And Then I Wrote Marvel

In the Beginning (dad!Phil Coulson x Reader)

I've done it again. I'm putting this in it's own book. It's called Coulson Squared, and it'll basically be a rewrite of AoS with (Y/N).

"Agent Hill, Agent Coulson," the male agent acknowledged the two of you as he sat down. You smiled politely, but Maria got right to business.

"What does SHIELD stand for?" she asked the man.

"Maria, really? Even I can't remember the whole thing half the time," you complained.

"Shut up, Coulson. You know exactly why I do this," she said. "Now, Agent Ward, what does it stand for?"

"Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division," he answered, a lot less like a robot than you'd ever seen him before.

"And what does that mean to you?" Hill continued. She loved that question. So did your father. Collecting individual perceptions of the title of the organization fascinated them. You thought it was interesting, at the very least.

"It means someone really wanted our initials to spell SHIELD," he responded.

You laughed. "You're not wrong," you commented. Maria shot you a death glare. "Oh, come on, 'Ria. You have to admit that that is a very Howard Stark-ish thing to do."

"Like I said, shut up, Agent Coulson. Continue, Agent Ward," she ordered.

"It means we're the line between the world and the much weirder world," he explained. "We protect people from news they aren't ready to hear. And when we can't do that, we keep them safe. Something turns up," he said, pulling a piece of alien tech out of a small black bag, and sliding it across the table to the two of you, "like this Chitauri neural link--we get to it before someone bad does."

You clapped. "Beautiful," you commended, wiping a pretend tear from your eye.

Maria stood up and placed the link in a box provided to her by another agent. "Once again, shut up, (Y/N). Remind me why you're in here, again?" You took a breath to explain that she did, in fact, ask you to do this with her, but she stopped you. "Not really. Agent Ward, do you have any idea who Vanchat was planning to sell the link to?"

He shook his head. "I'm more interested in how this Rising Tide group found out about it. I thought they were just hackers. What changed?"

"Everything's changing," Maria shrugged. "A little while ago, most people went to bed thinking that the craziest thing in the world was a billionaire in a flying metal suit. Then aliens invaded New York and were beaten back by, among others, a giant green monster, a costumed hero from the '40s, and a god."

"Don't forget our favorite archer and ginger ninja," you added.

"Your favorite," Maria corrected.

"I don't think Thor's technically a god," Agent Ward said before you could strike back at Agent Hill.

"Well, you haven't been near his arms," Hill said.

"Ooh, Maria!" you shouted. "Some little agent's got a crush, and I think her initials are--"

"For the fifth time, (Y/N), shut up before I make you."

You counted on your fingers the number of times she had told you to shut up. You came up one short of five. "Fourth. For the fourth time," you corrected her.

Maria chose to ignore you. She instead focused all of her attention on Ward. "The battle of New York was the end of the world. This now is the new world. People are different. They have access to tech, to formulas, secrets they're not ready for," she said.

"Why was I pulled out of Paris?" Ward asked.

"That, you'll have to ask Agent Coulson."

Ward looked at you expectantly, then you realized that he wasn't aware that you weren't the only living Agent Coulson. "O-oh, not me," you said, raising your hands like you were surrendering.