Chapter Text
Coulson woke up in a small room, something akin to a cell. The room was white, with nothing but a mattress and some sort of metal desk. No door, no windows, not even a pillow to ease his sleep.
“Hello?” He called out stupidly as if someone would actually answer him. But, hey, it’s worked before.
He stood up, groaning at how stiff he felt before walking over to the desk. It was cold to the touch and nearly empty.
Nearly.
On the table sat a single piece of paper and a pen. It was an objectively nice pen, though there was nothing special about it or the paper.
Coulson looked around the room for any explanation, but the room was completely bare. When he glanced back down at the table, he caught a glimpse of something engraved into the metal. He ran his fingers over it before moving the paper to be able to properly read all of it.
“Trapped, cold, and all alone,
No window, door, or light to see.
Your fate is sealed, your mind must own
The key to your grim liberty.
A test not of strength, nor might,
But of a darker, deadly choice.
Write the name, in black and white,
And seal another’s silent voice.
Choose wisely, for this is the price—
They won’t survive beyond today.
To earn your leave, to end the strife,
Another’s life you must betray.”
Coulson looks around again, he’s not sure what he’s looking for. Maybe a camera to reveal this is all just a sadistic prank.
He doesn’t find any.
He reads over the engravings once, twice, five times until he’s able to make sense of it. The first stanza obviously is about how he’s stuck here, but is this a test? That’s what the second stanza calls it ‘a test not of strength, nor might.’ So what is he being tested on? ‘A darker, deadly choice.’
‘Write the name, in black and white, and seal another’s silent voice’. So all he had to do was write someone’s name and they’d die? That was his ‘key’ to get out of here?
Could he even make that choice knowing that their blood would be on his hands?
—
It’s been what feels like five hours. Coulson has searched every nook of the cell trying to find another way out. There's nothing. No door, window, or vent to crawl out of.
He glanced back at the paper. Sure, there are bad people he knows. Heck, there are really bad people that he knows the names of, but how could he kill them off just like that? It’s one thing when it’s a fight, it’s another just to kill someone because of what they could do next. Because of their reputation.
People can change, he couldn’t just give up someone else’s life.
He has to find another way out.
There has to be a way he’s getting air, right? Some vent he hasn’t found yet, or maybe he can wait around until his captors bring food? He didn’t know. The only thing Coulson was certain of was that he wouldn’t be sacrificing someone’s life for his.
He’s come back from the dead before.
—
Coulson got down on the floor and started running his fingers across the floor— it was smooth without a single blemish or indent, like the entire flooring was just one giant sheet of metal laid across the ground.
With no success there, he went to the walls, running his fingers over the surface from the bottom all the way to the top (which he had to pull the table over so he could stand on it to reach the top). Unlike the floor, the walls did have indications that weren’t just one giant sheet of metal. There were little indents between each one of the large rectangles that made up the wall—like the gaps between the sidewalk. He scratched at the material and tried to pry his fingers under it to tug at the wall but it wouldn’t budge so he kept moving. The corners seemed welded together which meant there was no hope for tearing the walls apart. Next was the ceiling, which was a far longer process than everything else he had to inspect because every time he cleared a section he had to get down from the table and move the table over then get back on the table and stare at the ceiling again in hopes of finding anything that he could use to get him out.
The ceiling didn’t look too tough so —stupidly—he punched it, which immediately shot a sharp pain from his knuckles to his elbow. “Ouch!” He hissed, recoiling his hand back and trying to shake out the hurt. “Well that’s not going to work.” He muttered to himself, getting down from the table and instead just sitting on the end of it trying to think of something—anything that he could do that wouldn’t result in someone’s death.
—
Hours passed. Or at least he thinks it’s been hours. The sterile white room with no differences from wall to wall is starting to drive him mad. The only difference between anything is the scuff marks on the floor from him dragging the table to reach the ceiling.
Coulson let out a sigh and dragged his hands down his face, looking over at the crumpled paper and pen.
He’s tempted.
Coulson feels like he’s going crazy, he’s questioning left from right and up from down. For all he knows he’s in space and walking on the ceiling instead of the ground. Wouldn’t be the craziest thing that’s happened to him. Not by a long shot.
His head tilted back and he groaned. “What if,” he started, talking to try to reason with himself “I wrote the name of someone already dead?”
He got off the table and grabbed the paper and pen, tapping the end against his bottom lip. “I could write Grant's name… Grant Ward.” He mused, thinking of writing but he couldn’t bring himself to do it, worried of what this twisted thing would do. Could it bring him back? If it did, would it resurrect the Hive with him? As much as Coulson didn’t want to kill anyone he didn’t want to bring anyone back either, at least not anyone they fought… he could try Daisy’s mom? But she died in an alternate timeline, who’s to say it would work here?
He set the paper and pen down, pacing the room again. This is all assuming the paper would bring someone back. And the instructions clearly state he has to write someone’s name down to kill them, writing down someone who’s dead wouldn’t kill them again.
…would it?
No, probably not.
He laid back down on the bed, staring at what (as far as he was concerned) was the ceiling and fading in and out of consciousness.
—
The next day (?) he woke up with the table back where it was when he first woke up here and the paper brand new. He just sighed.
Someone’s been in so there had to be a way out.
He searched the room again, top from bottom, ran his hands against every inch of every surface, praying for a way out. He’s met gods, but if any of them were listening now they clearly didn’t care about him.
Eventually he dragged the table up to the bed to sit at it like a desk, pen in hand, studying the blank sheet of paper. What if he put his own name? He’s come back before.
He picks up the pen — pen not pencil. The choice is permanent.
No erasing.
No reviving.
He shakes the thought out of his head; he’s come back. He always came back.
The pen clicked, satisfying but also resonant, the sound seemed to echo around the room but that could also all be in his head.
—
Coulson likes to believe he’s not very scared of too many things, he can’t be with everything he’s seen. He’s never been particularly afraid to die either, it was expected that he could give up his life for the good of the world or someone else. He always thought he’d be ready when he went. But now, pen in his hand, he realizes he’s scared because now it’s real, there’s no way he can worm his way out of this one. He sets the pen to the paper and writes a shaky ‘P’ before his mind pulls out every memory he has of May. The quiet nights, the rough days, the missions, the nights that could almost be date nights if he had the guts to ask.
Then someone else comes to mind, a younger girl but by no means a child. Skye. Daisy, now. From the first time she was a thorn in his side to her being a daughter to him in everything but legality.
What would Daisy think of this? Him willingly signing his life away, literally.
He doesn’t want to think about it because he knows what she would do. She would scream at him, accuse him of abandoning her while never outright saying it but he knew what she meant whenever she danced around the words. He knows she would storm into her room and cry, begging for it not to be true.
Could he do that to her? How could he ever rest peacefully knowing the grief he’d cause her?
But she’s grieving now. Coulson’s gone without a trace, she’d look for him, he knows it. But he’s not sure she’ll find him.
—-
He scratches out the letter he wrote and starts over. ‘It’s just a name.’ He tried to convince himself, but it wasn’t. Its never that easy. It’s not a name, it’s a person. It’s a life he’s ending. Could he look Daisy in the eyes knowing he killed someone without needing to? Could he look at his team at all if he killed somebody defensiveless against him?
Coulson sat his head at the desk — this was too much to think about at god knows what hour of the day.
—
The next time he woke up the paper was there again, clean meaning it’s been replaced. Someone, somehow comes in when he’s asleep to clean everything up, which probably means they don’t know what he’s written until they come to pick up the paper. But then how do they know which person they’re supposed to kill? What if they kill someone else with the same name? What if whatever name he wrote down was a really common name and killed off a hundred people? And the poem never specified ‘humans’ . What if he kills off random alien royalty and now Earth starts an intergalactic war?
His head hurt thinking of all of this but it could also partially be because he was slamming it into the table to try to think of something.
—
Finally, he wrote something. A random mix of letters he was sure didn’t make up a name in any language. Still his stomach churned as he laid down to sleep, scared he wouldn’t get up in time for his plan to work out.
He shut his eyes, sleeping lightly where any little thing could make him jolt.
Slide of a door.
Footsteps.
He doesn’t dare to open his eyes.
He hears the paper being picked up and before he can stop himself he jumps up and throws a hard punch towards the figure.
The wall— or at least what he thought was a wall was open. He grabbed the paper and crumpled it in his fist ‘just in case’ he told himself as he rushed through the unknown hallways, there were no alarms blaring above his head and no lockdowns which meant they didn’t know he was loose yet. Still, he didn’t let down his guard.
He didn’t know where he was running, he didn't know where he needed to go or where he was. He just hoped that with enough luck he could get out in (preferably) one piece.
Heart pounding in his ears, he ducked through dozens of rooms, some identical to the one he was held in and others completely empty.
Finally he dived into one and it had another entrance open. He went through it before he could second guess himself. The table in this room was bent like someone shot a cannon at it but it didn’t break.
In the separate room there was a device of some kind, in a blue holographic image was coordinates — coordinates to the lighthouse. Did they expect him to run? To find this place? Was his team in danger?
He touched the dome and when he did he found himself in Daisy’s room. A mix of emotions flew through him— how did they know where his team was? Why Daisy’s room? Was this planned for him to find?
He needed to find everyone and tell them what happened.