I have returned! It's been a super long time since I've posted anything here, but honestly? I miss writing fanfics! They're just so fun! And I figured since I'm now obsessed with Agents of Shield that it would be fun to write an angsty Coulson story. So here it goes. Enjoy!
Suffocating. He was suffocating. The room was small and closing in around him again. The stained flowered wallpaper, his back arching against the cold machine, the restraints biting into his wrists… And he was somewhere else simultaneously, a place he never should have remembered. Cold metal, pinpricks of electricity buzzing over his head. His shocked warped reflection stared back at him as if it couldn't believe what it was happening to him. There was no comprehension, only pain, one that roared and fell over him like a massive tsunami. There was no end in sight. And no one would answer his pleas.
"Please…let me die! Please…please…please…" he sobbed.
Another voice was suddenly there, soft, muffled by the machines and the voices of the doctors arguing with one another. He clung to the familiarity of it, trying to pull himself from the quicksand of the memory.
"Coulson!"
"Let me die! Let me—"
BANG!
He bolted up from the bed, his hand already around the 9 mil on his bedside table.
Skye stood half in the doorway, panting and frozen. "Whoa, whoa, calm down!" she shouted.
Coulson clicked the safety on and let his hand fall, the gun clattering on the rug at his feet. "Skye…" he breathed, trying to catch his own breath. The wooden walls, the sticky sheets he was tangled in, his books, his antique binoculars, his models… His room. He was here. Not there. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply.
When he opened them again, he noticed his door had been forced open, splinters littering the carpet. "Why did you…"
She glanced back at the door. "I heard you shouting. I came as quick as I—"
"I'm fine," he interrupted her.
"Coulson, you're not."
"I said "I'm fine"!" he urged again. "Please leave."
Skye looked like she'd been stung. She turned on her heel and stalked back to the door. May appeared in the doorway as she shoved past her. "He's fine," she snarled to the pilot as she vanished down the corridor.
May stepped inside gingerly as Coulson sat up on his bed. He put a hand to his head.
"Please…" he said wearily. "I'm just tired."
"I don't doubt that. But if you need to talk you know where to find me." She left and the silence returned in full.
He looked after her briefly and returned his sights to the rug at his feet. He couldn't rip his mind away from that other place, the place he wished he'd never gone searching for in his head. It wasn't the only place that had returned after he'd returned from the desert. The machine had brought back more. It had cracked open the gaps, yawning black holes in his mind that had begun to fill up until they were brimming and boiling with memories. He wasn't even sure how many of them were real or not.
They had taken so much from him and given so much back. Everything they'd given back had been fake though. How was he supposed to continue to fight for them? How could he when he now knew what they'd done to him; what Nick Fury had done to him? He wrung his hands and stood up, walking to the bathroom. He turned on the cold water and splashed his face. The cold sting woke him a little and made the thoughts spin faster.
Fury was going to know he'd visited the doctor. He'd know that the machine had cracked open his mind. They'd know he was remembering. And if they did, he had to wonder what they'd be capable of doing to him to keep things the way they were. His thoughts returned to the broken door, to his team. They were going to notice. And when one of them made a harmless comment, his façade would come tumbling down.
It was hard to go on fighting when there was suddenly no reason to.
Reviews are always welcome. Stay tuned for chapter 2...