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marvelleous · 7 years

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i want you forever (right here by my side) - chapter one

summary: “Phil Coulson. Thought you might like to know before we begin. I promise I won’t twist your arm… too hard,” he says with a smile which widens as she returns it. “Melinda May,” she responds, accepting his handshake. Her hand is small, her fingers slim, and her grip is unsurprisingly firm. “You wouldn’t dare. I’d whip your ass.” Phil Coulson and Melinda May. Their story, from the very first day.

notes: my take on a phil/melinda origin story inspired by theories from the philinda chatroom. please let me know what you think :) thank you to @agentsphilinda for beta-ing this one for me!

songspiration: when we first met by hellogoodbye

read on AO3

The streets are still littered with red, white and blue streamers the day Phillip Coulson is born, in a small town in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. His father is a history teacher, his mother a homemaker, and he is their first and only child. He weighs eight pounds and two ounces, measures twenty inches and lets out quiet cries of protest as he is dragged into the world by a none too gentle doctor. Phil grows up an average boy. He is of an average height and average weight, and attends the local elementary school with all the other regular boys and girls. He plays baseball in the little leagues, does all his chores and homework and spends time with the neighbour’s children in the front yard in the afternoons, supervised by his mother who often presents him with treats as rewards for good behaviour. His favourite in summer is her Apple pie, with a golden and flakey crust, wrapped around a piping hot filling of caramelised apple slices. It's not too sweet and not too sour, and she always serves it with a glass of freshly squeezed lemonade; the lemons picked from a little tree in their back garden.

In winter, his parents make hot chocolate from scratch, and the family of three stay warm huddled by the fireplace, trading stories about their day.

They’re an average family, with an average house and an average life.

But the first eight years of Phil’s life are safe, and happy.

He is nine years old when his father dies.

He doesn’t remember the day well; only a blur of tears and terror as his mother explains to him as simply as possible how it happened, and then the condolences from every person he encountered. He remembers everything moving around him, his whole world shifting and then crumbling.

While they were not by any means wealthy before his father’s passing, they had more than enough to live comfortably. But now his mother is left to raise him alone, strapped for cash and not enough hours in a day or days in a week to earn enough. He begins to do odd tasks around the neighbourhood, delivering papers, mowing lawns, walking dogs, trying to help her out, but even then, it’s not enough.

They sell off many possessions - Phil’s father had always been a sentimental man - and keep only the red corvette that they had been restoring together before the man died. It is several years before he opens up the garage door once more to work on the car, to complete the task he and his father had started.

He names the car Lola.

Phil is smaller than the other boys in middle school, and enjoys studying, learning, more than anything. He has his own group of friends, kids that share the same interests - to have lunch with and work together in classes, but once school is over, he’s off to the local convenience store to help stock shelves in the back. His mother always insists that she doesn’t need his help, to save the little money he earns for himself, but he’s stubborn and makes sure she gets it one way or another.

He does save a little for himself, hoarding pennies and dimes and the occasional dollar in a jar on his bedside table labeled “Collectibles”. He still has many of his childhood treasures saved - those that are priceless to him but worthless to others - a particularly round stone he’d found by the river while skipping rocks, a broken seashell from a vacation they took to the beach one year, a pen with no more ink that his father had once carried around with him. He has other things too of course - various well-read Captain America comic books, miniature figurines, random cogs and screws from old watches and clocks. His mother teases him about it, saying that his fascination for memorabilia came from his father.

Phil kisses a girl for the first time in eighth grade. It’s just a peck on the lips shared with his date for a school dance, Michelle, who smiles prettily at him, blushing, before, running off to tell her friends about it. He doesn’t remember the kiss itself, just the sound of her giggles, the butterflies in his stomach.

His first “serious” girlfriend is Lisa, who sits two rows in front of him in English in tenth grade. They lose their virginity to each other, and last nearly four months before she breaks up with him. There’s no hard feelings really, even when he sees her flirting with a member of their school’s football team not three weeks later.

He understands it, he really does.

When he was younger, there had been a point where he wanted to be one of those guys - the same uniform, logos blazing, running out on the field as part of a team, all working towards achieving the same goal. But his father had taught him how to play, and he can’t bring himself to do it without the man’s guidance and support.

All he has left is the knowledge and wisdom his father had managed to impart on him in the nine years they were fortunate enough to spend together, and he clings on to it, unwilling to let it go.

By the time turns seventeen, Phil has his life planned out ahead of him. He’ll graduate from high school, go to college, study history. He’ll get a job, build a life for himself.

His mother always did say he was a dreamer.

And he did dream - of the ideal life. A house that felt just as warm as his childhood home, Lola parked in the garage, a sensible distance away from the mini-van in the front driveway. He imagines the woman he will end up spending his life with; he wants the life that his parents shared together - however short it had been. He wants to know the moment he meets the one for him, to win her over and build a future together.

He knows that he wants children, plural. Growing up as an only child had it’s positives, he was the center of attention, there was never anyone to fight with. But he had been lonely, and he doesn’t want that for his future kids. He knows that he’ll love them.

And so he dreams, imagines, and plans.

The thing about life is that it doesn’t care about your plans. It throws curveballs at you and expects you to dodge them; and whatever outcome occurs if you fail is on you.

He goes off to college at age eighteen. He’s made his plans, and he’s following them. It’s supposed to be the beginning of his new life, his adult life.

It’s the year everything begins.

It’s also the year his mother dies.

He skips classes for a week, holed up his dorm room, before he pulls himself together and gets on with life. It isn’t going to sit around and wait for him. His parents had already given him everything he needed to survive in the world, and he wasn’t going to let them down by falling apart.

He doesn’t have anyone on his team anymore, no one to truly support him, and so he must adapt to surviving on his own.

He throws himself into his school work, studying harder than he ever has. It’s history, it’s something he enjoys, something he loves, something he’s loved his entire life. The more he learns, the more he wants to learn; hours upon hours spent at the library, combing through book after book.

He’s intelligent. He’s observant.

He notices things. Inconsistencies. Half-truths. Complete lies.

Where there are secrets there must be people keeping them, and so he digs further.

Notices more.

Until one day he notices the man with eyepatch watching him.

He is just shy of nineteen years old when Nick Fury recruits him for an organisation the man calls S.H.I.E.L.D. It’s a peace keeping agency headed by Peggy Carter herself; a woman who had been integral to the success of missions carried out by Captain America and his allies during the second world war. During the war against Hydra.

Fury is clear that joining means dedicating himself completely to the cause; to fight for the greater good, to protect the world, to be the shield. Phil has nothing left to lose the day he packs his bags and leaves his life behind for good, following Nicholas Fury into the unknown.

Fury puts him through his paces, makes sure he knows what he’s getting himself into. There’s so much to learn, so much to study, and he thrives off of it. It’s the first time he’s truly found purpose since he lost his mother, and he thinks both she and his father would be proud of the man he is trying to become.

And so he trains, hard, for the next two years, absorbing all the knowledge he can, learning all the skills. He learns to fight, with his hands, with his body. He learns the weapons of the trade - knives, guns, rifles. Fury thinks he’ll make a good field agent once he goes through proper training at the S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy.

He looks forward to the experience.

He’s in the last weeks of his first year at the S.H.I.E.L.D. Communications Academy when all potential field agents have to begin training with the cadets from Operations. Phil is both nervous and excited at the prospect - Communications is all about liaising and planning missions, but those at the Operations Academy are training to be specialists. The kind of secret agents authors write novels about, that movies were made about. Those who were constantly kicking ass in the field; he would be the man in the shadows, watching their every move, controlling them from afar.

There very much appears to be a rivalry between the different S.H.I.E.L.D. Academies, that much he can tell strolling into Operations with his fellow trainees. The cadets here appear to have more brawn than brains, all tall, strong, muscled - could probably kill you with twelve different methods in three seconds flat.

Phil does not particularly relish the thought of being pummeled to pieces.

They are set to train with the first year cadets, and as he stands across the room, just observing them, his eyes land on one in particular.

It’s her gaze that catches his attention first; she’s just standing silently amongst the other cadets, quiet, unassuming, but there’s something about the way she looks at him that has him intrigued. The second thing he notices is how small she is, practically dwarfed by her peers. There are very few female cadets, and even then, they rarely came in such small packages. She suddenly smirks, and he’s ashamed to admit that it takes him one moment too long to realise the change in her facial expression is because she’s caught him staring.

Their moment is broken when one of the senior agents in charge calls for their attention. Phil is well aware that today is just an introductory session, to get them used to interacting with those who have different training. They all stand and watch as two of the third year Operations cadets step up and take their opening stances, before they attack.

He is mesmerised, and looks on with rapt attention as they fight, dodging one another’s moves without a pause, as if without a second thought. He almost cannot keep up, and misses the finishing blow, because in the blink of an eye the fight is over, one cadet pinned to the ground by the other, and there are a couple of cheers from the first years, supporting their upperclassmen.

A loud cough from another of their supervising agents brings the room to a silence once more, and they wait with bated breaths for what is to come next.

“May, you’re up first. Who wants to give it a go?”

Phil holds back a smile as the cadet he’d made eye contact with earlier steps up to the mats, straightening her back as she stands at attention. He studies her a little more closely now - it’s what he’s trained to do. Her eyes are brown, full of light - he feels like she knows so much more than she’ll ever let on, than she’ll ever say out loud. Her hair is dark too, parted in the middle and pulled tightly into two braids which lay over her shoulders, hanging to almost mid-waist length.

She looks adorable.

And deadly.

Clearly no one else sees it, because he can hear the snickers from his fellow trainees, the vulgar things they’re whispering under their breath, the way her expression hardens when she hears it too.

Without a second thought, he steps forward, and the laughter increases tri fold, until one of the instructors silences them by clearing his throat, and gestures for Phil to go ahead.

He keeps a steady stride as he approaches her, May. When they meet in the middle, he extends a hand out to her, and barely manages to suppress a snort when she briefly glances down, before looking back up at his face.

“Phil Coulson. Thought you might like to know before we begin. I promise I won’t twist your arm… too hard,” he says with a smile which widens as she returns it.

“Melinda May,” she responds, accepting his handshake. Her hand is small, her fingers slim, and her grip is unsurprisingly firm. “You wouldn’t dare. I’d whip your ass.”

He can’t help but raise his eyebrows at her vulgarity, and she tilts her head to the side and nods up at him. She extracts her hand from his, and they take two steps back, pausing for just a moment, before he surges forward towards her.

She’s fast, dodging his attacks, and he has just enough speed to avoid her blows. He throws a punch at her, but she turns, blocking it, whipping her head round as she does so and her braids slap him across the face, stunning him for a split second. She lunges at him, and anticipating a kick to the chest, he ducks, hoping her leg will just fly over his head. What he doesn’t expect is for her to leap above him and knock him down onto the mats, flipping them so she’s above him, pressing his head down against the ground as she lowers her entire body weight onto his back. She’s light, doesn’t weigh much, but she’s strong enough to hold him down for the five seconds required to end the match.

He can hear the whistles and cheers around the room, and ignores them as she climbs off him and offers him a hand, pulling him back to his feet. She nods at him again, smirking, before returning to her side of the room. As he does the same, he raises a hand who where he’d been savagely whipped by her hair, knowing that it probably left a mark, and smiles to himself.

The next time he and Melinda May have a chance to speak alone is during his second year at Communications. He’s taken to jogging in the mornings to build his stamina, to clear his head before training - but this morning, he’s up before the sun is, unable to go back to sleep, too many thoughts, too many worries. He changes and sets out for his usual path, feeling the cold wind chilling his skin, listening to the sounds of nature. The sky is only just beginning to lighten, the birds are calling, and he can hear his twigs and leaves beneath each footfall… footfalls?

He almost skids to stop, and turns, and he hadn’t been hearing things, because there’s a figure coming up behind him, slowing down as they spot him standing there.

“Coulson?”

He frowns, blinks and does a double take. It’s been two weeks since he last saw her during a training session. They’d been sparring with different partners, but had made eye contact as they often did at least once during the day. She had brushed one of her signature braids over her shoulder as she turned to offer him a smirk, and he had smiled back.

He almost doesn’t recognise her now. Her hair has been cropped to her shoulders, and she has.. Bangs? He’s not completely sure what the correct terminology is, but he also knows that he should probably make a polite comment about her new haircut.

“May, wow. Nice um, I like your new hair,” he finally manages to get out, and she just laughs at him, shaking her head as she does.

“Wanted a change. Also people kept complaining about being hit in the face. No idea what they meant by that,” she responds, moving to stand beside him. She looks different like this, but he thinks he could probably get used to it. He hadn’t really minded being clapped in the face by one of her braids, but maybe that was just him.

“Yeah, couldn’t possibly know what they meant by that,” he snorts, making a show of rubbing at the side of his face, and she scoffs right back at him, clapping him hard on the shoulder before taking off.

“Come Coulson.”

He just stands there for a moment, laughing as he watches her run off, shaking his head before chasing after her.

“I’ll catch up.”

They spar a few times after that, during their second and third years at the Academy. She’s not a friend, but he considers her an acquaintance, an ally in the cause that they support. She’s quiet, only talks when she really wants to, and has very few friends over in operations. Sometimes he fears he may be analysing her too much, but argues that it is just the future field agent in him taking over.

He’s trained to be observant.

She smiles, a lot, when she thinks others aren’t watching, and has a great sense of humour. Or at least that’s how he feels until he falls prey to one of her particularly vicious pranks at the beginning of their third year.

He doesn’t know how she does it, but after he wakes up one perfectly normal morning and carries out his routine, he returns to the Communications dorms and finds that all of his Captain America boxers have been strung up across the building. There’s a crowd of his fellow trainees gathered around laughing hysterically; no one could have spent a day around him without learning he was a huge fan of Steve Rogers, and he knows that they’re all making fun of him.

He’s beyond mortified, and doesn’t even know how to begin getting them down - he can’t imagine how someone even got them up there, until he spots a familiar face at the edge of the crowd, smirking, and he groans internally.

How had she even gotten into his room? What else had she taken? Worse, what other secrets of his had she managed to uncover?

He can only give her a forced smile as he pushes past the hoard of people, keeping his eyes trained on the ground, heading into the building, the sound of laughter fading as the door slams behind him.

His boxers have vanished by the next morning, and he doesn’t see them again for a week, until one evening when he returns to his room after a particularly straining day, and finds that they’ve been laundered and folded, sitting in neat piles on his bed.

As he goes to return them to the correct drawers, he finds something lying on top.

Frowning, he picks it up, inspecting it. Almost dropping it when he realises what it is.

A Captain America Trading Card.

He’s always wanted one - they’re rare, some of them almost impossible to find. And even if he could find them, it wasn’t as if a secret agent in training could afford something like that. He turns it in his hand, and can’t help his wide grin as he runs his finger over the black marker lettering.

Peggy Carter.

If this is what he gets as an apology gift, he might just let Melinda May prank him more often.

As the months go by, their training increases, and Phil finds himself missing May’s company. He understands her humour better now, and they’ve shared words during and after sparring sessions together. Still he feels like he knows next to nothing about her; and that anything he did know came from his observations. He expects he’ll see her next in another month, either on the mats if they pair up, or at the range. She’s a great shot, but he doesn’t do too badly. The last place he expects to see her is at a communications run dance elective to prepare field agents for undercover missions.

“May.”

“Coulson.”

Phil watches her as she surveys the room with a disinterested look, before walking up next to him, and fixing him with a hesitant smile.

“Didn’t expect to see you here,” he tells her, breaking the ice, smirking as she smiles.

“I counted on you being here,” she says, grin widening.

The other cadets begin picking partners, and he scans the room briefly, before turning back to her and offering her an arm.

“Shall we?”

She snorts at him, rolling her eyes, and hooks her arm through his.

“Suppose I could do worse.”

Dancing, Phil likes it. He thinks that it is it’s own art form, the way two people move together, their steps mirroring one another's. It’s almost romantic.

“Ugh.”

Clearly May does not agree with him. It’s not even that she’s bad at it; in fact, he thinks they make a pretty good match; she fits well into his arms, and they’re not stepping on each other’s toes. She mumbles something about it being a waste of time, and he supposes with all the skills she already has mastery over, this one really is useless.

She lasts four more lessons, and while he’s disappointed, he’s really not surprised when she disappears after two weeks.

He lets out a loud groan as she pins him to the mats for the fourth time that day; this time knocking him flat on his back, and keeping him there with a foot on his chest.

“I don’t think I can do this,” he pants as she lets him up, before heading over to the edge of the room and tossing him a water bottle. He catches it in one hand above his head, uncapping the bottle and taking a couple of deep gulps, almost sighing in relief at the cool water running down his throat. He wishes he had a bucket of it to dump over his head.

“Stop dropping your left side. You’re leaving too much of an opening for your opponent.”

“Not everyone is born with your skills May.”

She smiles at him, shaking her head, and he likes this. Whatever this is. The banter, the sparring, having someone to talk to? He has pals back in communications; he’s got Garrett, but Garrett’s an ass and Melinda is just different. Makes him feel comfortable in a way that no one else can.

“You’ll be fine Coulson. If Blake managed to pass his field exam, you’ll ace it.”

She sits down on the mats beside him, and bumps her shoulder against his. He knows it’s her way of comforting him, and just the thought of that makes him feel better; lifts a little of the weight off his chest.

“Easy for you to say.”

She’s already finished her exams, passed with flying colours he expects. Probably already found out where she was being assigned after graduation. He feels a small pang of sadness when he realises that their days here are numbered.

“I’ll miss it you know. The academy. It’s gonna be a strange adjustment,” she admits with a shrug, tilting her head to the side and staring at him. Her hair is pulled back into a ponytail, which reaches nearly half way down her back now. It’s long again, nearly as long as it had been the day she whipped him in the face. He wonders if that much time has really passed, but then realises it’s been three years since he met her, and four years at the academy. He’s sentimental, likes holding on to the past, but that’s not a personality that suits someone in their profession. They need to learn to let things go.

“Nostalgia’s fine. But then life happens,” he tells her, and they share a moment of silence before she pushes herself back up and waves him towards her.

“Come on, Coulson. Let’s see what you’ve got.”

He’s not the only one without family at graduation. Many of the cadets have hidden the secret of their true profession from their family members; a spies life was designed for those who could survive alone.

Someone like him.

With nothing holding him back, no one to miss him should the worst occur.

Many of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s most legendary agents attend the ceremony - Fury claps him on the back, tells him he’s proud of him, and he actually has to conceal his emotions when he is introduced to the Peggy Carter, as one of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s best and brightest.

He finds himself standing there in awe, just listening to the conversation between the two, until someone draws his attention by tapping on his shoulder. He turns to see May standing there with a bright smile, face framed by waves today. She had made an effort for the ceremony, knowing Peggy would be in attendance, and she was...

She was beautiful.

That one thought clouds his judgement, pushing aside his doubts about forming connections with other people. Who knows where they’ll be off to tomorrow, and the day after that. Maybe they could have just one night. Maybe they could have more. He didn’t know.

“When this is over, do you want to grab a drink?” he asks, waving his arm to gesture around at the crowds of people scattered around the lawn.

She smiles at him, and it warms his heart.

“Sorry Coulson. I’m flying out with Peggy tonight,” she says, nodding towards where Fury and Peggy are still engaged in a discussion.

He tries not to let his disappointment show, shrugging. He’s taken his shot, missed. Time to move on.

But then she reaches out a hand and pats him on the arm, and for a reason he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to explain, the fact that she has a smile on her face stops prevents him from feeling completely unhappy.

“Next time we’re in the same city, I’ll take you up on that offer, Agent Coulson.”

“It’s a deal, then, Agent May.”

It’s one that he looks forward to keeping.

#philinda #philinda fanfiction #otp: she means everything to me #type: fanfiction #ff: bs #originelle fic

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