Sorry it's a little late coming guys. Two songs for inspiration here: "I Don't Know What I Can Save You From" by Kings of Convenience for the first part and the gorgeous "Elephants" (instrumental) by Rachel Yamagata for the second. Enjoy guys.
Sunrise. Tony wasn't even sure when it had started but it was suddenly blinding him. His eyes watered and he rubbed his knuckles over them. A solid eight hours of driving. It was hard to believe he'd been sitting there that long. He shifted and his back cricked painfully. Shit, he thought, gritting his teeth.
It was just like that time he'd stayed up all night watching a marathon of old episodes of "Gilligan's Island". Pepper had discovered him at 4 a.m. the next morning, staring at the screen with eyes half open, dazed and barely cognizant of the fact that he'd tipped his bowl of cereal slightly, spilling some milk into his lap.
The t.v. had suddenly gone dark and he'd whipped around to find her with the remote in her hand and one of her stern expressions, her lips pressed together in motherly-like concern.
"Whaaaat?" he barely remembered exclaiming as he'd flailed, nearly spilling the remainder of milk on the chair. "They were getting off the island in this one! I just know it!"
"Go to bed," she'd ordered, taking the remote with her as she started into the other room.
An effort to turn the television back on only made her flip it off nearly half a second later. Knowing he wasn't going to win…and realizing that he was wearing more cocoa puffs than he'd actually eaten, he padded to the bedroom and spread out across the bed.
A moan made Stark flash back to the present as he glanced at his fellow passenger.
Coulson looked rough. His scrapes and bruises only looked worse in the growing morning light and his pallor was whiter than Stark knew it should be. He reached over and touched the agent's arm carefully, drawing back when he noticed how clammy it was.
Not good.
"Hey, wake up," he announced, giving Coulson a cautionary nudge.
Coulson stirred slowly, his glassy eyes opening only enough to take in the growing light before they squeezed shut again. "Ugh."
"That's right. It's morning. Means we're going to have to find somewhere to pull in for the day. And judging by the way you look, it will be none too soon."
"Oh, my head," Coulson mumbled, putting his palm over his eyes.
"It looks like we've got several choices to pick from here," Tony said, gazing off the highway toward the line of small and strange motels coming up. "Looks like…the Home on the Range Motel is first."
Plastic cows and a poor replica of a covered wagon welcomed tourists out front of a sad line of one story brown cabins with red shutters.
"Nah?" he asked.
Coulson shook his head, still not looking.
"Yeah, I wasn't feeling it either." Tony drove on, craning his head to read the next sign. "What's next? The Suite Heart Junction?"
Coulson chuckled. "Doesn't that sound just darling?"
"I agree. It's awful. We'll keep going… Baits' Motel?"
Coulson rolled his head to the side to stare at him blankly.
"On the off-chance that it's run by a psychotic fisherman with a severe Oedipus complex, we'll skip it."
They drove for several more miles until Stark noticed an inn without any punny names and pulled the car into the lot. Unbuckling his seatbelt, he pulled his wallet from his pocket and started to get out before Coulson grabbed him. "Undercover, Stark. Don't put it on a card."
"I always keep a little spending money on me just in case this kind of thing happens," Stark assured stepping out.
"In case you have every agency in the country hunting you by using any means possible?"
"I'm just saying: preparedness. It's something I take seriously."
Coulson just sighed and rested his head back on the seat.
Pulling the hood up over his head, Stark tossed on a pair of sunglasses and walked through the front door of the motel manager's office. A little old man behind the desk perked up and put on a pair of coke bottle glasses. The office was in severe disarray, a general shade of taupe hanging over everything, looking as if it had been pulled straight from a sepia photograph. Old, tattered road maps lined a shelf in the corner, a dirtied painting of a hotrod with a scantily clad girl leaning on the hood covered the majority of one wall and a rusted out air conditioning unit whirred loudly on Stark's right.
The old man took one look at Stark and sneered. "What are you supposed to be? Some kind of drug dealer?"
"I happen to be sensitive to the idea of skin cancer," Stark bit back. "But I'm sure your habit of jumping to conclusions is the cornerstone of your plan to build a thriving business,"
"Oh, you're a smart alec, then?" the man groaned. "Well, feel free to get out. I'm all booked up."
Stark glanced back outside to the car they'd parked in and the otherwise empty parking lot around it. "I'm curious, are the rooms filled with books then? Because they're obviously not filled with people."
"Stay right there, hot shot. I'm going to call the police." The old man started to walk away.
Damn it, Stark swallowed down his pride. "Wait, wait a minute."
"It's too late to apologize now." The old man picked up the receiver.
"I'm an actor," he blurted.
The old man paused before pressing the buttons and just stared.
"More of a stunt double, really." Tony rephrased. "I wear the get up because people tend to think I'm…well, whoever I'm doubling and then there's a lot of commotion, unnecessary excitement…"
The old man put the receiver down and returned to the counter. "Son, the last time there was a lot of commotion here was when Elvis spent a night here because his car broke down. And even then, it was just the guys from the auto repair shop down the road and that one gal from the diner across the way."
"Well, just the same…"
The old man reached under the desk and grabbed a key, setting it next to the log book. "Sure thing."
As Tony started signing a fake name, the old man scrutinized him. "Just out of curiosity, who do you double for in the movies?"
Stark looked around carefully. "Stallone."
"Ah…" The old man nodded and glanced out the window at the car he'd arrived in. "Would have expected a fancier car than that."
"It's not mine, it's…my agent's."
"That guy?"
Stark followed his gaze. Coulson was standing outside the car, staring off into the distance.
What is he doing?!
"I appreciate it!" Stark said, forking over the money and pushing outside.
He approached the car, coming around the passenger side toward Coulson. "Hey, you said yourself that S.H.I.E.L.D. is going to be on the lookout for both of us. We should get inside the room and—"
"It's hot in here," Coulson said suddenly.
Tony's eyebrows perked. "You mean "out here"? Yeah. It's going to be a scorcher. Even more reason to get inside the room, put on the A.C…."
"I mean, I thought they'd have the air-conditioning working, but…whoo…I can barely get a breath," the agent continued, still staring off in another direction.
"Phil?" Stark maneuvered around him, looking at him.
Coulson's eyes were unfocused, peering off into a place that was non-existent to the here and now. Stark barely had time to react when the agent's knees suddenly buckled and he dropped toward the ground.
"Shit!" Stark grabbed his shoulders, just barely preventing his head from slamming down. "Phil? Phil?" He snapped his fingers over Coulson's face. No reaction. Rolling up the agent's left sleeve, he ground his teeth at the sight of the gouge; red, irritated and horribly bruised around the sliced flesh. He needed antibiotics and a fresh suture. But where in the hell was he going to—
"Stand aside, son."
Tony turned around, noticing the old man as he came running from the manager's office, a medical kit in his hand. "Let's get your friend inside. I'll see what I can do for him there."
Relief splashed over Tony's system as he and the elderly man hoisted Coulson into the office.
"—thought they'd have the air-conditioning working, but…whoo…I can barely get a breath," May remembered Coulson saying as they got inside the hotel room in Greece.
Mission number 32. It was just a number. The goal was routine espionage, nothing out of the ordinary, nothing special. But it was the first time they'd actually had a chance to be somewhere remotely luxurious. The last mission they'd spent curled up in a dirty, half crumbling apartment in a city with daily bombings, and several militant groups fighting for supremacy with very little food to survive on. This had been a godsend for her.
"So dramatic," May had said with a small smirk, tossing her bag onto the bed and crossing to glance out the window. It looked out on the small square blocks and azure domes of the city, descending down the hillside toward the choppy blue-black sea. It was within a direct line of sight from the home of their target. They could see his comings and goings, observe any activity that happened through his bedroom window, and be able to get down to tail him within a matter of moments if necessary.
"Not dramatic, just…hot," Coulson chuckled.
"Well, maybe if we wrap this up, you can get a little time in to try surfing again."
"The Mediterranean is pretty flat," he responded, unzipping his bag and pulling out his tech and clothes. "Not a lot of wind. The swells are only a foot high at best."
"Lies." May picked up a transmitter from her bag and tested it. "The surfing is actually pretty good here. You just need the right conditions."
"Are we betting?" She recognized a small shine in his eyes when she turned to him.
"Depends on how much you want to lose."
He nodded. "You're on."
They turned back to their respective preparations. Nearly an hour later, the sky darkened and the soft heat of the day burned off into a crisp chill. May was in the bathroom, slipping into her form-fitted black dress. She reached into the box on the dresser and picked up a pair of crystal earrings and hooked them on one at a time.
"Tracking signal Swarovskis," Coulson commented as he stepped out of the bathroom, adjusting his tie. "The Agency gets closer to Ian Fleming's MI6 every day."
"Admit it, you love it," May said, grabbing a necklace and reaching behind her neck to put it on. Her fingers fumbled as she tried to find the hook.
Coulson took over, staring at her in the mirror as he clasped the necklace together. "Is it that obvious?"
He finished and she turned to face him.
There was a moment where neither one of them said a thing. They just stared and May felt the ocean that usually was there between them shrink to a puddle. He was so close. She reached out and pulled a crease in his suit. "Dapper," she said, breaking the silence.
"Well, here, these are about to ruin it," he said, producing a set of thick black framed glasses. He put them on.
"Let me guess? There's a camera built in. It'll take snapshots of our guy whenever you touch the button hidden on the arm."
Coulson shook his head, face scrunching up a little. "I bought 'em in the airport. Just thought they looked cool."
May turned away from him scoffing. "Come on, we're going to be late for the party."
The "party" in question was being held by an affluent friend of their target at his large mansion on the far-side of the coastline, accentuated by jagged cliffs and a slowly paling purple sky. The agency had merited invitations for them under the disguises of Mr. and Mrs. Gerard and Pricilla Haysley.
"I don't really look like a Gerard, do I?" Coulson had said when they were dancing together later that evening to the soft tune of a piano.
"No," she admitted, her eyes locked on their target across the room. "You'd make a good Sam, though."
"I like that name. It's hip."
"Hip?"
"That made me sound old, didn't it?"
"More than you want to know."
He moved his hand, his warm fingers caressing her back. She took a self-conscious breath and tried to keep focused on the mission. Where had the target been? She shifted her gaze to her three o'clock and found him standing by the refreshments, sipping a glass of champagne.
"What about you?" Phil said suddenly. "What do you think of 'Pricilla?'"
"It makes me sound like I collect fine china and wear a bonnet in my spare time," she remarked.
Coulson smiled. "I like your name, though."
"Oh, come on. It's so old-fashioned."
"I'm not talking about Pricilla." He glanced suddenly to her three o'clock and swirled May around so that she was looking at Coulson instead. "He was looking right at us," the agent commented. "We may have been made."
May curled her fingers around the back of Coulson's neck and lifted herself to her tip toes. Their lips connected. Soft. Careful. Thoughts that had been flying through her head at the speed of light screeched to a halt and seemed to scatter and burst like stationary sparklers. Coulson tightened his hold around her, fingers pressing into the small of her back. Something in her chest fluttered, like a million sets of wings threatening to lift off all at once.
And just as soon as it had been initiated it was over. She pulled away from him, her eyes quickly darting to their target. He was talking with someone else now. He hadn't been alerted. He hadn't made them.
"We're alright," she said quietly, glancing back at Coulson.
He looked as if he was still waking up from the enchantment, a bemused expression sliding over his face. "I knew this suit was good for something," he said after a moment.
"Easy, Gerard," May said with a small pop of humor, "we've still got a long night ahead of us." The piano seemed to fade into her memory like the serenade from a fairytale, something she had never believed in, never dreamed of, and never wished for but had never found anything else to compare that night to other than that.
Three seconds later, she was in that car once more. The quiet, the first hints of daylight with her two very asleep passengers, Ward and Skye, her only companions. In the background, Greece sank below the surface like a stone sinking into the deep blue ocean. The only time they'd ever connected, the only time she'd felt vulnerable and enjoyed it. It was such a fleeting experience, it was a wonder it had happened at all. But more than anything else, she'd cared deeply about her partner, about how he survived in the world even if they couldn't be together in it.
When he'd heard about her, the cellist, she'd been overjoyed for him. He'd found a love that had been pure and real and not fraught with danger or being who he truly wasn't. But it was in the wake of his death. He'd only had a short time with her and it had been taken from both of them too soon.
May felt something starting to sting in her eyes and quickly swallowed and gave a quick shake of her head. It had ended for her and Phil much earlier than that, too.
But now was different. He needed her. And now that she was involved, she wasn't going to allow what had happened to him in the Helicarrier happen again. S.H.I.E.L.D. and Rickard were going to be sorry that they had ever picked a fight with Coulson when she was there to defend him. She gripped the steering wheel as if it was the only thing anchoring her to the world and silently drove on, haunted by the occasional piano note slipping through the cracks of her memory.
Got to admit...that made me feel kind of warm and tingly inside. Stay tuned for Chapter 16 tomorrow...