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Radiance
An Agents of SHIELD fanfic by Aisling Yinyr Ngaio

He dismissed her at first glance. The legendary Cavalry was everything the reports - and the gossip - made her out to be. Cold. Calculating. The perfect agent. The only thing he'd felt for her then was professional respect; he saved his admiration for when he was able to see with his own eyes the expertise she allegedly wielded to deadly accuracy.

He had always marvelled at the stories about her. He'd heard about the Bahrain operation, of course, and how she had refused every single field assignment for the next year until the higher-ups stopped asking. Beyond that, it was as if Agent Melinda May had faded into the bowels of SHIELD Administration, while her legend grew like wildfire throughout every SHIELD facility, growing more bizarre with each retelling, completely at odds with the Level 7 Clearance mission debrief report locked within the archives of SHIELD.

She remained only in his peripheral glance as he kept his attention focused on the man next to her. The frequent thorn in his side, the favoured of Nick Fury, the miracle of miracles, Agent Phil Coulson himself. As he wrestled with the incredulity of the existence of a Clairvoyant that both Garrett and Coulson almost believed in, he mildly wondered what was so special about Coulson that he managed to draw the emotionless Agent May back into the field when hundreds of others had been met with blank refusal, especially when, if he remembered correctly, Coulson was the Commanding Officer in charge of the botched Bahrain operation.

He hardly noticed her absence during the appearance of the young SHIELD Consultant - and he had to hide an inappropriately amused grin when he felt Sitwell stirring uncomfortably beside him at her entrance - more interested in how highly Coulson valued the opinion and worth of this slip of a girl, skeptical and suspicious that his colleague trusted the former hacktivist so completely, especially considering what he'd started to wonder about the other man and his Level 8 compatriots.

And then he saw her. His heart stopped.

She was beautiful.

Felix Blake was stunned by the change her unguarded happiness had on May. As she led the Level 5s up to their friend, smiling proudly at their newest agent the entire time, he looked on, taking in how the glow took ten years off an already ageless face. He couldn't help being touched by the moment when he saw her exchange a tender glance with Coulson at this shared jubilance.

Maybe it was because of the girl, whom the entire team had famously rallied around when she had almost died, but Blake knew better. Such sincere warmth could only have come from deep within the older agent, who patted her young girl in congratulations, a telling action in itself.

Melinda May might be called the Cavalry, might be described as precise, impersonal, a specialist to her toes. It wasn't, however, the whole sum of her existence. She wasn't only the perfect agent SHIELD saw, trained and wanted. It would seem now that she was a woman of many depths and mysteries, of emotions and beliefs. There was so much more to her than he had originally realised, and he was intrigued by the facets she'd shown.

Blake wondered if he might have the chance to find out more about her.

- Finis -