Excused Absences

The fact that he was up at seven o’clock in the morning on a Saturday, listening to some birds chirp too loudly outside his window was annoying.

Very fucking annoying, if you asked him, even more annoying than those fucking birds.

And there wasn’t even anything keeping him awake. Well, no outside forces, just his own stupid mind replaying things that he had never experienced, words that he should never had heard, and an overwhelming crushing feeling of guilt that he couldn’t save May’s parents crashing inside of him like a tidal wave.

He didn’t even know their names.

He’d spent half the night making up scenarios and how, if he was there, he could have saved them and saved her from the heartache.

He gave up on the whole ideology of sleeping five minutes later and seriously debated going out and shooting those damn birds out of that tree. Tossing and turning all night had left him uncomfortable and frustrated, too uncomfortable and frustrated to stay in bed.

When he passed May’s room, he saw Phil sleeping, spread out across the width of her bed, but not her.

She was not in the living room with the rest of them either, so he checked under the bed. When he didn’t find her there, he checked the window again, just to make sure that she hadn’t made some grand escape last night after baring her soul to Coulson. He really wouldn’t have put it past her.

But sure enough, there she was.

Nick pushed up the window the rest of the way and leaned his head out to get a better look at her.

She was dressed in what he thought was one of Clint’s hoodies and a pair of leggings, sitting cross-legged with a book he’d never seen before. She pulled her eyes away from the book with a playful smirk on her lips before dropping it when she saw that he wasn’t Coulson.

“Hi,” and with that she turned to the next page.

“If I step out here am I going to fall to the patio below?” He asked as way of greeting. “I don’t think Mrs. Richardson would appreciate it.”

Mrs. Richardson being, of course, the nice old lady who rented out her top apartment to Nick and his forever growing bunch of government issued children. A very nice old lady, actually, who never asked questions and spent half the year with her grandson in Florida. Nick doubted despite her nicety that she’d appreciate coming home to find a Fury sized dent in her patio.

She shrugged her shoulders, which he took as a sign that she didn’t mind if he joined her rather than that she didn’t mind if he died in some patio related accident; he was looking on the more positive side of things with May today.

Her hair was damp, suggesting that she had been up for a quite a while or had not been to sleep yet. A part of him was slightly annoyed that he couldn’t remember if he heard the shower turned on at any point in the night.

“What are you reading?” He asked, sitting down against the paneling of the house. She held up the book, so he could see the cover.

Invisible Monsters. “Is that the guy who did Fight Club?”

She nodded, her eyes still scanning the pages.

“Where did you get it?” Nick asked because it was not one of his, and Natasha preferred book about Russia written by people who have never been to Russia (it was a very small category that she found a little too amusing) and Clint was partial to Green Arrow comic books. That meant that she had either stolen it or borrowed it, and Nick knew that she hadn’t been to the library.

“Victoria.”

“Who?”

“Mrs. Hand,” May said slowly, looking up from the pages.

“Oh.”

He didn’t know that they had even spoke to each other before.

Though granted, May did spend her afternoons in the administration office and went in there if she was feeling overwhelmed. Nick just didn’t think they actually exchanged any words. He had figured that May showed up on that first day and Hand put her to work.

“I need to see Steve Rogers,” May said, placing her bookmark in the ear-marked book. Definitely Victoria’s.

“What?”

“I need to see Steve Rogers,” She repeated like the idea was not simply ludicrous.

“What makes you think I know where he’s at?”

“Because you work for S.H.I.E.L.D.,” She said, rolling her eyes. “I’m not stupid.”

“I’m just a principal,” Nick pointed out.

“But you know,” She accused. “You know because I knew and I’m not even technically S.H.I.E.L.D.”

‘But she might as well have been,’ Nick thought bitterly.

“We always had some sort of tab on where he was,” May said. “Ever since he came out of the ice, not exact locations or mission details or anything because that would be stupid and endangering to him. But we always had some idea of what he was doing.”

“We?” He asked.

“There is no clearance level on gossip and gossip travels through government agencies faster than in high school,” May continued, ignoring his stupid question that he obviously knew the answer to. “And Cap is the star quarterback. You know where he is.”

“What do you want from me,” He asked. “I can’t give you a frozen World War II soldier,”

“I need him to come to the school,” May stated plainly. She wasn’t begging or asking, just telling Nick how it was. “Give a big speech on whatever, talk about the war, or America, or something.”

Nick thought briefly that this was the most she had ever said to him, “Why?”

“For Phil.”

“Why?”

“Because he is a good person,” May stated simply. “And he deserved to meet his idol.”

“And,” She continued with a shrug of her shoulders, with a nonchalance that Nick was pretty damn sure was going to juxtapose her words. “I’m not sure if Ms. Hill or Victoria has a bigger pull with the World Council than you, but you know Pierce so I started with you.”

“How–” Nick stopped himself, taking a deep breath because he imagined he was not going to like the answer. “How do you know any of that?”

“It’s a S.H.I.E.L.D. school.”

“It’s not a S.H.I.E.L.D. school,” Nick replied.

“But it is,” May insisted. “I know the agents – Hand, Hill, Sitwell, Weaver, you – teachers. They recognized me, some of them. And I’ve heard of some of them. Maria Hill is legendary, Nick Fury.”

She said his name like she was accusing him, which he guessed that she kind of was. Nick knew that he had a rep in S.H.I.E.L.D. and that his tactics and missions were infamous. He had personally helped Peggy Carter, and then Pierce, develop the agency into what it was today.

It never occurred to him that she would have known.

“Why did you ask me if I was S.H.I.E.L.D. on the first day?” Nick asked.

“How else do you tell if someone is lying if you don’t start with questions that you know the answers to?” She smirked at him.

“And like I’ve said, I’ve been to the Triskelion,” She added, shrugging. “If you can get through the front door, everyone accepts that you’re supposed to be there. People are much like bees in that way.”

“What does that mean?”

“I spent a lot of time in administration,” Melinda explained with an eye roll. “No one pays attention to a child.”

He raised his eyebrow at that.

“And my parents had high clearance.”

“So, you, what, hacked S.H.I.E.L.D.?”

“Is it hacking if you’re in the building?”

“Yes.”

“I was just using the resources that I had at hand,” She shrugged.

“By which you mean your parents’ credentials and hacking.”

“I–” May narrowed her eyes at him. “You’re getting off topic. Captain America, school, Phil, make it happen.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” He said simply in return. “But only if you actually make it to all of your classes this week.”

“Deal.”

“And answer my question.”

She went still, her hand halfway to her book and her eyes locked with his. Nick thought that he could actually see the anxiety growing behind her mask of indifference. What happened in Bahrain?

It’s like reliving it all over again.

Nick didn’t think he wanted to know what happened in Bahrain anymore.

“Why don’t you want S.H.I.E.L.D. to find your parents killer?” He asked, stating bluntly the question that he wanted to know for as he had known her, wanted to know why she was standing in the way of what could be relief and comfort, security and justice for her.

She was quiet for a while, looking in his direction but not at him. Nick wasn’t sure if she was seeing anything or stuck in some image of her past; something like regret ate at the bottom of his stomach.

“I handled it.”

It was all she said, in a voice that was as cold as the artic and as hard as steel, lacking all of the warming demand that she held a few moments ago. And it slammed against Nick with all of the force of a speeding car; it almost knocked the breath out of him.

He regretted the question, regretted asking it, and he regretted taking away that warmth and that playful smirk. He regretted reminding her of what she lost. He regretted even thinking to ask the question.

Her shoulders were tense, and her lips pushed together into a narrow straight line. She looked farther from that little girl in the picture in the file than she ever had.

Nick was reminded of the day he met Peggy Carter. May looked older and world-weary, and like her eyes had seen things Nick would never believe. And like Peggy’s, they probably had. But unlike Peggy who came out stronger and better and more powerful than anyone had any right to be, it left her broken.

“Something went wrong,” May continued slowly, anger laced her words and her eyes burnt hot with the fury of a thousand collapsing stars, like she was stating it to herself, reconfirming what she already knew.

She said no more before standing up in one fluid motion and climbing back through the window.

Nick didn’t follow.