AN: 200 words drabble mini series answering three different tumblr anon prompts:
#1. Don't think about Melinda riding with her mother for a few hours when Ms. May turns and says "I was sorry to hear about Coulson's death." Both of them knowing the senior agent knows damn well Phil's alive.
#2. Don't think about the regret Phil is trying to keep at bay when he's being held by Hale.
#3. Don't think about Melinda looking at the black lines on Phil's chest as he's unconscious from being out in the cold.
Hashtag: #CoulsonLives
"We're not talking about that."
"Oh really," her mother replies "Because I wouldn't have needed to drive 500 miles to pick you up if it wasn't about Coulson. The last time you did call was after New York," she reminds her daughter.
As if she could forget.
Melinda rolls her eyes but concedes the point. The road is still long after all. "He doesn't trust me anymore." She doesn't voice the most hurtful he doesn't need me though.
Lian May drives silently for awhile longer (that kind of silence filled by unspoken thoughts) and doesn't speak again till they stop for gas a couple of hours later.
"You can run, Melinda, but you haven't been running a straight line since you met him."
She's still running in circles, she thinks, four years later, snow crunching under her boots as she chases a trail of blood in the middle of the forest.
Androids don't bleed these days.
She might be too late, three disabled humanoid machines left in her wake and the echo of Daisy still fighting the evil spawn of Hale in the distance. She wants to believe though, despite what Robin predicted, she needs to believe Phil Coulson lives.
Hashtag: #Wishlist
He shouldn't have room to think about anything else with the impending apocalypse, certainly not about what ifs… but an empty cell and an empty stomach in the dark of night are deceptive companions.
So he wonders. About all the things he hasn't told Daisy yet, or the times he should have listened to Fitz's rants (but he knows nothing about soccer and Mack got him better anyway). He never got around to show Jemma how to cook a proper steak. Mack and Elena should have gotten some time off sooner. Melinda…
He doesn't even want to think about Melinda (but when he dreams, it's of her).
She deserves the moon and he certainly is in no shape to give her anything but a broken heart.
That's all he'll ever leave her with, he regrets, later, when there's nowhere to run and killing machines are on their tracks. He takes one last exhausted swing at the dark figure coming around a tree, but misses and loses his footing on the fresh snow, landing his full weight face first with a goofy oompf that has all the birds take wing.
Like Captain America: frozen in snow is where he finally dies.
Hashtag: PhilindaReunion
Snow is never soft when she lands on it with the whole weight of someone else on her chest knocking her breath out.
It's the familiar shape of his shoulders and back muscles and the icy nose tip pressing in the crook of her neck that has her foolish heart beat faster.
"Phil!"
She squirms under his weight, shifts him aside and hovers above his unconscious body with wide terrified eyes and trembling fingers unbuttoning his shirt.
The black scars lining his chest stare back at her so she covers them with both hands and chokes up her relief when she feels a beat.
He's alive, he's still alive.
Breath coming out in puffs, she nuzzles his temple, his brow, the tip of his nose... and she feels him stirr just before pressing her lips to his.
"May?" he calls softly when his eyes flutter open.
"I got you, Sleeping Beauty."
He sneaks cold hands under her shirt, making her shiver and giggle against his mouth as she kisses his playful smirk away.
"When you're done snogging, there's a fellow soldier in need of medical attention here," scoffs Talbot, holding his bleeding wound a few feet up the mountain slope.