Author's Note: Original Marvel Characters and locations belong to Marvel Entertainments and Affiliates. Everything else is mine. I'm really proud of this piece. I wanted to work with less action and more internal thoughts and I had written very little Coulson and his interactions with the team, so viola, here it this little piece. Reviews and feedback are appreciated. Let me know what you think.
Summary: The first time he sent her in out of necessity. The second time, he had been selfish. He missed the old Melinda; the Melinda that would engage dozens of knife wielding assassins in a duel because it was fun, because she was best, because she was fearless. In the end, it was his selfishness that broke her. One-shot. Complete.
behind every exquisite thing that existed
there was something tragic
The operation had been a blood bath.
Coulson turned the thick deadbolt on the safe house's door and turned to look at his team. Simmons was being supported by Ward, a thick head lac seeping with blood down the left side of her face. Fitz was shaking profusely next to Skye whose face was pale and bloodless. Blood spattered over their clothes and sweat clung to their bodies.
He turned to look for May and found her at the other door, back pressed up against the wood. She looked the worst of the group, blood marring half of her body, but he wasn't sure if it was hers or her opponents. His heart leapt into his throat. This was all his fault. How had he not anticipated an assault of this magnitude?
Without May, they'd all be dead right now.
"What is this place, sir?"
Coulson jumped slightly at the sound of Fitz's voice. The sound seemed to break the unmoving spell and they moved tentatively into the kitchen space. Ward gently deposited Simmons into a wooden chair around the plain table. No electronics were featured in the kitchen other than a touch screen panel near the window.
"It's a STRIKE team safe house," he said.
The back of his throat felt gravelly and hoarse.
Skye moved clumsily to the sink. Her grip was iron clad and even from across the room, Coulson could see her white knuckles. Her body convulsed violently as she threw up. Without another thought, Ward moved to help his Rookie. One hand held back her hair while the other rubbed in soothing circles on her back.
"Try to relax," Ward said gently, wincing as he supported her as she wretched again, "you're going through adrenaline withdraw. It's all right. Just try to breathe."
When she stood up again she looked exhausted and fell into a chair next to Simmons. "What do we do now?" she asked, voice trembling.
"We send out distress call and wait for an extraction."
His fingers were cold on the tablet as he typed away the keys, the S.H.I.E.L.D. logo bright on the screen. There was little noise as he finished the code and message. '616 in need of extraction. Wounded none critical. Trap at rendezvous, but threat crossed off.'
Ward was quiet and quick as he moved around the table with the first aid kit. Coulson's hand didn't shake as he applied the butterfly band aid to Simmons' forehead. She was mumbling; a long list of protocol, symptoms, procedures that could result from a head laceration. It filled up the silence around the kitchen, but did nothing to touch the coldness in the air around them.
Coulson wasn't sure if she even knew she was doing it.
"There should be warm water and extra clothes in the bedrooms. The cabin has a cloaking technology that should keep us hidden, but that said, we can't risk moving again until the extraction team comes."
We have two kids on this bus who aren't cleared for combat. You're adding a third.
He swallowed thickly and watched as Simmons helped Fitz out of the chair and pushed him gently towards one of the bedrooms. Why didn't he ever listen?
Skye followed them shortly after FitzSimmons, moving towards the other door and moving inside it. The normally chatty, sarcastic hacker was silent. He hated it.
"How much damage are we dealing with, Ward?"
"Banged up mostly for Skye and Fitz. Possible concussion for Skye from hitting the wall. Head lac for Simmons, but it shouldn't need stitches. Fitz is definitely in shock and the girls should crash in the next few hours too."
"And you?"
"I'm fine, sir," he said smoothly, crumbling up the first aid wrappings for the trash can. His back was facing his commanding officer.
"Don't lie to me, Grant."
"A few broken ribs, nothing that won't heal itself in time. We were lucky, nothing that critical. It should have been a lot worse with an assault like that." Coulson didn't acknowledge the fact they both knew, but his stomach turned uncomfortably. "She okay?" Ward nodded towards May.
Coulson's eyes found the woman he had known for over 15 years.
She hadn't moved from the spot she had chosen when they first walked in. There was a blankness growing in her eyes that he recognized from months that followed their operation in Bahrain. The knot in his stomach got heavier.
"She's fine."
The words tasted sour in his mouth.
"Sir?" There was a change in Ward's voice. "My threat assessment—"
"You didn't know. None of us did. There wasn't a way to know that the op would go sideways. You helped get our people out. You did your job." His hand was warm on Ward's cold shoulder, though the younger agent didn't look convinced. Ward nodded and moved to get up from the chair.
"It was a good call, getting May out of retirement."
The smile he put on his face was forced and hurt down to his core.
I'm not going back in the field. This isn't a combat op. Then you don't need me.
He felt a heaviness on his chest as he turned again to look at May. He was quiet as he got up and with every step he took closer to his friend, he prayed to the God he had long since stopped believing in, that, please, this would not be like last time.
"May?"
His voice was barely above a whisper, but she didn't respond. There was no indication she heard him at all. Her face was facing away from him and she didn't move from her defensive pose in the kitchen alcove.
"Melinda?"
He reached out gently to put a hand on her forearm, but the moment his skin made contact with hers she jerked away as if burned. He swallowed hard before trying again.
"Melinda, you're bleeding."
There was a persistent drip, drip, drip coming from somewhere on her body, creating a growing pool of scarlet blood on the tiled floor.
"It'll stop."
A flood of happy adrenaline flood his veins at the sound of her voice; the first indication she was still in there somewhere. His hand barely making contact at all, a test to see if she would allow the contact. She didn't move away and he took that as a cue to not let go of the captured hand.
"Either I can look at it or I can go get Simmons and she can take care of it."
She didn't react. He pulled gently her hand towards the table and Melinda allowed herself to be pulled with him. It took a few moments for him to shed her outer combat jacket, revealing a soft tank top underneath. Blood spiraled down her shoulder, dropping off her arm like raindrop, leaving faint red rivers behind on her porcelain skin.
Early in their S.H.I.E.L.D. careers each wound he tried to treat on Melinda was a small battle, where it be a GSW or a scratch. The fact she hadn't protested at all to him poking at her willy-nilly felt like ice water in his veins.
When he finally found what was bleeding, the gunshot was already leaking handfuls of blood.
"Jesus, Mel—"
The nickname made her blink once, slowly, and turn to glance at the scarlet wound. His breath was baited, but no response followed from the Chinese woman. He wasn't sure if she really saw it at all before turning her head back and analyzing every corner of the room, sweeping it over and over again.
Each time her eyes got a little more far away.
I'm not going back in the field.
He tried to be as gentle as he could. His fingers barely pressed into her skin as he stitched her flesh together. There was no change in her face as the alcohol bubbled and he knew if it was him sitting there, he was be loudly cursing in pain.
Coulson's hand slipped under the sweatshirt to try and ease it over her shoulder without disrupting the bandaged wound. He was pretty sure he just made the movement even more clumsy and when it was on her body Melinda seemed to shrink, taking up even less space than before.
I'm not going back in the field.
She had saved them, but at what cost? He didn't object when she moved, slowly and unsure, back to her more defensive position in one of the corners of the house. He watched from the table, his fingers tips still stained in her scarlet blood.
It wasn't an uncommon feeling to him after all their years as partners. That thought made the guilt in his chest ten times as heavy. This time had he truly been responsible for breaking his closest friend.
The first time he had sent her out of necessity. She was the only one left with the skills, with any chance to save them…and she had, saved them. She just couldn't save herself in the weeks, months that followed.
This time.
The bile at the back of his throat was fiery and he felt the nausea in his stomach flare painfully. This time there had been no necessity. She had found a way to keep breathing. She had found a way and then he had been selfish.
He wanted her back. The old Melinda. The Melinda that would engage dozens of knife wielding assassins in a duel because it was fun, because she was best, because she was fearless.
He had missed his best friend.
You're really just asking me to drive the Bus?
A tear escaped and trickled down his face. He didn't bother brushing it away. Melinda's eyes were far away when he looked back at her. Coulson knew she was looking through him. Wherever May was, she wasn't here, with him.
She had always been quiet, even when he had first met her in the Academy; quiet and observant, but after Bahrain her quiet turned into something poisoned, like she was trapped, drowning inside her head.
And nothing he ever did could help her float.
I'm not going back in the field.