Want a Hug

*Declaimer: I feel like this piece has some depressing thoughts in it. It shouldn't be a problem, but just to be safe, I don't want it to be a trigger to you. Otherwise, enjoy.

Melinda May desperately wanted a hug.

She didn't usually initiate hugs - she tended to respect others' personal space too much, at least the good people's. Or maybe she was just afraid of rejection.

Her young team members, on the other hand, could be really cuddly. Skye, for example, had no problem wrapping another person in her arms, whenever she saw it fit. However, she hadn't had the courage to do that to May. There were several times when the young woman looked at her with disguised sympathy, but she seemed intimidated by the idea of doing anything further.

Melinda sometimes wondered if she really was that kind of a monster.

She woke up at the middle of the night, shivering and disoriented. And she stared at the ceiling waiting for the sunrise.

She had nobody to turn to - or she had, she just chose not to. Because surely she could control her own mind, protect her own heart, and guard her dark secrets. She had done a fantastic job so far, hadn't she?

Reaching out for help was healthy and wise, which was why she kept encouraging her team to do that. She urged Phil to confess to her; she pushed Fitz to reach out to others; she guided Skye through her first few field combat. Those all made perfect sense, until it came to herself.

She could find a convincing reason for everyone on her team to be vulnerable, except for herself. She was way more experienced; she had both parents with her growing up; she was not the one who developed a hypergraphia or aphasia; she was not the one who suffered from an identity crisis over whether she was a human or an alien. She was healthy, fit, a fantastic pilot and fighter, and she kept her emotion in check in daylight. Her only burden was some ten-year-old memory she was trapped in, which was simply a bunch of electrical signals and chemicals. If she wasn't strong enough to get over it, she only had herself to blame.

She only let her vulnerability be seen when she was physically hurt, when she was in front of Phil, because she could hiss and frown and blamed it to unconditioned reflex. Phil always looked at her in such tenderness when he patched her up, and she could just drown herself in it. But that moment always passed and they bounced back to business at the instant. Phil was a man with integrity and responsibility, and he took his role as Director of SHIELD almost eagerly. She knew he cared about her genuinely, but she had this morbid feeling that Phil wanted her to be his right-hand man, the sharpest weapon and that was prior to anything else.

Phil meant a lot to her, so she wouldn't let him down; she was a professional in this job for morn than 20 years, so she wouldn't let herself down. Therefore, she kept going. Sometimes, out of nowhere, she could hear a cracking sound inside her body - she just assumed it was another part of her heart broken into pieces.

Phil told her to shoot him. Phil told her it was all over and he wasn't crazy anymore, and she couldn't be more relieved. But that night when she once again revisited Bahrain in her sleep, she fought through countless agents controlled by the gifted. She killed people mercilessly because the instinct to survive overweighted anything else, and Phil was standing 10 yards away, watching her with accusing eyes. Next thing she knew, he had disappeared. And when she turned around in perplexity, his face was faintly discernible among the bodies she left behind -

She jerked awake, heart pounding in her chest. A sharp stretching ache shot through her like an arrow; she curled to herself, tears pouring out of her eyes. She didn't know heartache could be physically unbearable until that moment.

Everything started to go back to normal, but she knew her nightmare would never end.

Among all the things they were dealing with, her issue seemed to be the most trivial one, so she just neglected to bring it up.

Phil expressed his gratefulness sincerely, and squeezed her shoulder. She should have feel fulfilled, because she did everything for him by a selfless motivation, and now everything was okay with him.

Except that her nightmare never ended.

She was pretty sure nobody would either notice or dare to bring it up about how much pain and stress she was in until she shouted it out and advertised it around the world, which she had no intention to do anyway. But she still needed a release, and punching bag didn't help because she could not afford bruising her knuckle for such a stupid reason. Instead, she came up with a compromise -

Occasionally, when she was alone with Phil and feeling extremely vulnerable, she let herself tear up a little. Deep down, she wished Phil would notice, and pushed her to explain until she yelled back, and she was completely humiliated by that kind of daydream. She made sure she hid her tears well.

She and Phil went on a new mission and ended up crumpled in the same motel room, leaving the only other room available to the youngsters. They lay in the same bed back to back, the same as what they had done for countless times in the past.

She listened to his steady breathing and all of a sudden tears just rushed down before she could stop it.

She was an expert of crying in silence. She knew how to breathe through her mouth so she wouldn't hyperventilate or make any sniffing sound. She bit down on the back of her hand and swallowed the choking. Those all worked out splendidly, but the trembles were the only thing she couldn't contain. She was terrified that Phil might actually feel that, but he might not because the bed beneath them was really soft.

Her body went still when she felt a hand on her shoulder. And moments later, her trembling went back but tenfold as intense, like it decided to take a revenge. She shied away from the touch and curled into herself.

The body heat moved closer and a strong arm circled around hers. It paused, and then seconds later her back was pressed into the warm body.

She could not think straight.

She lost the last piece of control.

She turned around and dived into Phil's chest.

He held her tight with both of his arms, too tight that it started getting a little painful. But she didn't mind - she had been through worse.

Her tears remained soundless at first. He tucked her safely under his chin, making the exclusive space for her to hide her face. He didn't try to intervene or even sneak a peek at her face, and for that she was grateful.

After a while, her tears slowed down, and her trembling was more manageable. She braced herself for being released, maybe verbally comforted and left alone to sleep. That was what always happened to her. She dreaded to face it.

But Phil didn't let go. Instead, he tightened her arm and pulled her closer. That gesture itself brought fresh tears into her eyes.

She lost track of what she was doing afterwards.

She must have sobbed like she never had before. She didn't bother to free her hands from the hug so she must have made a huge mess on Phil's shirt.

He didn't let go.

She felt safe to unearth all the grief she had suppressed in a dark corner of her mind. Whenever a different thought came to mind, she started to cry all over again.

At some point, her teeth sank into his flesh because the pain was too much and she didn't know how to scream.

He didn't flinch, but let his hand rub the areas they were covering.

She was having this massive childish tantrum but he let her. He wasn't telling her it was stupid, or futile. He didn't tell her everything would be okay because they both knew it probably wouldn't. He didn't make a judgment in anyway because she was likely to feel ashamed one way or another.

He just held her tight in complete silence, like an anchor.

Eventually she passed out, tired out from crying.

Maybe it was not such a bad idea trying to reach out to him next time.

Fin.

I don't know where this comes from. Humor me considering I'm pretty stressed-out and upset. But this is roughly how I interpret May in my mind. Writing Hurt/Comfort thing soothes my nerve. Anyway hope you enjoy this. And please don't fault me too much if this version of May seems eerie/pathetic to you.