Still more inspiration from Human by Daughters and a little from Lola by The Kinks! The fic is taking a turn I hadn't originally planned when I'd started out but that's the fun of writing, isn't it? To be surprised by where the characters take you!
Ana- To answer your question, there are hints of a May/Coulson romance but there is also another Coulson/OC romance (something I hadn't planned when I'd originally started the fic). Coulson's been speaking to me in my head and this is what he wants, haha. But don't worry, there are still plenty of moments to come both good and bad.
Lola glided through the warm night air, leaving the city far behind and soon finding itself gliding above a current of woods, the tree tops fuzzily rushing by beneath. Coulson took deep breaths, the adrenaline the only thing keeping him going. He had to get as far as he could under the cover of darkness. Traveling during the day was going to be more risky, especially with a red car.
A red car that flies, he added to that thought.
He was going to have to leave the car and continue the rest of the way without it. He slid his hand over the dash. May had always called it "just a car." She didn't understand how long it had been with him, nor how much it meant to him. But May wasn't the type to get attached to things. She barely got attached to people. And she was right to a degree. Compared with everything he might lose if he was caught in it, it was just a car. If he wanted to find out what happened to him, if he was ever going to return to the man he once was and come to terms with what happened to him, he was going to need to leave it behind.
Just for a little while.
Coulson banked the car hard to the left, following the road as it stretched further back into farm country. If he was lucky, he'd have a couple hours, maybe more before Fury caught on to the fact he'd gone missing. If May had gotten his message. Fitz and Simmons had seen him leave and there was every possibility they had alerted the Director themselves without consulting May. He had to be ready for that.
As if by some form of magic, a sensor started beeping on the dash. Coulson glanced at the screen and saw in bold words, "TRACKING ENGAGED" highlighted on it.
"Should have given him more credit than I did," he said under his breath.
A sudden sputtering from one of Lola's thrusters made him jerk around in his seat. The hot light emanating from the rear passenger side was losing its color, evaporating. Shit… They'd cut the power to one of them remotely. Could they do that? he considered. They can. Safety precaution with remote access installed in the Bus…in case someone takes off in Lola without my say-so. Fury was using it against him.
The car started losing altitude, dropping slowly toward the road. They were forcing him down.
"Did you find that car yet?" Fury thundered back into the main room, his presence like a bolt of lightning in the midst of the unsettling atmosphere.
Fitz nodded and pulled up the image on the screens behind them. "Lola flew north, past White Plains, crossed the Hudson River, and is now over West Milford."
"That's pretty isolated countryside," Simmons said.
Fury rolled his eyes. "And here I was thinking that West Milford was the boomberg of Western New York."
"What should we do now?" Fitz asked.
"The car can't stay in the air all night. The minute it sets down, you—"
"Technically, it can stay in the air for quite a while," Fitz interrupted him. "It could probably stay in flight for the next six or seven hours easily."
Fury frowned. He had to hand it to the technology of Stark Industries. At the same time, he wanted to curse them. They'd just made things more difficult for him. "Is there any safe way that we can get that car on the ground sooner than that?"
"There's a possibility that if we cut…" Fitz began before he abruptly stopped talking. Fury followed his eyes back to May who was staring him down from the doorway.
Fury approached Fitz. "You think she's going to kick your ass if you say something… You don't want to know what I'm going to do if you don't complete that sentence, Agent."
"He was going to say that if we cut power to one of the thrusters in the car, it would force Agent Coulson to land," Simmons finished for him, her tone acidic as she looked at May.
Fury sensed there had been some kind of disagreement between the two before he'd shown up on the Bus. He'd heard shouting and knew the subject was about Coulson, but he had absolutely no desire to get in the middle of that cat fight at the moment.
"You're sure he wouldn't crash if we did that?"
"There's always a possibility," Fitz said. "If he's going too fast and loses altitude too quickly…"
"Well, how about this? Let's not send Agent Coulson to a fiery death by cutting his power, shall we?" Fury remarked. "I would like him back here preferably in one piece. Let's find another way to—"
"Cut the power," a voice boomed from behind Fury. He spun around.
A tall, broad-shouldered man was standing just inside the doorway, impeccably dressed. He had shark eyes, black and emotionless, his silver hair neatly combed. Standing so near to May made him look like a giant in a room full of insects.
Fury frowned. "Council member Rickard."
Rickard let a lazy smile cross his face, one that Fury could read the malice behind oh, too well. He hadn't seen that face nor had to endure his intimidating presence since the cleanup of New York after the Chitauri invasion.
"Aren't you going to introduce me?" Rickard commented, his bass voice, like the rumble of approaching thunder.
Fury turned to May. "This is World Security Council Member Manuel Rickard. These are Agents May, Fitz, and Simmons."
"Pleasure," Rickard said, walking straight passed Fury to Fitz. "Deactivate that thruster, now."
"Do not follow that order, Agent," Fury commanded, approaching Rickards. "What gives you the right to walk in here and take my command from me?"
"The World Security Council has made a unanimous decision that your Agent Coulson is a man with dangerous knowledge. He's just slipped out from between your fingers and is now headed who knows where. He poses a threat to the security of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Council."
"Dangerous knowledge, my ass," Fury raged. "He's ill and he needs treatment. That's all we're trying to facilitate here."
Rickard leaned in close to Fury, his deadly gaze locking on the Director's. "I knew you'd be too close to this to see what needed to be done. Whatever happens to him now is on your conscience."
"You and the Council approved giving him that second chance, so it's just as much on your's."
"I agreed based on your bullet-proof assurance that he wouldn't remember anything."
"And he hasn't remembered it all yet. There's still time to fix this without doing something we're going to regret. He's one of the best agent's S.H.I.E.L.D. has."
"Well, like Agent…Fitz, wasn't it? Like Agent Fitz said, there's a possibility that Agent Coulson will land and be entirely fine. I don't care either way. If you can't bring him back here, I'll have no choice than to put him down like an old dog."
Fury's face was boiling. He clenched his fists at his sides.
"Careful," Rickard warned, spotting his clenched hands, "Old dogs can still be neutered, too."
Without another word, he sidestepped Fury and returned his attention to Fitz. "Cut the thruster. Now." He spun toward the door. "And as for you, Agent M—"
He stopped mid-sentence.
Fury glanced up and noticed that May was no longer lingering in the doorway.
A pinprick allowed the tiniest essence of hope to filter into Fury's system.
Rickard snapped at one of Fury's agents. "Find her."
Coulson cursed, firing up the remaining thruster as hot as he could without it overheating, trying to balance the car's weight as it started descending toward the road. Alarms blared as he lost altitude, the car tilting to the left despite the adjustments.
I'm should have slowed down. I'm going down too fast.
The car fell past the tree-line and the strong scent of pine buzzing in his head and sending the memories flying through his brain like snapshots. Ultra bright colors interposed with metal, with warm sun and cold glaring lights. Palm trees shattered apart into evergreens and the glittering sand paled into snow.
The ground grew closer. And closer.
No!
An arm swooped around his chest suddenly, ripping him from the driver's seat of the car. He was too slow to know what was happening or to grab his bag from the passenger seat. He yelped as the car dropped out beneath him and he found himself floating in the air anchored to something. He looked over his shoulder.
"Agent," Stark said through the thick face plate of his Iron Man suit. "Long time no see."
The relief and terror were short when he heard the car crash into the pavement below. Metal screeched and twisted as the car flipped on its side, tumbling in a psychotic death roll before settling in a ditch at the side of the road.
RIP Lola! But don't worry; if Coulson can come back from the dead...so can Lola. Tease, tease. Chapter 10 will be up later today...