Marvel Imagines From DeviantArt (Requests Closed)

Reflection (Phil Coulson)

Phil requested by @Darkblud

Hope you like this one shot! :-D

~~~

You wake at an unearthly hour, tossing and turning in an empty bed- Phil has slipped away somewhere as he does increasingly often these days- and find that you cannot fall back asleep. You decide that a cup of tea is in order and then perhaps you will sit somewhere quiet and pretend that you can see the stars or hear the waves on an isolated beach somewhere. But as you take your steaming hot Earl Grey and head towards the hangar, you are distracted by a faint scratching sound. You trace it to one of the storage rooms and the sight that greets you is so chilling that it is all you can do to prevent yourself from dropping the ceramic mug- instead placing it on one of the shelves and trying to calm your suddenly racing heart.

You have discovered the thing which draws Phil away from bed- and it is not paperwork or the search for surviving S.H.I.E.L.D. agents as you had presumed it to be.

"Phil," you whisper, not daring to walk any closer. He turns away from the wall- slowly, almost reluctant to do so- that is now entirely covered with alien markings, dots and dashes repeated in endless patterns that fill you with horror as you take them in. His eyes meet yours mechanically and you are trapped by the strangeness, the absence of even so much as a glimmer of recognition in them.

You manage to stifle a gasp but your hand still tightens around the cold steel of the shelf. Your obvious display of fear immediately seems to do the trick, something snaps- or snaps back to normal?- and your lover is standing in front of you again.

"____, what are you doing here?" he asks, there is a harshness in his tone that is not him and it scares you.

Courage, you need to be brave, for him if not for yourself. Always for him.

"I heard noises," is all the explanation you can manage to give, gesturing towards him and the wall that spells death behind him. He glances over his shoulder and then down at the screwdriver clutched in his hand, his head tilted to the side in confusion. He drops it only seconds later as if it were red-hot and burning- and you know that he is seeing himself as you had seen him when you had first found him down here. He jerks his head upright and looks at you with widened eyes that show more than a little bit of anguish.

"I..what is happening to me?" he asks, and his voice breaks halfway through his sentence, low and strained and him, most definitely him now.

"I don't know," you say, your heart breaking a little as he drops your gaze to look at his hands, dismayed.

All the perfumes of Arabia...

You wrench yourself out of your own darkening thoughts and try to string together something which will draw him back, back to you because he cannot be that far gone, he cannot.

"We'll figure this out," you tell him, taking a step towards him- one step and no more because he shrinks away from you instantaneously.

Could he be scared of you?

"Will we? May was right, ____, I'm not handling this any better than Garrett did," he speaks forcefully, daring you to contradict him but underneath the harshness lies the hope that you will do so anyway. Not scared of you then, scared of what he might do to you; but he cannot really think that you will give up on him?

"Oh, you're going to have to try a lot harder to reach that level of crazy," you scoff, finally shaking off your own fears and rising to the challenge. He smiles a little at your extremely characteristic response before striding closer and placing his hands on your shoulders. He takes a gulping breath and meets your eyes, his grip on you tightening ever so slightly as if he is scared of drifting off into some unknown terror and you are the only thing anchoring him, keeping him from this doom.

"You really think we can.. fix this?" he asks you tremulously and the words "fix me?" hang in the air unsaid, heavy enough to drag you down. In that moment, you feel a certainty that his future- and yours as well- depends on what you are going to say in reply.

"I do. In fact, I know we can," you tell him, but he doesn't look completely convinced. Slowly, you cup his face in your hands and draw closer to him before speaking again. "I believe in you, Phil. I always have, and nothing you do will change that."

He smiles at that, wide and genuine. "Not even if I become a mass murderer?"

"Phil Coulson!" you reprimand sharply, but you still laugh along with him. That the two of you can still find something to laugh about is wonderful, you think, and it goes a long way in giving you hope.

"Sorry," he murmurs, but you can see that he is not really serious- the mischievous spark dancing in his eyes is evidence enough of that.

Your laughter fades away after a few moments pass- as does his- and you are about to drop your hands to your sides again when he pulls you even closer; you can hear his heart beat against your chest and feel his warmth soaking into you. You slip your hands down and snake them around his neck, watching him flick his gaze from your eyes to your lips and back. When he does kiss you- with a slow rhythm, as if he has all the time in the world- you know that you have succeeded, that you have given him hope.

"Thank you ____," he whispers against your lips as you part. You look into his eyes and smile.

"Always," you tell him.

~~~

All rights go to:

lioness94 on DeviantArt