Excused Absences

There was a two week gap without an incident.

And then there was hallucinogenic gas, and guns, and Alexander Pierce sitting on his couch. Fury allowed the kids to skip school, and stood arms across and critical while May filled in bullet holes and repainted his walls.

Two weeks without incident so it only stood to reason that the next two weeks would be nothing but incident, after incident, after another fucking incident.

And they were.

Nick had a mission to plan and Natasha was suspicious of what was suddenly consuming his time.

‘What’s with your sudden interest with the Indian Ocean, Nicky?’’

‘I like fish.’

‘Like what Indian Ocean fish?’ She challenged.

‘Bramble Shark.’

‘Hell yeah, love me a Bramble Shark,’ Clint piped in. ‘High five me!’

‘Why do you know what that is?’

‘Why don’t you? Come on, Nick, don’t leave me hanging.’

Stark set off an electromagnetic pulse that blew Clint’s hearing aids. Clint punched him in the face in response, disappearing into the school vents until they were fixed.

Romanoff short-circuited the entire school and almost electrocuted herself in shop class making what she referred to as ‘flippin’ awesome.’ Stark and Banner almost, quite literally, blew up the school and Fitz knocked over a bottle of highly concentrated nitric acid that did literally melt the floor.

And May?

May had always been difficult because she always held her cards close to her chest. Even if Nick did happen to see the cards, it wouldn’t matter because he didn’t have a fucking clue what game was being played.

May still had bad days where she was unresponsive or jumpy, with nights she didn’t sleep and mornings she didn’t talk. She hid out in Administrations, sorting through Hand’s filing system or she’d drop her backpack next to Nick’s desk and meditates on his floor.

Most days, Coulson could coax her out of it. Most days, Coulson showed up during his free period or during lunch and sorted papers with her. He’d sit next to her on Nick’s office floor and offer her half his sandwich.

Sometimes he talked, telling stories about stupid things he and his friends had done or about what he saw on TV the night before. Other times, he didn’t say a word and some days, he couldn’t pull her out of her head.

On one of those days, when he sat in silence next to her as Nick read through yet another budget report, she told him bluntly that she had slept with Ward. Nick, more than anything, really, really wished he hadn’t been there to hear it.

She had started to disappear again, first skipping out on gym which well, Nick could get that. It wasn’t like he’d be all that thrilled to go back in there either, but then it was dodging Sitwell’s substitute teacher.

He would find her more often than not because she wasn’t really hiding just not going. He’d find her on the roof or in the labs with Bruce or Fitzsimmons. Sometimes she even sat with Pepper.

Mostly, he found her in Administrations with Victoria. He’d find them discussing books or movies that May just had to check out as she helped her file.

It was during one of these times when Nick’s lecture on why the hell her ass should be in class (one that he knew for damn sure she wasn’t even listening to) was cut short by a snort from the door. Before he could turn around to tell whoever it was to fuck off, May was engulfed into a tight hug that lifted her off the ground.

“Hartley,” He rolled his eyes when the dark haired woman released May, who to Nick’s surprise was smiling and not stock-still and ready to fight. She was still weird about Coulson touching her, least of all someone she didn’t know.  “What are you doing here?”

“Can a girl not visit her wife, Nicky?” Harley grinned at him, mischief in her eyes before turning back to May. “Melinny.”

“Izzy,” May greeted with an honest to god smile.

“Look how big you’ve got!” She gushed, holding May out in front of her. “Vick, look at her!”

“I can see her,” Victoria smiled from beside Nick.

“When Vicky told me you were here,” Hartley continued. “I, of course, called bullshit. Melinda May, in a classroom? No way.”

“She’s not in a classroom,” Nick cut in. “Though that’s where she should be.”

“Cutting class,” Hartley observed her with critical eyes. May shrugged and Hartley grinned again. ‘Atta girl.”

“Melinda,” Nick addressed, unimpressed by both her and Hartley. “Calculus, go.”

May rolled her eyes but said her goodbyes to Hartley, with another hug, and Hand, with a halfhearted salute before leaving the room.

“What the hell was that?” He asked when the door closes behind her. This Melinda, the Melinda May who lived with him, had not so much as cracked a smile that wasn’t paper-thin or blatantly fake since he’d known her.

As it turned out, the Administration office that May spent so much time in was the one that Hartley had spent most of her time recovering from a broken leg in. And in a serious breach of international security, Hartley use to let little six years old Melinda read the paper files to help her learn English – she was adorable back then, I’d let her have Russia if she’d asked.

“We’re all having dinner when I get back from this mission,” Hartley said in something between a threat and a fact before he had excused himself from the room.

It took Nick reminding her of their deal for May to actually stay in class.

They were small incidents but incidents nonetheless.

And they were leading up to something big.

Nick has concluded that S.H.I.E.L.D.’s security system sucked.

He was pretty sure that there was not a universe in the entirety of the multiverse theory where S.H.I.E.L.D.’s security system didn’t suck major ass. They’re a spy organization!

He might even try to persuade Direction Pierce into letting Daisy and Stark have a go at it because it wasn’t like they could make it suck more. It really fucking sucked.

Two weeks of minor incidents passed with only minor inconvenience.

Nick, being the paranoid bastard that he was, had spent those two weeks waiting for the other shoe to drop.

When it did, it dropped like a ton of fucking bricks.

On Tuesday, when he was late because Clint had lost his shoes and Natasha spent two hours straightening out her curls. And really, he needed a better alarm clock.

Someone had hacked S.H.I.E.L.D. and got into May’s file. Someone had hacked into what was supposed to be the most secure government agency in the world, found a file on someone who should not have a file, and plastered it all over the school.

There was a part of him that was overjoyed, excited to figure out what finally happened in Bahrain, what May had kept so close to her chest, even at the cost of May’s own privacy. The feeling made him sick to his stomach.

He found, when he was ripping the random printed out sheets of her file that were taped up like new wallpaper off the door to his office, that it was the same redacted file that was given to him.

Which made it completely useless, it gave him nothing.

Agent [BLANK] [BLANK] A****** and Agent [BLANK][BLANK] C****** bodies not recovered, presumed dead, by fire.

But it told every student in the school that Melinda May, May, Melinda Q., A078624, was in Manama, Bahrain. There was a burnt building, a body count, and a very detailed medical report, with pictures of bruising, fractures, and cuts. The psych evaluation, precise and descriptive notes of the toll that Bahrain took on her, on the jumpiness, the PTSD, the fact that she shut down completely at the mention of Bahrain and lashed out violently to physical contact.

The psychiatrist didn’t get as far, made no breakthroughs before she was taken out of their care. And the very clear message that they thought, in their professional opinion, that therapy was essential to her recovery.

Nick told her, after shuffling her into his office and away from the onlookers and whisperers that she didn’t have to go to class, that she could stay in administrations or in his office, she could go home.

She left for class without saying a word, with weight of the truth on her shoulders and her head held high.

What happened in Bahrain?

Are you a spy?

I told you she was a spy!

Did you kill someone?

How many people did you kill?

How’d you even get those bruises?

Can I see the scar for that one?

Did you kill your parents?

How’d they die?

Did you do it?

What happened in Bahrain?

What happened in Bahrain?

What happened in Bahrain?

She never made it to first period.

Neither had Coulson.