Fuck. Fuck. The air felt like the heaviest it’d ever been, suffocating almost, as she sank to the floor, sobs uncontrollably rippling through her body. Her mind had gone blank the second Coulson’d broken the news, her legs somehow carrying her out of that room and away, away from all of the death, away to somewhere with oxygen, but her lungs were broken even in the secure remoteness of her office. She had her hand on her mouth in a desperate attempt to muffle all sounds, repress them, make them invalid. Even in her stupor she knew she couldn’t make a sound. She hated how she couldn’t feel scared for herself, the nonexistent amount of regard she had for her own life, how weak and hopeless she felt instead of the rage that should’ve consumed her. Most of all, she hated how terrified she felt for everyone else. She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t think or feel, all she knew was the static in her head.

Just as it’d started looking good for them. This is how it always started to crumble, and when it did, the rockslide couldn’t be stopped until they were buried alive.

Fuck.

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