#especially sucks because for some reason they’ll be spending six days in a military base somewhere

[so-you-melted-22]

overcoming my social awkwardness, actually talking to people and fulfilling my dream of knowing what sour patch kids taste like

[marvelleous]

if my heart was a house, you’d be home (1/2)

summary: Some things happen for a reason, events that cannot be altered no matter what, even if all the forces in the universe try to bind together and prevent it. Or, the one where Phil gets back from his ghost-rider ordeal and ends up adopting a kid with Melinda.

notes: this idea has been haunting me since 5x08 aired - philinda raising robin together, and i finally came up with a logical and realistic way to make it happen, so i hope you all enjoy :) you can also read on ao3

The reality is, no matter how hard one tries to prevent it, some things happen for a reason; they keep happening, they always happen.

Fitz had tried explaining it to them before, about how there was no future, no past, how time was fixed, only a perception. She hadn't understood it then, but after being sucked into the future and fighting her way back, it made much more sense to her now. His theories were not proven entirely true either.

Their journey through time and space had the singular purpose of preventing the world from being destroyed, and against all odds they had succeeded. The earth, which they had seen for themselves, crumbled into chunks of rock and debris, was once again whole. Life had been restored, buildings standing where they had always been, the planet looking exactly as it had before all the destruction had begun. They had changed the future, altered an outcome that by all means should have been unchangeable.

But for all their efforts, some points do appear as though they are fixed in time, because the day of the diner really is the last time they are all seen together.

After the things they have been through, not a single one of them is equipped to keep going on like this, to keep fighting. Neither the human body nor the mind was designed to cope in such a way, and as wistful as they all get before they part, no one raises objections to taking a break from things, at least for a little while.

Fitz and Simmons take a trip back home to visit their respective families, prepare for a wedding. Mack and Elena on a much-needed break, to recover from their ordeal; losing Flint had hit them both hard, especially Mack who had still yet to bounce back from the events of the framework.

Daisy goes off the grid for a while, just travelling around, no one knows where.

Phil is the first to go.

He says his goodbyes to the rest of the team, and there are warm embraces and tears from all participants. Melinda stands to one side and simply watches, until he turns towards her and everyone else appears to have made a hasty exit, giving them a chance to engage in a more private farewell. She doesn't hesitate when he wraps his arms around her, leaning into his touch and reciprocating, holding him just as tightly.

They don't have much time.

He presses a kiss to the crown of her head and she digs her fingers into his shoulder blades, unwilling to let him go.

“I'll see you soon,” he whispers against her hair, and the conviction with which he speaks gives her hope, faith that they’ll be together once more. She knows that there is nothing that can be done to keep him here, that he has to go and live out his end of the bargain with the rider, and as unfair as it is, they have little say in the matter.

She kisses him before they part, short and sweet, a promise of things to come when he returns. They both linger until they are forced to part, and she is left wondering just how long of a wait it might be until he comes back to her.

Melinda had once said that, to her, Phil and S.H.I.E.L.D, were indistinguishable. Phil Coulson was the living embodiment of S.H.I.E.L.D. and it’s values, but she had not counted on just how true that was in all contexts.

She tries to rebuild, to recreate the organisation she has spent most of her life fighting for, but her efforts prove futile. More than six months pass and her new team is a mess of former agents and mercenaries, their base of operations an abandoned warehouse with a huge basement in the middle of nowhere and their technology limited to the scraps she gathered here and there.

Nothing really comes together until he returns, rather dramatically, in the middle of the night, with a gift for her no less.

She's standing in a tank top and a pair of leggings, feet bare, watching as her precious Zephyr makes a rather awkward landing on the empty field by their base. A group of her agents have gathered, hovering behind her, and she can hear their curious whispers, wondering what on earth was happening and why she hadn't bothered to get dressed before rushing outside. It's all she can do to keep still, to stop herself from bolting towards him the moment that Phil makes an appearance, the dorky smile on his face clear to her even in the poor lighting.

He looks exactly as he does the night that he was forced to leave, but she can see that a huge weight has been lifted off his shoulders, that he walks towards her with nothing but relief in his eyes. She lets out a little gasp of surprise when he pulls her into his arms and kisses her for the entire world to see. The agents around them let out whistles and catcalls, but she finds that she does not care, not when the person who matters most to her in the world has returned.

They stay like that for a while, just holding on to one another, basking in the feeling of being together once more. When they part, he leads her back aboard her precious aircraft, knowing that they'll have to find somewhere else to store it if they don't want military personnel turning up at the crack of dawn the next morning and having them all arrested.

When all is done and dusted, they curl up in her old bunk, the place where they had shared their first real kiss, in what feels like a lifetime ago, and they sleep, wrapped up in each other’s arms, having finally found a little peace.

They have all the time in the world now, hope for a future where they have happiness, with each other, which only means that something life-changing is likely to happen soon, because given their track record, peace doesn’t last long.

The first thing she sees when she opens her eyes the next morning is Phil, lying beside her, with a smile on his face as he continues to play with a strand of her hair, watching her as if he’s afraid she’ll disappear should he look away. He pauses when he realises she’s staring back at him, shifting as if to draw his hand away when she stops him, reaching out and tracing the edge of his jaw with one finger.

There's a lull, one that feels almost endless, before they close the gap between them, their lips meeting with the desperation of two people who have been apart far too long.

It doesn't start off tentative, because for once in their lives they're placing their own needs ahead of others, and they have been waiting for this moment for quite some time. She tugs at the hem of his shirt, forcing him to pull away so he can take it off, before she's climbing on top of him, straddling his waist as she maps out the scar on his chest, feeling the ridges and valleys beneath her fingertips.

He groans at the sensation, before drawing her down towards him so their lips meet once more. She drags his hand to her hip, urging him to explore beneath her shirt, gasping as he slowly tucks the material upwards. He takes his time, as if trying to savour the experience, but she quickly grows impatient, leaning back and removing her top, flinging it to the ground. She’s exposed to him now, completely bare from the waist up, and he looks as though he cannot believe that these events are finally transpiring.

“What the hell are you waiting for?” she whispers, pressing a kiss to the edge of his jaw, fingers teasing the waistband of his boxers.

The indignant shriek she lets out a split second later when he flips their positions and pins her against the sheets is probably loud enough to be heard halfway across the base, and she thinks it's probably a good thing they decided to spend the night aboard the Zephyr.

Things don't go back to normal after that.

S.H.I.E.L.D. has been struggling on under her leadership, but now that Phil has returned, they thrive. They find a new balance, working together and being together, making an effort not to keep secrets from another in both their personal and professional relationships.

He’s still reluctant to speak of whatever went down when he disappeared those six months, but that she understands, only wishing he were able to share some of his burdens with her. She has her own fears and worries, but they're easier to cope with knowing that he's here with her.

That they'll support each other, no matter what happens.

Daisy turns up three weeks later, looking exhausted and worse for wear, but it’s the little girl asleep in her arms that Melinda cannot take her eyes off.

“Her mother’s dead,” she hears Daisy tell Phil, and all three of them exchange a knowing look. Polly Hinton had not survived in their other future either, though they cannot know for sure whether her death is a mere coincidence, or another fixed occurrence within time that cannot be altered. It's not the time to dwell on such thoughts however; having Daisy back is something that brings her joy, and she doesn't need to see the wide smile on Phil’s face to know he's happy too.

It didn't feel right without her around. Phil had told her once that he thought of Daisy as a daughter. She hadn't made the confession that she felt the same way, because she never believed she could be a mother.

Not after her actions in Bahrain, even having seen what the world could have turned to had Katya not been put down.

She had only begun to question her own convictions after learning that she had been the one to raise Robin in another life, that her actions had ensured the world was saved, that she served a purpose in the world other than to fight and cause bloodshed. Perhaps if she was given such an opportunity now, she could do it, though her thoughts are only premature at this stage.

Still, as she follows Phil down the hall, watching him guide Daisy into an empty room so she and Robin can have somewhere to rest up, seeing the expression upon his face as he chides her about taking better care of herself, she knows he’s even better suited to being a father than being an agent. He smiles when he meets her gaze and while she cannot tell what he is thinking at this moment, she knows that he’s reading her like an open book.

“So… Daisy’s back,” he says, starting a conversation he should know by now will be mostly one-sided. She nods, turning her gaze to the closed door that marks the room they had been saving for Daisy, coincidentally right down the hall from their own. In the time that Phil had been gone, she had kept tabs on each of the members of their team, making sure that they were okay but respecting their boundaries and refraining from making contact. She had her own motivations for staying in the field, keeping S.H.I.E.L.D. afloat, and she wasn’t about to drag them back in before they were ready, or if they had changed their mind about returning. It’s easier now that Daisy’s back, and judging by the duffel she had brought with her, planning on staying, at least for a little while.

Phil seems to take her silence as an invitation to keep rambling on as they make their way down the hall towards their bedroom, where she assumes they’ll sit down and have a conversation about what to do about Robin. She has already drafted up a list of viable options in her mind, and despite Phil’s seemingly carefree expression, she knows that he’s doing the same.

The views of those in the world are changing, albeit slowly compared to the sudden physical changes undergone by inhumans, but it's still far too dangerous to allow a child with abilities to go into the foster care system. They have little experience with powered individuals so young, but she knows there must be a reason why children were not subjected to terrigenesis before they matured, both by Daisy’s mother at Afterlife, and by the Kree during their time at the Lighthouse. Katya was the worst case scenario, but they have no way of knowing what a good outcome looks like. The adult Robin she had spoken with seemed well adjusted enough, but still acted like a child in her old age, though understandably her circumstances were not ideal to begin with.

Keeping a child on the base is not likely to be a feasible option either; their lives are dangerous, surrounded by death and destruction, and to bring someone so young and defenseless into the fold is much too risky. There have rooms stocked with weapons, an aircraft with missile launching abilities, dubious allies and even deadlier enemies. Neither their base nor their people are equipped to deal with raising a child, and as cruel as it sounds, they would not be giving the situation a second thought if it were a regular kid. Any unpowered individual would be better off away from a life like theirs, even if it meant being passed from home to home throughout their adolescence until they were old enough to get by on their own. But Robin is no regular kid, and she cannot for the life of her think of another feasible option where S.H.I.E.L.D. can keep watch over her while giving her a safe and happy environment to grow up in. She can come up with a hundred more reasons why it would be a bad idea.

But the truth is, she only needs one good reason to change her mind. Whether that's enough for the both of them is another matter.