Hey

Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth as he tried to speak,

‘Daisy….run….mhnghhgh….you too….’

Fitz exited the gym (the now useless control panel for its offending door in his possession for later repair) just in time for Coulson to barrel straight into him.

‘Gods, you almost – Sir?’

Taking aback by the thunderous expression on the usually calm man’s face, Fitz angled himself towards him, blocking his access to the hall beyond.

‘Move.’

‘Sir – You just missed Jemma, Agent May called for her, it seemed urgen – ‘

‘Called for her?!’ Fury sparked Coulson’s eyes in a way Fitz had never seen; rage seemed to burn straight through him, it radiated off him in waves. ‘She hasn’t moved – hasn’t SPOKEN’, to spite his disbelief, Fitz saw his face wrinkle with concern as he flashed a quick glance towards the med bay, ‘I can’t fix what he did – but I can make damn sure he doesn’t do it again’.

Coulson shouldered past him, leaving Fitz scampering at his heels as he barged towards the holding cells. Seeing him this unhinged was shedding a concerning light on Jemma’s fragile state. Remembering Jemma, Fitz brandished the now quietened tablet in the other man’s direction, hoping to divert his murderous attention.

‘Sir, we received an inbound request from Bobbi’s Commander ID – the vessel will be in the hanger in a matter of minutes but no one’s heard from her in months, she and Hunter are meant to be off the grid – ‘

‘I called them’, Coulson said plainly; lengthening his stride with no further explanation.

‘Sir – STOP!’ Coulson murderous glare almost burner through him as he jolted the other man to a halt. ‘You trained us better than to let anyone – even you – go tearing through the base with the blatant intent of caving someone’s skull in.’ The man’s features only darkened further. ‘Jemma’s at breaking point – Bobbi is 2 minutes from a locked down base with nobody to even know she’s coming to clear her access – Skye – Daisy – is God knows where - - ‘

That seemed to seize his attention.

‘Daisy?!’ The last thing Coulson had the presence of mind to do after speaking to Bobbi on their way back to base was to check the young agent was safely sequestered away before remotely locking down the base.

Fitz held up the dismantled control panel from the gym door, as a quasi-explanation. ‘She was in the gym , Sir, but she worked her way through the security for the inner doors’. Fitz tucked the broken panel under his arm and scrolled quickly through the working tablet in his other hand. ‘From the security log, it looks like the lock was disengaged about 15 minutes ago…..hold on, let me check… nothing else seems to have been accessed – except the holding cells….’

The two men shared an urgent look of concern and simultaneously turned, continuing to race towards the now open holding cells, even as the incoming vessel alarm from the hanger began screeching through the halls.

18 hours earlier

She was allowed to cry, damn it. Tears burned her eyes, adding to the pounding in her head as the stupid fever burned through the rest of her. May could deal with being wrong, even with being disappointed but her current situation stemmed from her being overwhelming stupid. And she couldn’t stand it.

Couldn’t stand at all, actually, she chided dryly to herself.

The cool tiles on Coulson’s bathroom floor felt like the only thing keeping her from disintegrating there and then. While they were not the original incentive for her foolish late night expedition, they were now glorious compensation, cooling the sheen of sweat that was settling on her flushed skin.

A tempting urge to blame Jemma bubbled up inside her, not for the first time that night. But no, she had let herself be lured into the lab by an uncommonly persuasive Dr Simmons.                Who checked her over, and poked her with needles, and after a tense wait presented her diagnosis of; the flu. The fucking flu. She should have accepted her diagnosis and begun gathering her shame there and then, but she was stupid, stupid enough to steal a pregnancy test from the medical stores before leaving. Stupid enough to be sobbing on the bathroom floor after 8 hours of hope, only to be presented with not pregnant.

Not pregnant. Just flu-y, and stupid.

The offending bit of plastic had long since been buried at the bottom of the waste basket. As a blissful wave of exhaustion finally stilled her mind and her churning stomach, Melinda decided the platonic embrace of the tiles was more appropriate than that of her lover, and allowed herself to slip into an uneasy sleep, slumped against the bathroom wall.

Stupid.

12 hours earlier

Melinda’s first waking moment was panicked. The air was hard to breath and before she had even opened her eyes she know someone was standing over her. The panic ebbed as quickly as it had risen, as familiar hands reached out to her and his soothing voice filled the room.

‘Hey’, Phil whispered to her softly, indifferent to the fact she was the most skilled specialist he had ever known and wasn’t exactly likely to spook. ‘I’m sorry to wake you’, she opened her eyes to meet his gentle gaze as he brushed the hair away from sticky skin. As she woke fully, she noticed more of her surrounds. It seemed her fever had graciously broken during her night of self-condemned isolation on the bathroom floor, and while her lingering shame wasn’t quite tangible, the sticky glaze of cooled sweat on her skin very much was. She paused as she registered the cloudy surface of the shower screen across from her and was rewarded with what looked suspiciously like a blushing grin as she looked appreciatively to Phil, realizing what he had done.

‘I know you like to wash up before bed’, he explained sheepishly, ‘and I wanted to get you warmed up as quickly as possible’. With his words, her body seemed to register the early morning chill for the first time, and she shuffled eagerly towards his warm embrace. He chuckled softly into her hair as he all but lifted her to her feet, pausing instinctively to steady her as she swayed on unsteady feet. He made no move to move her, instead circling her in his arms as she leaned against his chest.

And suddenly she was feeling stupid again. Reassuringly, gratefully stupid. Because she had this – and the distraction of tantalizing possibility had almost made her forget. Phil Coulson was everything she needed – and as for the things she wanted, that they wanted, she wouldn’t be exactly suffering in their absence.

There were too many words on her lips for any of them to possibly come out, so she let them go with a sigh and settled for pressing her lips to Phil’s, whose parted eagerly to welcome her. She felt the echoing hum fill his chest as he broke away, pressing her impossibly closer against him and as he murmured against her neck. ‘I’m glad to see you feeling better’.

Rotating her hips pointedly against him, she nipped softly at his jawline in response, ‘Your not feeling too bad yourself, Director.’

He chuckled quietly as he chastised her, the tenderness of the probing touch he placed between her legs only slightly betrayed his bravado, ‘You really are a challenging patient, Mel, no wonder poor Dr Simmons can never keep you in the lab’.

She was probably more surprised than he was by the needy moan that rewarded his touch, she was tired of thinking and his expert hands made her core deliciously hot, and her mind blissfully clear.

Her eagerness seemed to give him pause, as he straightened up and placed a chaste kiss to the crown of her head, ‘We need to get you to bed’.

‘I couldn’t agree more’, she quipped playfully, ‘but I have a dreadful suspicion we aren’t imaging the same outcome’.

That earned her a wry smile, but Phil was not blind to her diversions and his eyes were clouded by questions she knew he felt compelled to ask. So, she met his gaze with all the honesty she could muster and hope it would be enough.

‘Help me into the shower, and Doctor me all you want, but the only way I’m sleeping is if you’ve fucked me into oblivion and back first.’

By the time she left the bathroom, trading the roughness of the shower tiles for the softness of their sheets, her last thoughts on the offending bit of plastic hidden at the bottom of the waste basket were that she wouldn’t be broken by the results if she had to place one there again – not when Phil’s efforts in between were so rewarding either way.

10 hours earlier

Melinda gave her best effort towards being furious as she detangled herself from Phil and moved to the dresser to shut off the phone alarm that was threatening to wake the whole base, as well as interrupting her mornings diversions. It wouldn’t quite do to have a concerned Dr Simmons, sleeping just down the hall, rushing to check on her recent patient, only to find her shuddering through her fourth orgasm against their Director’s mouth.

Somehow, she didn’t have it in her to be too angry at the present moment – but she was confused as she rifled through the dresser to grab her old phone. It thrilled with an alarm she only barely recognised, and still had to double check to be sure.

While she had never managed to step foot back in their old home after her and Andrew’s divorce, it was still precious to her. But, when the security feed linked to the app on her phone showed said ex-husband moving through the halls, tripping every goddamn alarm in the process, she found herself feeling distinctly less than fond of both of them. As she regretfully slid on a fresh pair of underwear and subconsciously reached for a shirt she had long since stolen from Phil; she bitterly decided that precious or not, if this was anything less than a life or death situation – she would burn the house to the ground with Andrew Gardner still fucking inside it.