when she picks up the distinctive sound of someone's breath hitching followed by choked sobs and the slamming of a book down onto a desk, all known signs of when Phillip Coulson, renowned S.H.I.E.L.D. agent was relapsing into a panic attack stemmed from his first encounter with Loki.
Wasting no time, Melinda May alters her course once more, figuring that the plane could handle a few more minutes on auto-pilot. She slowly walks into Coulson's dimly-lit bedroom, the ugly wallpaper and paint illuminated by the lightning flash that crosses the sky. Not wanting to alarm her closest ally, May gently slides down to her knees, sitting on the floor before softly beginning to speak to the trembling man in front of her.
"Phil?" she inquires, reaching out a hand towards the leader of the team, her voice soft and warm like one would use when speaking to a frightened child.
"May?" Coulson questions, his voice scratchy and hoarse as his breath comes out in ragged gasps. "What happened? Is everything alright? Is the team-?"
"Still sleeping soundly when I walked by all their rooms," May assures, moving her hands to where one is behind Coulson's back and the other is pressed against his face. "You're burning up, Phil! Is it another…?"
"Panic attack? Yeah. It was brought on by that," Coulson chokes out, his voice barely a whisper as he motions to the binder lying discarded on the floor where it has fallen from the mahogany desk.
"You have got to put that away," May instructs in a firm tone of voice, breaking the physical touch barrier between herself and Coulson in order to go and retrieve the binder before throwing it deep into the closet behind Phil's various suits.
"How can I? You've read it," Phil inquires, his voice drained and full of both self-pity and defeat, his eyes clouded over with a varying set of emotions. "You know what happened to me in there. You know I…"
"Yes, I do know what happened to you, Phil. More than I would like to admit," May whispers, making a rare move of comfort and pressing Coulson's head against her chest as she sits behind him to offer some support. "And, what I do know is that you are never one to let your past get you down. You, Romanoff, and Barton are of the same breed. You don't need extraction teams because you are the extraction team. Did you ever stop to wonder why Director Fury ordered them all to keep going with the tests and procedures to revive you?" she continues, and by now, her voice is nearly at normal volume before she remembers that the rest of the team is trying to sleep after the rather trying day of almost losing Skye at the hands of Ian Quinn.
"No. I didn't know there was one specific reason," Coulson replies, and if May wasn't so attached to the man before her, she would have slapped some sense into him then and there.
"He saved you because you are one of the best agents S.H.I.E.L.D. has ever had. He saved you because not only were you Director Fury's friend and confidant, you have personal relations with nearly everyone on the S.H.I.E.L.D. staff, not to mention the Avengers. You gave your life trying to stop an Asgardian invasion by Loki of everyone in all the galaxies!" May explains in a different tone of voice than usual, one that contains passion and raw emotion unlike any Phil has ever heard uttered from the woman's mouth. "You are a good man who believes in kindness, equality, compassion, true love, and honor; you try to help everyone in need, no matter the circumstances, Coulson. You are what the world needs more of, Agent Phillip Coulson. You are what people like me rely on to look to that there is still goodness and light in this world when every corner that I take seems to go down a darker road," she finalizes, her voice soft and calm as her eyes shine with hope and what could even be described as fondness. "And I do not ever want you to forget that. Do you understand?" May demands in that scary tone she reserves for when Ward or Skye step out of line in their orders and she wishes to control them.
"Yes, ma'am, I do," Coulson smiles back at his truest friend and closest ally, wishing he could finally be able to admit his long-harbored feelings for the woman in black.
"Good. You're safe now, Coulson. I've got your back," May reminds, standing up from the floor before offering a hand to help pull Phil up from the ground where he can get some sleep for their impending hectic day in the morning.
"You always have," Coulson fondly smiles, sitting down on the edge of the bed as May begins to exit the room. "And, May?"
"Yes, Coulson?"
"Thank you."
"For what?" she responds in a curious tone of voice, not sure why Coulson is expressing his gratitude.
"For helping me realize that maybe I don't need to be so caught-up on why I'm back. Instead I should be looking towards all the things that I can accomplish since I am back. Thank you for having my back," he sincerely thanks her as his eyes search the darkness for the outline of her face to see her reaction.
However, in the thickness of the night, he can't quite spot her.
"You'd do the same for me. Get some sleep; you've definitely earned it after a day like today."
With that, her footsteps depart, plunging Coulson into silence again, save for the rain. As Agent Melinda May heads back into the cockpit to continue flying the plane, Phil Coulson realizes that in his fellow agent's arms is the safest place he has been in an incredibly long time. He would have to make her a high-quality breakfast in the morning to thank her for everything she has done for him since he first came back to life.
Author's Note: And there it is! My first Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. story! I wrote this in about forty-five minutes, and I am incredibly pleased with how it turned out! I've been wanting to get into "flash fiction" for a while now, and my version of it is to write however much I can in a little more or a little less than an hour for the drabble prompts I have found online. This one in particular screamed Coulson and May to me, for obvious reasons. I am only on Season One Episode 15 at the time of publishing this fic since I just started watching the show for the first time, but I already love all the main characters, and that is usually rare for me with any TV show I watch. I love a plethora of potential ships, with FitzSimmons being my OTP ship followed by Coulson X May and then Skye X Ward at the moment. This show is really amazing, and I plan on binge-watching it for the rest of the night in hopes I can get to Season Two before college starts back on Monday! Reviews are always appreciated, especially since this is my first endeavor into this fandom; however, I do ask that there be no unnecessary flame reviews, please. Constructive criticism is perfectly acceptable and encouraged, but flames are unhelpful and often times are meant to be rude and degrading and nothing else. Thank you all for the support! Until my next Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. story, my dear readers! Have an amazing day, afternoon, or night!
P.S.: I have also written for Thor and the Avengers fandoms if you would like to read those stories as well! :)