Excused Absences

“Bruce?” Coulson called, listening to the noise of approaching footsteps on the other side of the door.

“Coulson,” He greeted, coming to the door. He only opened it enough to fit his head out. “Lose something?”

“Is Melinda in there?” He asked tiredly.

“What happened to her?”

“She was hurt.”

“Well that was insightful, Phil,” Bruce said flatly, his head darting back into the room before reappearing again.

“Can I come in?”

Bruce opened the door wider and took a step back to let him in.

Phil liked Bruce’s lab.

Bruce’s lab was cozy the way others were sterile and cold, white colored walls coated in posters of classic art and old soft rock bands. There was a familiar warm smell of Indian spices from the lunch that he kept in the clearly labeled ‘food’ refrigerator.

Plus, Bruce had the softest rolling chairs ever.

It felt very…Bruce. And Bruce was comfortable, he was warm and he was safe. Phil wasn’t all that surprised that May ended up in here.

May was standing in the middle of the room, clothes still damp on the counter by some contraption. Her back was to Phil but that did nothing to hide her shivering.

“Melinda,” Phil said softly as he came up beside her. “You need to change your clothes.”

“Okay,” she replied, pulling her gaze from the faded Van Gogh on the wall to him, accepting the clothes from his hands.

“I’ll just – oh, there you go,” Phil stumbled over his words because she just tossed her top on the ground and he was now staring at a shirtless May. He should probably look away but… was that scar caused by a bullet? And that looked like she had been stabbed, in the shoulder once and – god, he couldn’t be gawking at her!

He was looking away now.

He looked over to Bruce because what was he supposed to do?

And Bruce was laughing at him!

“What exactly was that shirt covering up in the first place?” Bruce asked. “Come on, Coulson. Tony had orange juice in his lab.”

“Did – did you get stabbed in the shoulder?” He blurted out instead of just leaving with Bruce like he planned on. “No, wait, that was rude to ask. I should never–”

“Yes,” she answered shortly.

“Coulson, come on,” Bruce called from the doorway.

And yeah, yessity, yes, yes, yes. They should leave.

They should definitely leave because May was changing her clothes and clearly not in the right mind to tell him to fuck off. It was just poor manners to be staring at apparently old knife wounds and very new bruises across her, because yeah, that looked like it hurt and his mother taught him better than that.

“Yes, orange juice!”

Oh god, he was blushing.

‘Phil, get a grip,’ he thought following Bruce’s shaking shoulders out the door.

Bruce was great.

Bruce was kind and caring and he was always there to listen. He occasionally…lost his shit, but other than that, a totally freaking great human being.

He was also an asshole who would not stop laughing.

“Shut up,” Phil muttered, trying to will the red from his face. “How do you even know her?”

“You mean other than being friends with Natasha and Clint, and you?” He asked, stopping in front of the door to Tony’s lab. “And listening to you go on, and on, and on–”

“I do not go on, and on, and on,” Phil muttered.

“You do,” He informed. “And we have art together anyways. J.A.R.V.I.S.?”

“Doctor Banner,” The computerized voice greeted. “Mister Coulson.”

“Just Bruce, Jarv,” Bruce commented as the pressure lock released and the door slide open.

“Oh, Tony got J.A.R.V.I.S. back up,” Phil noted smiling.

Wasn’t it like a week ago that someone (Fitz) short circuited the wiring in the school that had the Tony and Bruce pouring over notebooks, and Starkpads, and J.A.R.V.I.S. saying the wrong…cranberry? (Which Coulson thought was freaking hilarious, but he kept that to himself because J.A.R.V.I.S. might lock him out next time Tony refused to leave).

“Yeah, like two weeks ago.”

“Sixteen days,” J.A.R.V.I.S. corrected.

“Sixteen days?”

“You’ve been busy with your new girlfriend,” Bruce replied, walking to the mini fridge in the corner. “Where’s Tony?”

“Class, I believe,” J.A.R.V.I.S. supplied.

“She’s not my girlfriend.”

“You going to tell me what happened to her?” Bruce asked, tossing a juice box at him. “And she kind of is.”

“I told you–”

“You stated, a vague and obvious fact, you didn’t tell me what happened,” Bruce pointed out playful joking aside, replaced with a voice coated in frustration. The same frustration that Phil was feeling because Melinda May should not look like that, ever.

Bruce got it.

May had been through a lot and shouldn’t go through more.

“So, tell me what happened because that… that looks bad,” He said. “And I’m very, very angry about it.”

“I – she told me not to tell anyone.”

“I don’t care,” Bruce responded. “Was it Garrett? Daniels?”

“Bruce,” Phil pleaded. “I promised her. I can’t.”

“What’s stopping this from happening again?”

“Me,” He said, voice hard and jaw set because if he had to be the thing between Melinda and Garrett then so be it. That was not happening again, as long as he was by her side.

“And how are you going to do that?”

“Any way that I can.”

And he meant it with all that he had.

“I’m going to take this to her,” He said, holding up the juice box. He’d literally rather jump out a window if it got him away from this conversation.

May was sitting in one of Bruce’s rolling chairs when they got back. Her t-shirt had been discarded in the trash and her jeans folded on the counter. Clint’s sweatpants folded down over her bare feet because May was short, like really short.

Phil was hit in the chest with the realization of just how short May really was. Well shorter than Clint anyways and him, probably not Natasha, who had never pissed off Garrett. She was so small and Garrett was the size of a fucking house.

He was every bully that picked on Steve Rogers, he realized.

If he had to be Bucky Barnes than he would be, this wasn’t happening again. Even if May was probably stronger than pre-serum Steve and would probably kick his ass if she ever heard him say that.

“Here,” He said pulling off his sweater and holding it out to her. “You’re going to shiver out of your skin. Stop looking at me like that.”

Seriously, the raised eyebrow through a curtain of wavy hair was adorable, but also made him feel like an idiot standing there in his wrinkled button up.

She reached out slowly and took the sweater from his grip before sliding it over her head.

“Are you sure that you’re not hurt?”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re bleeding,” He pointed out.

“Here,” Bruce said sitting the first aid kit on the table between Phil and May. She reached out for it, grabbing wet wipes.

“Let me help,” Phil said, taking it from her hand and ripping open the package.

“Fitzsimmons got that thing that they were talking about at lunch to work,” Phil commented as he wiped away the blood on her forehead. “Well, in theory anyways, they hadn’t tested it yet. They want to shoot Tony with it but Pepper says no. Fury agreed though…which isn’t really all that surprising now that I think about it.”

“Sounds like him,” She said softly.

“Tony’s words were something along the lines of ‘come and fucking get me, dweebs.”

“And that sounds like him,” Bruce muttered, shaking his head.

“So, uh,” Phil struggled to find something to say.

“How do you know Garrett,” She cut in, once the bandage was secure over the gash on her forehead.

“Our dads were stationed at the same place,” Phil responded. Bruce made a noise of contempt and gave Coulson a ‘so I was right’ look.

Phil rolled his eyes back.

“Was he always such a–”

“Psychopath?” Coulson guessed.

“Dick,” May finished, using a wipe to get the blood from her chin as he wrapped gauze around her wrist.

“Yeah,” He laughed. “Yeah, always an asshole; I’m working on changing that.”

“Lost cause,” Bruce muttered and May agreed.

Garrett wasn’t mean because he could be or be had to be – it wasn’t some stupid ‘I’ve got a rep to protect’ BS from Grease 2 – he was mean because he just was.

Deep down, past the mean and cruel exterior was a meaner and crueler core.

“Why did he listen to you?” She asked because that didn’t make sense and the more she thought about it the less it did.

“He respects me?” Phil guessed, tossing the bloody wipes in the trash. He didn’t really understand it either. “He knows my dad, maybe it’s that. There you go, good as new.”

“I look like I’m five,” she commented and well, she did.

Bruce snorted at that.

She did look like she was five. His sweater made it worse because it fell over her hands and slipped off her shoulder.

“You want to see if Natasha has clothes in her locker?” He asked. “Or Simmons, if you want to look like you go to prep school. Then we can go get lunch or something.”

“Okay,” She said after a thought and then got her shoes.

“So smooth,” Bruce muttered as he went back to centrifuging cuvettes.

“What are you talking about?” Coulson whispered, pulling his phone out.

“Have fun on your date, Phil.”

“What? It’s not a date!”

“Let’s get dressed and go get food,” Bruce paraphrased, watching as May tied her laces. “Sounds a lot like a date to me.”

“It’s not a date,” Phil repeated. “It’s not, shut up. I wouldn’t take her to Taco Bell on a date.”

“Oh, so you have thought about taking her on a date.”

“Shut up!” Phil exclaimed with an incredulous laugh. “You’ve been hanging out with Tony for too long.”

“Phil,” Melinda spoke up way closer than he remembered her being.

“I’ve texted Natasha, let’s go.”

“Have fun,” Bruce called after them, the ‘on your date’ loud and clear, as Coulson guided May out the door.

“I hate you, Bruce,” Phil called back, causing Bruce to laugh.

They took the stairs after briefly arguing that ended with May telling him that she would kick his ass if he didn’t get up those stairs.

“Nat’s at her locker,” Phil commented, as they got to the top of the stairs. “Be warned, she’s going to ask a lot of questions.”

“About what?” May asked, distracted by glaring at anyone who happened to cross their path.

“Have you seen your face?” Coulson responded. “Or you know, your clothes or your hair, but mainly your face.”

She really did look awful.

Her lip was clotted with blood and swollen. The bruise across her temple, sticking out from under the bandage, looked livid and painfully spread across her forehead like a spider web, reaching as far down as the bruise across her jaw.

She shrugged, what was she going to do about it?

“You promised,” She reminded him quietly.

“I know,” He replied. “I’m regretting it every second.”

She snorted at that and a small smile tugged at her lips.

“I’m serious; Nat might try to torture it out of me.”

That got an amused huff as they rounded the corner to the hallway with Natasha’s locker. She was there, leaning against her locker talking with Clint, who was slouched against the floor.

“I’m just saying,” Clint spoke as they got closer. “It would be awesome, Nat.”

“Until, you got shot in the head,” Natasha replied unimpressed.

“It’d be worth it.”

“What the hell happened?” She questioned harshly when May caught her eye.

“Huh?” Clint asked confused before following Natasha’s gaze. “Jesus Christ, you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“Well, you look like shit,” Natasha retorted, crossing her arms. “What happened?”

“I fell,” May replied absentmindedly like she didn’t care for the conversation, which given that Coulson had asked her that very question a million times already she probably didn’t.

“Off what?” Clint asked, getting to his feet. “A cliff?”

“Coulson?” Natasha asked, clearly wanting an explanation. “Explain.”

He could see, like literally see that she was gearing up for a fight for information. Natasha didn’t do well with not knowing and neither did the people withholding information from her.

“Well, that’s true,” He responded, trying to convey with her eyes that he couldn’t tell her but he wanted to and he was very, very sorry. “She did fall.”

“You’re not going to tell me who I have to beat up,” She observed. “Because I know that it’s not gravity.”

“No,” May responded.

“Not even what happened to your clothes?”

“No.”

“Well,” Clint breathed out, turning his hawk-like eyes onto May. “Is everything still functioning? Nothing injur – hey! Are those my sweatpants? And that’s my shirt, isn’t it?”

“Probably,” May replied.

“It is,” Coulson answered.

“Why are your pants wet?” Clint asked Coulson.

“I stepped in a puddle.”

“A really big one,” Clint observed. “Is this before or after May fell off a cliff?”

“Do you have clothes or not?” Coulson asked tiredly. “We all still do have class to attend.”

“I’ve got leggings in my ballet bag,” Natasha replied reaching into her locker and pulling out the pants.

“Thanks,” May replied, taking the pants and walking to the bathroom at the end of the hall.

Natasha and Clint waited a beat after May disappeared behind the door before rounding on Coulson. “What the hell?”

“Coulson,” Nat said. “Tell me who’s ass to kick or it might be yours.”

“I can’t.”

“Yeah, you can,” Clint responded, crossing his arms. “You’re choosing not to.”

“Trust me, I’d tell you if I could,” Phil muttered. 

“And why can’t you?” Natasha asked.

“I promised her.”

“Damn,” They said in unison because both Natasha and Clint got the value of trust. They couldn’t ask him to break it.

“Are you, at least, going to tell Fury?’ Clint asked weakly.

The same anger and weariness that was present in Bruce’s eyes were in theirs. The ‘what’s stopping this or worse from happening again’ hung in the air like an ax. They’re all protectors; they would all jump into a fight just to save someone else and not being able to do so was frustrating.

May could defend herself, they all knew that, but she didn’t have to.

“No,” sounded from behind him, causing them all to jump, even Natasha.

“Damn sneaky,” Clint muttered rounding around on May. She tossed his sweatpants and his t-shirt at him. Dressed in Phil’s sweater and Natasha’s yoga pants, May looked less like a sleepy child but not by much.

 Phil was honestly just happy that she kept his sweater so that she would be warm.

“What’s your plan?” Natasha asked, not bothering to fight May on telling Fury. She knew when she was beat.

“We’re going to get lunch,” Phil responded oddly cheerful.

“Cool, we’re going,” Natasha shot back, daring Coulson to argue.

“What are you doing out here?” Sitwell spoke up, powerwalking down the hall to the four of them.

“Great,” Clint muttered to himself.

“Going to the bathroom, Mr. Sitwell, wanna join?” Natasha spoke up.

“And the rest of you?”

“I needed a tampon,” She responded, not missing a beat. She even pulled a tampon from god knows where. “Thanks May.”

“And you two?” He asked, his patience very clearly reaching its end much quicker than it usually did.  

“We were going to get it on in the disable’s stall,” Clint answered and then winked at the glare that Natasha sent him because yeah, unhelpful. “And by that, I mean we were going to…recite a prayer. Yeah, to the math circus gods because we, um, have a calc. test tomorrow, as teenagers do.”

“You’re lying.”

“No, honest, I learned this in the circus.”

“Lying,” He stated, glaring at the archer.

“Yeah, you’re right, we were going to bone.”

“Clint, shut up,” Phil snapped, his face red from nose to ears. “We were… uh–”

“Do you have anything to say for yourself, young lady?” He asked May, cutting off Coulson’s stuttered response.

“No,” She replied from behind a mop of hair, keeping it in her face to hide the worse of the bruising.

Natasha said that she liked Sitwell, Clint said he was weird.

She got that, kind of.

His teaching methods left something to be desire. They were dull and pointless, but Biology wasn’t really her interest, or his, she suspected. The boring videos on amino acids that he played, when he wasn’t out gallivanting them across campus, gave her a lot of time to observe the bald man – he had worn that suit four times in the past two weeks.

He had long since mastered the art of texting under the table; he didn’t even have to look. He was too much of a rule follower and freaked out if you didn’t follow everything to a T. It resulted in a lot of time wasting lectures about wasting time.

“No?” He asked incredulous.

Oh yeah, he threw a fit whenever you didn’t answer his stupid questions.

“No.”

Clint whistled in a way that sounded a bit like a falling missile ready to fuck something up, kinda like how she just fucked up their chances of getting away from the man without some sort of punishment.

“Didn’t your parents ever teach you some manners?” Sitwell asked. Rhetorical, of course, but that didn’t stop Clint from replying.

“My parents are dead,” He replied abruptly like he had the words poised on the tip of his tongue, ready to trip up the first person who asked that very question.

Sitwell faltered in both step and voice because he was probably at least a halfway decent guy and halfway guys sometimes regretted things.

“Mine too,” Natasha added, her smile mischievous but her eyes held a sadness matching the same one in Clint’s eyes. The sadness of what might have been that was in the eyes of all those who had lost someone and was remind of that.

Sitwell’s eyes slid to May as regret and guilt rippled over his face like he just knew. He probably did.

She thought that she should chime in anyways, holding her ‘Dead Parents’ membership card proudly in the air and say something like ‘presumed dead KIA, giant fires had a way of killing people, who knew?’

She said nothing.

“That’s…that’s enough,” He faltered again because Clint was laughing at something Natasha whispered to him.

“Mr. Sitwell,” Phil tried because he was in no mood to be in trouble and he really wanted tacos.

“No, Fury’s office,” Sitwell snapped.

‘Oh, he’s even pointed,’ May thought tiredly. ‘How cute.’

She was bored of this, they were getting tacos, right?

She was hungry and wanted a taco.

“Sitwell, please,” Coulson tried again. May doesn’t get why he even tried or why Jasper Sitwell felt the need to complain about literally everything. All she wanted to do was sit down and have tacos, and for him to just shut up.

Her head hurt, it really hurt, and her arms. And Sitwell just talked so much. They’re quieter now, which was great because–

“Excuse me!”

‘Oh.’

She said that out loud and Sitwell looked outraged. He sounded outraged as well.

It’d be funny if she actually cared.

It was more annoying than when he tried to sound indignant and superior.

“She’s didn’t–”

“Coulson, don’t even try,” Clint cut in. “Fury’s?”

“Probs,” Natasha agreed.

“Go!” Sitwell snapped, pointing down the hall like every cartoon teacher ever in the history of Sunday morning cartoons.

They all rolled their eyes before walking away from the shouty teacher.

“That went well,” Clint muttered.

“You better figure out what you’re going to tell Fury,” Natasha told May, who just hummed in response. She didn’t really care about what Nick Fury wanted, she wanted tacos.

“May, you still okay?” Phil asked her, trying not to notice how Clint and Natasha sped up so they could have a bit of privacy.

“I want tacos,” She answered.

Phil huffed a laugh, “Yeah, me too. After Fury chews us out we’ll go get lunch.”

“Okay.”

“What did you do?” Maria asked, not looking up from the paperback she was reading.

“Just being good Samaritans,” Clint replied, not missing a beat.

“Uh-huh,” Maria hummed. “Go on in.”

Nick was on the phone when Clint threw the door open. Very angry Italian vowels met them that had him pacing the small width of the room, which quickly switched over to a lunch order. And really that only made him look more suspicious to May.

“What did you do?” He asked with a sigh of exasperation.

“Came across, Sitwell.”

“All of you?” He observed, eyes moving from Clint’s forced laidback smile, to Natasha’s furrowed brow, to Coulson’s strategic stance in front of May.

“Well, we were trying to get an orgy going but he busted all of our fun,” Clint replied. “Which sucks, I brought the lube.”

“Is there a particular reason you keep drawing my attention to you?” Nick asked.

“Uh, no?”

“Sit down,” Nick responded, going back to his desk and sitting down himself, then added when no one moved. “Now.”

May was the first to sit down, dropping herself heavily down in the closest chair to her.

Now that she wasn’t being blocked by Coulson’s broad shoulders and he could actually see her, he understood the reason behind Natasha’s stiff stance. It was clear that neither Clint nor Natasha knew what happened; the concerned glanced Coulson kept sending May’s way said that he probably did.

“What happened to you?” He questioned, once everyone reluctantly took a seat.

“Accident,” She replied tiredly, pointed ignoring Coulson’s gaze.

“Really?” He responded unimpressed. The least she could do was come up with a halfway decent lie or a ridiculous one like Barton would.

“In gym class,” She added, making it crystal clear that she did not find telling Fury anything important and he wasn’t going to get an answer.

“Oh yeah, my bad,” Clint winced. “Soccer accident.”

“We were taking her to the nurse,” Natasha added because they were apparently a united force of annoyance in his life.

Was it wrong that it made him proud?

And really annoyed? Someone was apparently hurting his students, specifically that one.

“That’s where we ran into Coulson.”

“And then Sitwell,” Clint continued, spinning a web of lies with Natasha like it was their goddamn jobs, a couple of goddamn naturals.

“So, here we are,” Natasha finished.

“Explain your clothes,” Nick stated, observing the oversized shirt and what had to be Natasha’s pants. She was definitely not wearing that when they left this morning. He didn’t bother to mention the fact that they had gym two periods ago.

“I loaned her my sweater,” Coulson spoke up.

“Does that have anything to do with the flooded locker room?”

“Uh, no?” Clint replied, scrutinizing May and Coulson suspiciously.

‘Hmm, he doesn’t know,’ Fury thought. ‘And he’s trying really hard to figure it out.’

“May?”

“No.”

“Coulson?”

“Of course not, Mr. Fury,” Phil responded a tad too quickly.

“None of you are going to tell me a damn thing,” He observed out loud and didn’t get a response for any of them. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Go to class, we’ll discuss this at home, in length.”

Clint and Natasha stuffed out quickly after mumbling something about class and being late. May pulled herself out of her chair as the door slammed shut.

“Care to tell me what actually happened?” He tried once more for information.

“No.”

Not a ‘not really,’ or a ‘not right now,’ or hell, an ‘one day but not today.’ It was a resounding and definite ‘no’ that echoed around the room.  

It was a loss cause. Spies were like that.

“Okay then,” He sighed. “Are you hurt?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?” He asked because he told her, she didn’t have to treat her own injuries.

“Yes.”

“Okay then,” He sighed, not knowing if he believed her or not. “Go to class.”

“Uh, sir, while I’m here can I talk to you about student council,” Phil piped up. “We have some fundraising ideas that–”

“Yeah, whatever, May go sit down by Ms. Hill’s desk or go to the nurse. You look like you’re about to fall over.”

“Okay, so we were thinking about another pep rally to celebrate academic clubs like science – it was Garrett.”

Fury watched through the glass as May made her way over to Maria’s desk and sitting down heavily next to her before addressing Coulson’s confession. Maria slid over a bowl of peppermint candies and a paperback before returning to her own book.

“I stopped him but it…it was bad. It could have been really bad.”

He took a deep breath and looked to Fury, a sort of helplessness there.

Nick, for his part, put his poker face to use and stayed blank faced while he seethed underneath. He was angry, pissed off beyond belief because goddamn, hadn’t she been through enough? He got it, you rolled with the punches and you got back up, but how many hits can one person take?

Melinda was sixteen years old, she was a goddamn child without parents, who still barely ate and when she did sleep, it was under the bed, and now she had a bully who –

“– tired up, hitting her,” Phil continued rushing through everything. “I could have been worse. And… I don’t know if I’m always going to be there to intervene. She was stabbed!”

“What?” Nick could feel his stomach drop and his heart speed up because seriously, ‘What?’

“Yeah, when she–” He cut himself off, eyes darting to Nick. He was uncomfortable.

‘Why?’

“Coulson,” He warned; the message to continue loud and clear.

“When she took her shirt off,” He said awkwardly. This was, after all, the equivalent of telling your girlfriend’s father that you’ve seen their daughter’s bra. Wait, did he just refer to May as his girlfriend? “Uh, to change into my sweater because of the pipe. Oh yeah, sorry about that.”

“Stabbed? She was stabbed, when?”

“I don’t know,” He replied. “She has a big scar on her shoulder. It’s pretty intense, where is she from that you just get stabbed?”

“Coulson,” Fury breathed out in relief. “Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”

Thank god, she wasn’t bleeding out while reading Maria’s trashy romance novel.

“Sir, what do we do?”

“Not we, what will I do,” Fury told him.

Coulson, despite being the best teenager in the world, was still a teenager and he wasn’t old enough to have to deal with this shit. They were all too young to have to deal with any of this.

Coulson, Clint, Natasha, fucking May; they should all have the opportunity to be a kid, instead of it being ripped away from them day after day.

“No,” Phil retorted firmly. “No, us! She’s my friend. I’m the Bucky Barnes to her Steve Rogers.”

“Did you tell her that?” He smirked.

“No,” He stumbled out. “But, I mean it.”

“In what context?’ Fury asked, genuinely curious of his best and brightest train of thought. “You saving her form back alley brawls or you falling off a cliff?”

“Either way, it’s protecting her.”

“Garrett is going to be suspended.”

“That’s not going to work.”

“Why?” He asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I told May… I promised her that I wouldn’t tell you.”

“Then what, pray tell, do you think we should do?”

“I… I promised her that I wouldn’t say anything,” Phil said, running his fingers through his already disheveled hair. “But I’m worried and promises mean nothing if she’s dead. And…and Garrett, if he got the upper hand might…”

“Expelled then.”

“She can’t know.”

“And she won’t.”

“Well how exactly are you planning on doing that because I think she’s going to notice if her attackers just disappeared.”

‘Yeah, of course, she would,’ Nick stopped himself from snapping at the frazzled teen. ‘She’s a spy. I’m a spy. I’m the best fucking spy S.H.I.E.L.D. had ever seen, I can get rid of a kid without people noticing.’

“I’ll handle it.”

“But–”

“I’ll. Handle it.”

“You know you sound a lot like her,” He replied.

Because spies get shit done.

“How are you–”

“Phil, go to class.”

“Actually,” Phil said, looking suddenly sheepish. “We were going to get lunch.”

“Whatever, I don’t care,” He growled because teenagers were infuriating as hell. “Get out of my sight. Go get your hamburgers or whatever, don’t get arrested.”

“Actually, we’re getting tacos.”

“Go.”

“Thank you, Mr. Fury,” He replied, dredging up a carefree smile from god knows before sliding out the door.

“We’ll try to fit in your pep rally in somewhere,” Nick told him from the door.

“See you later, May,” Maria said as May stood up to join Coulson.

“Goodbye.”

“Bye, Ms. Hill, Mr. Fury,” Coulson said his goodbyes before he and May shuffled out the door. “You and Ms. Hill have a good talk?”

“Her taste in literature is abysmal,” May answered. “But entertaining.”

“So, tacos?”

“Tacos.”