Drinking himself into unconsciousness will not solve Phil's problems. He knows that, but at the moment, all of his support mechanisms are gone.
Phil Coulson is in free fall and there is no one he can trust.
No one, because if they had planted one fake memory in his mind, how does he know that it's not the only fake memory? Fury could have easily planted a minder in his team; someone Coulson instinctively trusts. The choice for possible minder is clear - Melinda May.
He doesn't want to believe it. She had attended his funeral, Liz had remarked on the Ex being there. She had even been his emotional support, her and Jasper, on one of his first dates with Liz. Liz had a half dozen friends tag along, and he had... his ex-wife and a former trainee. God, how pathetic was his life?
Despite of my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage.
"'Secret Agent Man' at Arlington. Fury must have blown a gasket," he snarks at Melinda.
"Elizabeth was pretty smart. The band started off traditional and then it took a hard left. Though I think the trombonist with the red, white and blue Mohawk was a dead giveaway. Who told you?" she asks.
"Someone who was at the funeral," he spits, and Melinda nods her head. "Apparently, Liz is pregnant."
Melinda sharply inhales. Phil doesn't notice as he's too busy trying not to spill his drink as he pours with shaking hands. He's either too drunk to pour, or too pissed or ... possibly the worst combination; that he's angry and drunk.
"No, I'm not the father as I didn't bank my sperm. She's moved on."
It's been more than a year since he 'died'. Nine months of rehabilitation. Possibly. There's no possible way he could be the father unless Fury decided to 'help out' again. He manages not to spill his drink on its treacherous journey from desk to his mouth and he pours another.
"Phil," May begins. "I'm worried about you."
"Tell Fury I appreciate the fake concern." That's the last he says to her for the remainder of the night as he makes sweet, sweet love to the bottle. And her sister.
He'd laugh, if he could because their relationship has done a complete one-eighty. Melinda May is the one that urges him to talk and he's the one who won't.
Can't.
That's the better word, as he can't permit himself to trust her.
Really, he didn't know of any divorced couples that were still close friends.
She watches Phil Coulson retreat.
Back to the bottle.
Back to the old Phil with the hair-trigger temper; the old Phil who wounded with caustic comments.
The kids annoy him; by being loud, by being messy, by caring too much about him as they won't let him be; but he suppresses the anger. Attacks the punching bag in the gym with a ferocity that she understands. He punches and kicks, claws and fights until he's so exhausted that he can barely stand, and still he doesn't sleep.
Instead he drinks himself into a quasi coma and then next morning finds him standing, barely, with the facades cracking further and further.
She understands it all, but she doesn't like how he views her – as someone he's not sure he can trust.
But for some reason that she doesn't comprehend, Phil leaned heavily on Fitz, then ceased. Fitz won't confess what happened, even with a bribe of cookies and milk, but he's SCARED. Of. COULSON. Leo Fitz always had been nervous around Coulson, but not SCARED. She had watched Coulson and Fitz silently interact after what had occurred, and had witnessed that Coulson had wearily acknowledged that whatever had happened between them as his fault.
Fury reaches out to her, wants a report on Coulson.
Might be good to have Ward take a mission which just needs FitzSimmons and Skye. MM
I'll find something. FURY
Two days later, a mission is flagged for them. Science Division, requiring FitzSimmons' involvement. Coulson shares the mission information with her and she suggests, carefully, that it might be a good idea to send Ward and Skye.
He quirks a perplexed eyebrow.
"They'd fit in easier with the age group. FitzSimmons are rockstars of the SciTech Academy. Plus let's not forget what happened the last time you got involved with another Academy."
Phil had been part of the Communications Academy team who had been sent to Operations for cross-divisional unity or some bullshit like that. Had worked out really well, as in his first class, he had calmly informed the Professor that his example of strategy had just managed to kill his team.
A couple of the Ops Boys had decided to teach the older Comm punk a lesson, which had turned into a raging Coulson, formerly Army Ranger, taking down the lot.
Coulson almost smiles at the reminder of days past.
She finds him obsessively peering over that damn binder. She pokes, but carefully, to see if he's still willing to listen to her. To her relief, he puts it away, and asks why they're heading to Mexico City. She explains and Phil decides to stop focusing on his issues and work on Skye's history. May sighs once more in relief, as it had been a gamble, but due to his childhood, Phil was always a bit too keen to focus on helping others, and ignoring his own issues.
That's her plan. Keep him away from the bottle, keep him working, get him talking, do anything she can to distract him, work him until he's exhausted enough to sleep and... oh while she's at it, she needs to find out his plans.
A quiet, introspective Coulson is an anomaly, though she's one of the few that knows that his talking is really just 'white noise'. For him to be so quiet, means that he's obsessively, compulsively thinking about recent events. To combat that, she talks for more than her norm in an attempt to draw him out. About what she'd do if she was trying to get off the grid, trying to determine what Coulson's plans are. He calls her out on talking too much; she asks the question she fears she knows the answer.
"Do you trust me?"
No hesitation when he answers, "Yes," but the look in his eyes, she doesn't like. He's not lying to her, but Coulson is in freefall.
They go to Mexico City, they find their man and... Phil lets him go. Gives him a chute, a suit, a blanket, a tank of oxygen and money. The former SHIELD agent is in the wheel well when they leave, but not when they land.
"I hate SciTech," Coulson snaps when they discover the trouble Ward and his team have inadvertently caused. "You can't leave the kids unchaperoned."
She flies into the eye of a superstorm, somewhere Jim Cantore is eating his heart out but the stupid, misguided kid dies too young. The team is quiet and sober, but the person taking it the hardest is Fitz. Not even Simmons can convince him to eat.
There are meetings upon meetings, and root cause analysis and other bull shit like, but Coulson insists on escorting Fitz and the team everywhere. Coulson is still catnapping, but he has a cause, someone to protect, so he is distracted from the black binder in his desk drawer and the bottle. It's enough for May, but Little Bear is shattering from guilt.
Finally, Coulson puts his foot down, tells Fury to go to hell but he's taking his team out of service for some much needed R&R. He returns back to the Bus where he tells Melinda to make the decision. She decides on Glasgow, just in case Fitz would like to go home for a bit. It's also close enough for Jemma's parents to take a holiday to visit her.
He makes the announcement to the team that they'll be on R&R and that they're heading to Glasgow. That done, Phil Coulson looks at Leo Fitz, ponders for a bit and then announces, "Fitz. Office." Fitz flinches and then nods his head.
Coulson walks to the bar, grabs a bottle of scotch and also takes the last bottle of seltzer.
Coulson pours himself a tall glass of seltzer and pours the scotch for Fitz.
"Talk to me," is all he says. Fitz waits until his fourth drink before he begins to ramble. It's a long, sprawling confession about he could have been Donnie. Fitz admits that by the time he had been befriended by Simmons, he was so tired of being alone and having no one understand him that would have literally killed for her if she had wished it.
"I doubt that," is all Coulson says, but his mild response causes Fitz's anger to boil over.
Fitz unloads on Coulson; how he helped solve the power problem Donnie had, how he had sympathized with him because he hadn't had a friend until he met Simmons. He talks about his suicide attempt, how some bearded American had saved his life, and how for years, he had wondered if he had been a SHIELD agent, due to Siobhan's arrival at his school a few days after their talk.
Phil realizes that Fitz doesn't realize who the bearded American is, nor that he's currently talking to him.
"I had hoped that if he was a SHIELD agent, that he knew that I went to the Academy, became an agent, that he'd be proud of how I'd turned out," the Scot explains.
"If he was a SHIELD agent, I'm sure he's kept an eye on you through the years," is Coulson's response. "I'm sure he's quite proud of how you've turned out."
"That due to my arrogance, I help kill someone," Fitz spits. "I'm sure he's proud of his role in that. He should have let me die."
Coulson says nothing after that. He tries, but his battery is dead. He hasn't had a full night's sleep in months, but he's been running on coffee and sheer will power for the last three weeks. Really, he needs to admit his small role in Seth's death. He hadn't been on the mission, he would have recognized what Donnie and Seth were doing, drawing Fitz into their scheme. And if Fitz hadn't been in SHIELD, he wouldn't have been involved.
Phil wishes that he was still dead, because... the afterlife had been ... beautiful. He remembers being happy and at peace, but his life... this mockery that he's living because of Nick Fury's egotism is absolute hell. He lets Fitz drink and he puts the boy to bed in his POD.
Yes, he wants to return back to the barely remembered peace. Because of his Irish-Catholic upbringing, he wonders if he's actually damning himself to Hell, but... he's mentally and physically exhausted.
However, he needs to put his affairs in order, give some words of advice to his team and ensure that his few prized possessions go to right people. Perhaps, he'll rent a private room in a restaurant for his farewell meal with his team.
Yes, have a proper send off.
He spends time reviewing what he could give each team member. It has to be well thought out and something that will mean something.
His watch. It was his father's watch, so he'll give it to Jemma, with a note expressing his hopes that it will help her be on time for once.
And Lola? Only one person could be trusted with Lola.
He takes his fountain pen and nice, crisp parchment. He begins to write. There will be no explanations on why he did what he did, only his thoughts and hopes for their future. By the time he finishes writing, he's exhausted enough to sleep.
By the time they land in Glasgow, Phil has made plans and informed everyone that there will be a team dinner. It's anticipated that everyone will be dressed to impress and he'll do a spot check to confirm. First victim is Leo Fitz.
"Cuff links," he insists. He hands the box to Fitz. It's an old battered box, but the cuff links were Phil father's cufflinks. It's the only thing Phil has left of him, besides the watch and Phil doesn't want to wear them when he's buried. "Suit jacket. No sweater. You can keep the cuff links, they're an extra set I picked up somewhere."
Fitz isn't happy but fortunately Simmons bustles in and chirps how lovely it would be to see Fitz in a suit so Fitz will be wearing a suit jacket. Phil continues his rounds of the team, talking to each one and he ends in the cargo bay for what will be the hardest goodbye.
"We've been through a lot together," he says to Lola. "Your new owner will treat you well, I promise."
Leo Fitz calls his mum, tells her that he's in Glasgow but that he has a team dinner. However, he promises that he'll meet her first thing next morning.
"I want to meet your Mum," Skye announces.
"She's lovely," Simmons informs Skye even while his mother overhears the two of them chattering which earns them an invitation to visit his mum.
"Yes, Mum, I'll bring them over to meet you."
His mother promises to make Tipsy Laird for the visit, and then she adds, "I'll make a batch of Chocolate Tablet for that nice Agent Coulson. You make sure he gets it."
"You know Agent Coulson, Mum?" Fitz asks. He pauses before exclaiming, "He writes you?"
"Coulson writes my parents," Simmons informs Skye.
Fitz waves his hands in the hopes it will silence the crackling crones. His mum explains, "Dear, he and I have been corresponding ever since he helped get you into that expensive school. Remember? After you two met in the chip shop? He located me at one of my jobs as he wanted to talk to me about you attending a better school. He said that you were too smart to be in that horrid school, and after you got into the school, he would write a quick note every now and then to let me know how well you were doing. He was so proud when you got your first doctorate."
"He's the man in the chip shop?" Fitz repeats.
"Leopold, he wasn't just the man in the chip shop, he was on the bridge that night," his mother whispers.
His world shifts and Fitz remembers what he told Coulson, how he wished the Bearded Amercian knew how Seth had died, how proud he should have been, thanks to his small role in Seth's death. Coulson hadn't said anything, instead, he had looked really, really exhausted, as though the fight was gone.
"I never told you about that," Leo protests.
"He told me," his mum explains. "He assured me that it wasn't my fault because I was trying so hard to provide for the two of us. He had a similar upbringing, as his father had died when he was quite young, so it had just been his mother and him."
"I really didn't recognize him. It's been fifteen years," Leo explains. "He had a beard there."
They talk for a bit, but Fitz soon promises his mum that he'll call back. He needs to speak to Coulson, who seems to be deliberately avoiding him. The two men finally meet up at the restaurant and Fitz blocks Coulson from escaping.
"You had a beard back then," he says. "I didn't recognize you."
Coulson slowly nods. "We seem to have to have done a one eighty since then." He hesitantly reaches out and squeezes Fitz's shoulder. "You've done really well. I'm proud of you. Always remember that. Now let's go have dinner."
"About what I said," Fitz offers.
"Forgotten," Coulson lies.
The team is mulling around in the private room. Coulson motions for everyone to stay where they are, and he pours drinks for everyone.
"I'd like to propose a toast. It's my right as Boss," he says after the last drink is poured. "I want to thank you for everything and I'm really proud of what we've accomplished. I'd also like to apologize for all the trouble I've caused recently and what I'll be causing in the near future. Slàinte!"
The team stares at him, most in confusion but May's eyes narrow. She adds a very dry, "Well, it's your right as team lead to cause trouble for us," so the team relaxes and drink.
However, she's not fooled and she waylays him in the corner while everyone is mingling and eating appetizers. "What are you doing?"
"Thanking everyone for putting up with me and my recent issues. I thought I'd take everyone out to dinner. I found this place when I was in Glasgow, ten, fifteen years ago. Good food, reviews say it's still good, and it's close to the hotel." Coulson rates sincerity, but not too much as May is hard to fool.
"If something was bothering you, you'd let me know?" May asks.
"Actually, there is something that is bothering me," he admits. "After what happened, what Fury did to me, I doubted you. I thought Fury had put you on the team to mind me. To prevent me from unlocking the past."
Melinda May doesn't look angry, doesn't deny, instead she looks ... understanding.
"That explains why you've been so distant lately," she admits. "I was worried that you were planning something stupid."
"I never plan anything stupid, everything is rather meticulously planned. Thank you for putting up with me." He unbends enough to give her a quick hug and May looks stunned. "Kids are too busy enjoying the free food and drinks to have noticed that breach in decorum. 'Sides, they wouldn't believe it anyway."
He walks away but stops, "Melinda, Grant? I think he's taking it more seriously than you are. Be careful."
His message given and received, Phil Coulson mingles with his team. He puts an almost physical effort into being upbeat, cheerful and happy. The charade takes the last of his energy so after dessert is served he announces that he's returning back to the hotel.
"I'm tired," he confesses. "Haven't been sleeping lately, so I'm exhausted. Don't bother me unless the world is ending. I spoke with the restaurant and my tab is open for the next two hours, so eat , drink on me. I'll take a cab back to the hotel."
He says his final goodbyes and leaves, making sure to slip Lola's keys into Melinda's jacket pocket.
"Is Coulson really gone?" Fitz asks. "I want to take off the jacket."
"Dad's gone back to the hotel," Skye teases. "I hope he'll get some sleep, he's been off... lately."
"He's seemed like the Old Coulson tonight," Ward inserts.
"He was trying too hard," May and Skye state at the same time. The two women look at each other and May nods her head so Skye continues, "He's physically exhausted, but he worked the room, talked to each of us."
May nods and then she walks over to Fitz who has removed his jacket. She grabs his arm and stares at his cufflinks.
"Where did you get those?" she intently asks.
"Coulson gave them to me, told me to keep them as they were an extra set," a nervous Fitz explains.
"Those were his father's cufflinks. He only saves them for the most important occasions, so I don't think he'd tell you to keep them," May explains. She closes her eyes and thinks. "I don't think you're lying, Fitz but how did Coulson phrase this toast? 'I'd also like to apologize for all the trouble I've caused recently and what I'll be causing in the near future'? Did Coulson give anybody else anything?"
"May, Coulson just gave him cufflinks, it's not like he gave him the keys to Lola?" Ward inserts. "Because if he gave up the keys, I'd be really worried."
Everyone denies that Coulson has given them anything, but May is still bothered. She remembers seeing Coulson fumbling with his coat when he left, so she checks her jacket pockets. There's something in the inner pocket and she pulls out a car key attached to a Corvette key chain. The team grows silent as they realize what it could possibly mean. Coulson giving away his prized possessions, his odd behavior.
"Going to the hotel," she announces. "Someone try calling Coulson on his phone."
Coulson doesn't return to his hotel, instead, he takes a long walk to Bell's Bridge.
Melinda May breaks into Coulson's hotel room. There's an empty suitcase, but she scans the room.
No tooth brush, no toothpaste, no razor, no pajamas. In the closet, there is Coulson's best suit, a dress shirt, his dress shoes, dress socks. His red Captain America tie. An unopened package of boxers. There are six envelopes on the desk, with various items. His father's watch, his Ranger knives, a book...
"May, he's at Bell's Bridge," Fitz states.
"Why do you think that?" May asks. "I don't see anything here that says he's jumping off a bridge."
Fitz swallows once , twice and then confesses his dark past.
"I first met Coulson when I was... I was about to jump off the Bell's Bridge. He stopped me, and... he made a comment tonight about it being a complete one eighty from when we first met. I thought it was because I wasn't suicidal, but... it makes better sense if he's the one that's jumping. If we get there before he does, we might be able to set up a force field net under the bridge so if he jumps, he'll hit that, not the river. Pull up to the front door; I'll meet you there, I need to get a few things from my room."
"Make it fast," May orders. "Simmons, bring your bag of tricks."
It's late when Phil Coulson reaches the footbridge. He walks the length of it several times, trying to ensure that he's completely alone. He finally decides it's time, and he carefully stands on the rail. He takes a long, slow breath and he steps off the bridge.
He hits the surface hard and the impact knocks him out cold.