February
February the fourteenth – Valentine's Day – fell on a Saturday, and without registering what the date was, Phil realised slightly too late that he had unknowingly promised Lola he would take her to the local science centre that weekend, so she could go into "the star room", as she called the planetarium.
A few weeks earlier, and the two had been snuggled on the sofa under Lola's dragon blanket, whilst she'd had a glass of milk before bed, and they had found themselves watching a show on television all about galaxies and space. Lola's fascination for it led Phil to mention that there was a room at the facility where you could sit in the dark and see what the stars would look like, and she'd practically bounced up the stairs with excitement when he offered to take her.
He partly debated cancelling, and moving their trip to the following weekend, but knew deep down he couldn't do that to her. This was her treat, and he and Melinda could do something the following day instead. As it turned out however, that wasn't necessary, as when he told Melinda of their plans, she was fine with it, saying how she thought Valentines was overrated anyway, with prices for simple things doubling, and restaurants filled with too many tables and lovey-dovey couples.
"If you care for someone, tell them every day," she'd said, as they sat in his kitchen one evening after they'd both finished work for the day. "Don't wait until a specific time of the year, that's ridiculous."
He had to agree.
On the Wednesday afternoon just before Valentines however, Phil walked into the back room where Lola and Melinda were sitting, and overheard his daughter inviting Melinda to go with them herself.
"We're going to see the star room on Saturday" she'd said happily, as Melinda had smiled at her excitement. "Have you been?"
"No, I haven't."
"Come with us! Daddy won't mind!"
He smiled; the fact she wanted to spend time with her filled him with warmth. Lola had never really had a mother figure in her life – Maria thoroughly enjoyed playing the role of the aunt who spoiled her as opposed to mothering her – and besides her grandmother, she rarely had much female company, so the fact his daughter would willingly invite Melinda on days out with them was great in his eyes.
And she'd definitely be a better influence than his sister was.
When the Saturday arrived, Phil bundled Lola into her booster-seat, strapping her in carefully and kissing her nose before he closed the door, and drove around to pick Melinda up from her flat. When he arrived she was stood on the steps outside of her building waiting for him, chatting away to Natasha – she must have returned from her European tour earlier that week – but as soon as he pulled up she smiled, saying goodbye to her friend and climbing into the passenger seat. Phil offered Natasha a lift somewhere, if she wanted it, but she declined, and so as the door closed behind Melinda, they were off.
On the drive there, they listened to Disney songs, and Lola sang along to the ones she knew with a grin on her face. Phil pretended to not know the words, but his plan was scuppered when his daughter announced that he always sang Circle of Life with her. Melinda hid her smirk well, but Phil caught her miming along with the words when it got to the Mulan section.
He would use that against her later.
There was a poster in the entrance hall of the centre advertising a coming exhibition focused on science-fiction, featuring the production of special effects, and the poster included an image of avengers such as Captain America and Iron Man, and Melinda had to smirk as Phil pretended to not get excited when he saw it. She'd take him to see it, when it arrived.
They walked through zone after zone, Phil and Melinda trailing behind, hand in hand, letting Lola linger and explore every activity she wanted to. She took a liking to the shadow puppets that were being demonstrated in the section dedicated to light, and seemed enchanted by the sounds of instruments when playing on a machine that demonstrated how sound worked. Phil watched her listening to them intently, and wondered if maybe she'd inherited Audrey's love of music.
She dipped her hands into a bowl of sand, which flowed like water around her skin as air was pumped through it. The liquid sand was cold, and she giggled, finding Phil's hands in the bowl and grabbing onto them. Melinda watched from a distance as they laughed together, and she felt an unfamiliar pang in her chest as Lola looked at her dad like he was her entire world. She'd never even thought about being a mother, but the way they were with each other made her wonder if she'd ever experience that herself.
Lola was fascinated by the glass ball of electricity she found in a corner, sparks dancing under surface below her fingers as she moved them over the sphere. When Phil wanted to take photographs of her to send to his mother, instead of joining in, she dragged Melinda over to copy her, showing her how to put her hands, the two watching the purple static jump and fizz as their hands touched different areas of the crystal globe. Phil took more pictures than necessary, but it didn't matter; they were memories he definitely wanted to keep.
The three of them were booked into the four-pm planetarium show, and so when Phil's watch showed it being ten to the hour, they made their way into the theatre, handing their tickets into the attendee on the door as they entered. Lola was practically skipping around as they found somewhere to sit – everyone was free to sit where they wanted around the room – and the seating arrangements consisted of several tiers of carpeted stairs that surrounded the circumference of the room. Most of the children seemed to be congregating around the front together, cross-legged on the floor in front of a podium, and when Lola asked Phil if she could go and sit with them all, he nodded, watching carefully as she made her way down the stairs and over to the group.
He and Melinda sat near up on the fourth tier, near the back, making sure it was both away from the crowds of excitable children, but also somewhere Lola could see them if she wanted to return. As they settled down, removing their jackets and using them as cushions against the hard carpeted floor, he leaned in to Melinda, placing a soft kiss against her cheek.
"Thank you for coming today," he said quietly, linking his right hand through her left where they rested in between them. "She's loved it."
"I still feel like I'm intruding on your family day out."
"You aren't, I promise." He smiled at her, and she reciprocated the gesture with a squeeze of his hand. "Anyway, she asked you herself, so you know…" he trailed off, glancing back down to where Lola sat, now chattering away with a girl with bright red hair and freckles, who seemed to be showing her a book about planets. "She likes you."
"You almost sound surprised."
Phil shook his head. "Not surprised, more… I was worried it would take her a while to adjust, you know? Because it's just been the two of us almost all of her life."
She nodded, understanding exactly what he meant. She'd spent most of her own childhood with just one parent, and knew it would have been a little bit weird if somebody else had turned up in her mother's life.
"I know."
They sat in a peaceful silence until the doors were locked, and the presenter arrived at the podium.
Phil wished the kids in his class at school would listen to him as aptly as the children listened to the man talking to them about the origins of the universe.
The lights went off, and after a few moments of sitting in the dark, the "sky" above them began to shimmer and sparkle, individual stars lighting up and travelling across the ceiling, their orbits tracking one another as information was provided to explain each constellation.
Phil was pretty sure Lola wouldn't really understand half of what was said, but he hoped she enjoyed the show none-the-less. He had to admit, the display of galaxies that was projected around the screen at the front, was beyond impressive.
At some point Melinda rested her head on his shoulder, and he leaned down, placing a kiss into her hair as the universe span around them, revelling in the ever-growing familiar scent of orange he knew was from her shampoo.
"Happy Valentine's Day," he whispered, laying his own head against hers, and wrapping his arm around her waist.
They remained cuddled together for the rest of the show.
Phil sat at the dining table, and sighed, rubbing his eyes as he registered just how tired he really was. He'd been in the same seat, and the same position, for two hours straight, hand-signing letters to students in each of his higher-level classes, detailing a trip to Washington that was being planned for a few months' time. There were only twenty places on the trip, and he taught over one-hundred different pupils, so they needed to get their permission slips and payment handed in on a first come first serve basis.
The ultimate distraction from his task wandered into the room with a sympathetic smile, and Melinda sipped her half-drank mug of tea as she appraised his situation. She'd been supervising Lola during the time he got his work done – the two had sat in the other room with Lola's new paint set, and proceeded to paint pictures of planets – but after a lot of yawning, Lola had settled down and fallen asleep on the sofa; Melinda had covered her in a throw and quietly left the room.
She pulled out a chair to join him at the table, placing her mug down onto a coaster, and leaned forwards, resting her chin on her hand.
"She's fallen asleep," she explained, at his questioning look to her arrival.
Phil nodded in understanding.
"Okay, I'll go get her in a minute and put her to bed."
"How's it going?"
"I've done about three-quarters, almost there."
Melinda looked at the letter he was currently signing upside down, watching as he swirled his signature in blue ink at the bottom of the page.
P. J. Coulson.
"What does the 'J' stand for?" she asked, realising for the first time she didn't know he had a middle name.
"James" he replied, glancing up to give her a small smile as he popped the cap back onto his pen. "It was my dad's name."
"That's sweet, you were named after him?"
Phil nodded. "I was. I like it, and now that he's gone, in a way I still kind of feel close if that makes sense?"
"Yeah."
Phil folded the letter up, sealing into an envelope and adding it to the pile he had already completed. "So what's yours?"
She laughed slightly, taking a final gulp of her semi-cold tea, and setting the mug down onto the table in front of her. "Technically, it's Melinda."
"Melinda is your middle name?"
"Yeah," she paused and watched his baffled expression with a wry smile. "My given name is Qiao Lian."
"So why are you known as Melinda?"
"Because when I started school over here, everyone in my class had typically American names like Sarah and Katie and Tom." She trailed her fingertip absently along the rim of her mug. "And I guess I just… I was a kid at a new school and I didn't know anyone and I wanted to fit in," she shook her head a little. "So I used my middle name, and it's stuck throughout my life." She shrugged, brushing it off. "My mother still calls me Qiao Lian though," she added. "She doesn't really like that I stopped using it."
"Qiao Lian is a beautiful name," Phil said quietly, trying extra hard to pronounce it as she had – he failed, and she laughed slightly.
"Qiao Lian" she enunciated.
"Qiao Lian."
"Close enough," she grinned, before rising from the table, and putting her empty mug into the sink. "I'll let you finish these… let me know when you're done?"
The look in her eyes as she walked back towards the living room, made him want to forget signing the rest of the letters straight away, and just drag her upstairs with him instead.
"Okay, and now add the flour, you know which one that is?"
"This stuff?" Lola asked, pointing at the bowl of white powder to her left. Melinda nodded with an encouraging smile.
"Yep, put all that into the big bowl, and then you can stir it if you want?"
She watched as Lola added the flour – managing to get half the contents all over the work-surface at the same time – before handing her a wooden spoon and standing back as she began to mix the ingredients together. Each time she moved the spoon across the bowl, plumes of flour seemed to escape from the confines of the dish, and by the time she had finished, Melinda was pretty sure they were wearing half of the mixture on their clothes; at least Lola had a mini-apron on.
It was Sunday night, and Phil was drowning under a pile of essays he needed to get marked for the following week. He'd mentioned it to Melinda the previous day, when they had been out to the park with Lola – Melinda had watched with a smile as Phil pushed her on the swings and caught her at the bottom of the slide – and she had volunteered to watch Lola for a few hours, if he needed to get the work done. He'd hesitated at first, and she'd thought it was because he didn't trust her with his daughter, but upon seeing the expression on her face had quickly clarified it was because he didn't want her to feel like a babysitter. She'd told him it was fine, and now she was stood in their kitchen, covered in flour, trying to show Lola how to bake cookies.
The kid made such a mess. It was completely different to how Melinda liked to live; her studio was always immaculate, as was her bedroom, although the rest of the flat tended to become slightly untidy when Natasha was around to leave empty glasses and clothing everywhere. But she remembered something her mother had once said, about how children need to be messy in order to be creative and learn, so she wasn't overly concerned about the coco powder that was all down the front of Lola's apron.
Melinda measured out the required amount of water for the recipe herself, but let Lola pour it into the bowl, and then proceeded to bring the mixture together with the wooden spoon whilst Lola nibbled on some spare chocolate chips sat in a bag on the side. Once it was all in one ball, she removed it from the dish, rolling it out onto the surface into a sheet with the rolling pin.
"Right," she said, stepping back and putting her hands on her hips, calling on her experience as an instructor to help her make this work – she still wasn't 100% on how much to let Lola do herself, but she was trying. "Have you got your cutters?"
"Yeah!"
"Okay kid," she smiled. "Cut your biscuits!"
Melinda watched with a smile as Lola cut out all of the cookies from the mixture, creating multiple star and heart shaped biscuits using the set she had bought her for Christmas. She'd bought them on a whim in all honesty, having spotted them a few days after they visited the markets. Now she was glad she had picked them up.
Lola finished cutting them out, before covering them in chocolate chips; Melinda had a feeling they were supposed to have gone into the mixture rather than on top, but it didn't matter. When she had done, Melinda helped her to pick them up, laying them across the baking tray waiting by the oven and throwing the spare mixture back into the bowl.
"How long will they take?" Lola asked, snaffling bits of the leftover mixture when she thought Melinda wasn't watching.
"I saw that," she grinned, and Lola looked suitably guilty until Melinda started snacking on the raw cookie dough herself. "They'll take about ten minutes."
"Can I watch tv whilst they cook?"
Melinda nodded; she wasn't going to make a four year old do the washing up. "Of course, when the oven starts beeping, they'll be ready."
"Yey!" Lola grinned, sneaking more chocolate chips before dancing from the room. Melinda watched her go with a small smile, and when she heard the sounds of the television turning on in the next room, she glanced around the kitchen to see how bad of a mess had been made.
Clearly quite a lot.
She began to wander around, picking up the used bowls and utensils, and piling them next to the sink. She turned the tap on, letting the hot water pour steam into the room, and added a squirt of the lime green washing-up liquid that stood by the side of the taps; apparently it was apple scented.
"You're a natural with her, you know that?"
Melinda turned the tap off and spun around, finding Phil leaning against the kitchen door-frame watching her; she glanced at the mess all over the room with a slightly bewildered laugh. "Phil, have you seen the state of your kitchen?"
"You think I care about that?" He took a few steps towards her and reached out, linking their hands together with a smile. "All I care is that she is happy, and you are happy."
Melinda shook her head, glancing back to the doorway to make sure Lola wasn't listening. "I've never been around kids," she said quietly. "Ever. So half the time I don't even know what to say or do…"
Phil unlinked his right hand and lifted it up, gently stroking away the white smudge of flour that was streaked across her left cheek.
"I was watching you before; believe me, you're doing amazing."
"You think?"
"Yes."
The hand that had been stroking flour from her cheek reached around, tangling in her hair as he took a step towards her; his other hand wrapped around her waist, pulling her close to him with a smile as she stood up onto her tiptoes.
She hummed happily as their lips met, and bunched his shirt in her fists tightly as they stood amongst the chaos of flour and sugar that covered his kitchen.
He pulled back with a slight laugh, and Melinda looked at him puzzled.
"What?"
"You taste like cookie dough."
"Is that a good thing?"
"Oh yeah," he grinned, before leaning down to capture her lips once more. He slowly began to walk her backwards, until she was leaning against the cool door of the fridge.
The beeping sound that vaguely registered somewhere in Melinda's subconscious several minutes later turned out to be the oven timer, and she knew that she'd need to check on the cookies to make sure they weren't burning.
"Phil… cookies…. oven… ready" she mumbled in between kisses, making no move whatsoever to go and turn the oven off and check on the progress of the biscuits. He nodded against her lips, drawing her even closer against him as the smell of fresh baking continued to fill the room, and –
"Ewww Daddddd!"
The small voice at the door however acted like a bucket of water, and the two jumped away from one another as though scalded. Phil spun around slightly abashedly to see his daughter watching them, and Melinda turned quickly to deal with the oven, silencing the timer with one hand as she grabbed an oven-mitt from the counter with the other.
"What?"
"Yuck." She pulled a face and scrunched up her nose.
"Why yuck?" Phil rubbed the back of his neck self-consciously; it was clearly not a conversation he wanted to have with his four year old, however if he and Melinda were going to do this, Lola would have to get used to seeing them together sometimes.
She shrugged, her tiny shoulders rising up to touch her ears, and he tried not to laugh at the comic value of that motion. "Well Auntie Maria pretended to be sick when she saw you both doing that… so it's yuck."
"Auntie Maria is a bad influence sometimes…" Phil muttered under his breath, just loud enough for them to hear him.
"That she is," Melinda agreed, before turning to face Lola with a bright, innocent smile. "Hey kid, your cookies are ready!"
They all spent the next fifteen minutes sat in front of the television munching on freshly baked cookies dunked in milk, before Phil decided it really was time for Lola to go to bed.
"What do you say?" Phil asked, as both he and Lola stood in the middle of the room. Lola turned to face Melinda, who had stood up in preparation to take the empty glasses and plates into the kitchen whilst Phil put his daughter to bed.
"Goodnight Melinda" Lola said, before reaching out and hugging her legs cautiously, as though wondering if she was allowed to do that.
Melinda was slightly taken aback, but reached down and stroked her hair anyway.
"Night Lola."
"So, remind me again how you convinced me this was a good idea?"
Melinda wandered around the flat warily, looking from the balloons sellotaped above the kitchen archway, to the collection of various wines and spirits lining the countertop, and finally back to the speaker system Natasha had somehow set up whilst Melinda had been at work.
"Because," Natasha grinned, her red-painted lips curling up in excitement. "It's my birthday, and I wanted a party, and you wouldn't deny me my only birthday wish."
Yes. Melinda knew all too well. The party was fine, what she didn't understand was why her friend couldn't have it out somewhere; why did it have to be at the flat?
Natasha had invited quite a few people to her birthday celebration, including her sister Antonia, who was flying over from Russia especially. She also had invited several of her fellow ballet troupe members, Maria (and Steve, although he was working so might not be able to get there in time), Bobbi and Lance (who was in the country at the moment), and she had also told Melinda to bring Phil.
Melinda knew she would regret it as soon as she asked him, but he seemed happy with the idea, if not slightly nervous for meeting her friends properly for the first time.
"You remember Natasha?" she had asked him casually, the week before the party was due to be held. She already knew Phil was free because he had come to an arrangement with his mother now that she had Lola to stay at hers each Friday night. They were grateful to her really, because whilst Melinda definitely did not mind Lola being there when she and Phil met up, it was nice to have him to herself for an evening, no matter how selfish it felt.
And besides, if it was just the two of them, they could have their own kind of fun.
"Yeah," he'd replied cautiously, remembering only too well the last time he really met her she'd swung the door open to reveal the two of them making out in the hallway like a pair of teenagers. His neck still seemed to prickle even when he thought about the memory.
"It's her birthday on Friday, and she's having a party at ours, you want to come?"
"Do you want me to come?"
"Depends," she'd smirked. "You'll probably get interrogated by half our friends, and they'll be very drunk."
"Sounds fun."
"Maria is coming too."
He looked at her, feigning annoyance. "Great, although I need to speak to her about what she says around Lola."
Melinda just grinned. "You love her really."
"Debateable."
In the end he'd agreed to come, and Melinda was aware that chances were he would stay the night again. Even though they'd been officially a couple for almost two months, she still had butterflies at the thought of him coming round.
When Phil turned up at around nine, the party was already in full-swing. Natasha had the speakers blasting some music Melinda didn't know, and she knew full well the neighbours would probably complain at some point. Natasha was talking with her sister, and after a quick introduction of "Mel, this is Toni, Toni this is Mel," Melinda had yet to actually have a conversation with her. But it was okay, and she took Phil's hand when he looked a little lost within the crowds in their living room, and pulled him away to the kitchen area.
It just happened that Maria was in there with Bobbi and Lance
"Bobbi, Lance," Melinda said, indicating between the couple across the counter, as she grabbed two bottles of beer from the fridge. "This is Phil."
"Hey," Lance said with a grin, holding out his free hand. "Nice to meet you mate."
"Likewise," Phil replied, silently wishing his sister wasn't watching him awkwardly socialise. Bobbi simply smiled and said hello, and he nodded at her with a responding smile as he took the beer from Melinda.
"Are you ignoring me?" Maria asked, her eyebrow raised at Phil in mock annoyance.
"Yep."
"What did I do this time?"
"You mean besides telling my daughter that we –" he gestured between himself and Melinda, " – need to get a room?"
Bobbi snorted into her drink, and Lance was watching with a grin as he pretended to hide behind his beer.
"I didn't… shit did she hear that?"
"Yep."
"Okay in fairness," she replied, holding her hands up in surrender. "She shouldn't have been listening, I said that to Steve…"
"Said what to me?" Steve asked, walking into the kitchen with a smile before turning to see who else was in there. "Hey Phil, Maria said you were coming."
"Hey. We were just discussing your future wife's inability to keep her mouth shut."
"Oh I'm used to that," Steve joked, before he saw the look on his fiancé's face. "Okay, apparently I should take note; I'm going to regret saying that later."
"Oh yes you are," she warned, before grabbing a bottle of wine from the side and stalking past him into the living room again.
"Oops."
"Nah leave her mate," Lance said cheerfully, taking a swig from his beer. "That's just women for you."
"You keep talking and you'll regret it too," Bobbi warned.
Lance looked from Bobbi, to Steve, to Phil and Melinda, before risking looking at Bobbi again.
"Bloody hell."
After several hours, the party had drawn to a natural end point. It was around two in the morning, and most guests had left; the few that remained were lingering around the living room and relaxing on the sofas, so Phil and Melinda had the kitchen to themselves.
Natasha had just whirled through the room, still a bundle of energy despite the time, and thanked Phil for the bottle of wine he bought her for her birthday. As she'd left she'd thrown some a comment over her shoulder at the pair of them along the lines of "not being too loud tonight" because her sister was staying on the sofa, and whilst Phil had watched her leave in slight shock, Melinda had simply rolled her eyes at her roommate; she was completely used to it.
"Do you know who she reminds me of?" Phil asked quietly, watching over Melinda's shoulder to ensure Natasha wasn't coming back to add another jibe.
"Clint?"
Phil looked at her in astonishment. "Yeah, how did you know that?"
"Because I thought the exact same thing when I met him at New Year."
"Is she single?" he asked thoughtfully, already mentally planning out how to get the two of them to meet, despite how much he knew he would probably come to regret it in the future.
"Why?" Melinda teased, nudging him playfully with her shoulder. "You interested?"
He turned back to face her, and his lip quirked up in a small smirk. "What do you think?"
With that he reached out, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her against him, kissing her deeply with a contented sigh.
She was wearing another all-black outfit – Phil was beginning to see that it was just one of her quirks – but the neckline on her top exposed her collar bones to the world. He'd been unable to stop looking at her all night, wishing for them to be alone so he could trail kisses – and his teeth – down the soft skin of her neck; he knew from experience her collar bones looked great with his handiwork bruised into them.
At some point, Melinda ended up sat on the counter, Phil standing in between her thighs as she wrapped her knees around him, crossing her ankles behind his legs. She'd taken her shoes off in the process, kicking them to the floor so she didn't dig her heels into his legs.
She'd bunched his shirt up in her fists to begin with, but as the kiss went on she found her hands underneath it, trailing the bare skin of his stomach and hips.
To Phil they felt like fire, licking their way around his body. He never wanted her to stop.
"Maybe Maria was right about you needing to get a room."
The English accent of one Lance Hunter sounded throughout the kitchen, and Phil groaned against Melinda's mouth. Clearly he had his internal thoughts about not wanting to stop, way too soon.
Melinda however didn't move; a mixture of adrenaline, alcohol and lust running through her bloodstream, she simply gave him the finger from behind Phil's back. "It's my flat," she mumbled against Phil's lips. "My rules."
"Fair point," Lance replied. "Me and Bobbi, we're off, so I'll see you soon."
Melinda pulled back from Phil, looked around him to see Lance grinning like a hyena at them both.
"Bye!" she called, as he nodded, before disappearing out of sight and heading towards the front door.
"Nice meeting you!" Phil added, before turning back to Melinda with a smile. In the background noise of the flat, they could hear Bobbi and Lance saying goodbye to Natasha, before they heard the front door close once more.
"So," Phil said quietly, tucking stray hair strands back behind Melinda's ear as she sat facing him on the countertop. Her pupils were completely blown and her lips swollen – it was a kick knowing that was all his doing. "Where were we?"
She smiled, and he brushed his hands back up her thighs as she tugged him closer.
Thank you all for following. Please let me know your thoughts.
As usual, I don't own AoS etc.