Archive of Our Own ^beta

Daisy showed up in the waiting room about an hour into it, two paper cups of stale coffee in hand. She was clad in an old, broken-in leather jacket of May’s, blonde dye washing out of her long hair and her nails painted some iridescent, chipping shade of purple. Phil stood up to greet her, grinned something easy so that some of the stress would leach out of her shoulders. 

“Hey, kiddo. Get here okay?” 

She handed him one of the terrible hospital coffees and leaned into the one-armed bear hug. “Came as quick as I could,” she mumbled, muffled. “Are they still--” 

“Gonna be a while, yeah.” 

Daisy blew out a breath and flopped into one of the soulless old plastic hospital chairs, careful hands cradling her own coffee. Phil watched them, finding May in every calm shift of her fingers against paper and plastic, in the straight line of her shoulders and her steady, wandering gaze. He sat back down beside her, despite whatever the damn chair was doing to his lower back. 

“This is nothing,” Daisy said, low. “Right? She’s-- this is, like, a boring weekday, for May, or something--” Her voice kept fraying as she spoke, the attempted levity harder and harder to believe with every word. 

“She’ll be fine,” Phil said gently, shifting in his seat and taking a long, bracing sip of coffee. It was terrible, and, of all things, nostalgic. 

Daisy took a sip from her own and made a face. “Yeah?” she said, staring into the little slit in the creaky lid like it might hold the secrets of existence. “So why do you look like making me feel better is the only thing keeping you from freaking the crap out, but like, subtly?” 

He laughed. “I hate hospitals.” 

“Who doesn’t?” 

“I don’t know, doctors?” 

“S’probably like base to them,” Daisy mumbled. “You get used to it. Maybe it’s better if you’ve got people waiting for you to get home, if you’re not here waiting for them.” 

“If you can do something,” Phil muttered, tipping his head back against the wall and shutting his eyes. They were gritty. He’d slept fine. May’d said she had, too. 

“Mack and Yo-yo are coming by. And I have orders from Jemma to call her as soon as we know anything, you know, jargon-y, or, just, know anything--” 

“Aw, she’ll have a welcome-back committee.” He grinned. “She’ll hate it.” 

“She’ll love it, and pretend she hates it until she thinks no one’s watching.” Daisy sighed, dropping her head onto his shoulder. 

“It’ll help,” Phil said softly. “It’s not just--repairing the tear, yeah, but all the old scar tissue, the damage-- it’ll help. If she heals up well, and she always does, unless it’s--” He shook his head helplessly. It hadn’t been preventable, exactly--they’d all done the absolute best they could for her, back in the future-Lighthouse, and she’d honestly been lucky to get out as okay as she had given the circumstances--but the way it felt like an unnecessarily vicious blow to someone who’d taken so many still ached. “Her mobility should get better. She’ll be in less pain.” 

Reconstructive surgery on an acute tear of the left quadricep. May had been reliably stoic and unexpectedly cooperative about it all. 

It’d started three days ago, when May had gotten home late from a class and Phil’s napping brain had clocked a gap--a silence after the crunch of gravel in the driveway, that ought to be filled by the creak of the front door. 

He’d gone out to find May standing braced against the hood of the car, looking irritated--and, somewhere beneath it, puzzled. She’d smiled a bit at him--his anxiety had immediately tripled--and gathered herself for a moment, walking carefully up the steps to join him. 

“You good?” 

She’d handed him the paper-bagged groceries she’d picked up on the way home. Another smile, a regular May smile. “Sure.”  

He’d been in no way prepared for it. She’d gone down hard the next morning, crumpled awkwardly bare steps in from the front door. 

“It’s fine,” May’d gasped at him, still on the ground, stark white with pain. “It’s just the quad, I’m fine--” 

She’d grabbed hold of him, gnarled knuckles squeezing white over his palm for a second. She was steady, even then, sweat standing out on her forehead, too-pale. His hands had been shaking. He hadn’t been able to forget it. She’d gone down like she’d been shot, taken a hit the way she’d done so many times before, and he’d started to rattle hard enough that May had reached out to hold him steady even before they managed to get her up off the floor. 

There weren’t any bullets. That was the point. He hadn’t realized, somehow, that he’d ever have to see that again. 

Daisy, wedging her coffee cup between her knees, dug her phone out of her jeans pocket with a sigh. Earbud cords were wound in a tangled donut around and around it. She shook them free, thumbing the cracked screen to playlists of downloaded music, and offered him an earbud; he peeked over her shoulder, curious. 

“Isn’t that…” 

“It’s May’s,” Daisy said with a half-grin, popping her own earbud in and hitting play. “I got her to ship one of them over last time; best thing to train to, especially off-world. She used to play this stuff in the cockpit. Wouldn’t say a word, when I went to hang with her, just rotated albums. I guess I got to know her through ‘em before anything else. Feels like home.” 

The Cure. Depeche Mode. Shriekback. Pink Floyd. Blondie. Very  80s, however huffy May’d get about the fact if it was pointed out. Some vaguely ironic The Smiths in there. Phil grinned. 

It wasn't what he’d listen to, or what Daisy usually would either, from what he’d gathered, but something about it eased the air in the narrow, beige-y hallway. Enclosed in a little bubble of the immortality of music, it was easier to believe--really believe--that May was just as invincible as she’d ever been, that the gurney and the fall and the way she’d stared steadily at him all morning, like she’d been trying to memorize something, didn’t change any of that. 

It wasn’t the first time he’d seen any of it. He’d seen her so much worse off; it wasn’t like he hadn’t been scared, all those times, but it was a familiar terror. Some kind of faith beneath it. He was still trying to figure out where it’d gone.  

The rest of him was busy being stuck on the fact that May had gone to the effort of compiling playlists on her phone. He’d made fun of her for being emotionally attached to actual, physical mixtapes for so long. 

Daisy tipped her head back against the sad, greyish wall. “I told her,” she mumbled. “I told her to get it checked out.”

Phil squeezed her knee. “I know.” 

“Come on. I mean, she had to have known this was coming, right? May’s always been, like, hyperaware of her own body. She complains about the joints and stuff, but the leg’s been getting worse and she just keeps pushing it--”

“I don’t think she knows how not to,” Phil said gently. Daisy lifted her head to stare at him, and he chuckled a bit and held up a hand to forestall the indignant flurry. “Think it through,” he told her quietly. “Not because you’re wrong, but so you know where she’s coming from. Can you imagine May losing her mobility? Limits on training, on teaching, on moving.”

“Yeah, that’s why I--”

“No, no. Can you picture it?”

Daisy blinked at him for a long second. “No,” she said softly. 

Phil nodded. “She’s scared, Daisy. She won’t say it and she won’t show it, but she’s been thinking about it. A lot. She doesn’t know how she’ll cope, and I think she hates that the most. So, was it smart, to just pretend it wasn’t going to happen? No, and we’re going to have to make some changes going forward. But she wasn’t being reckless, or careless. She just didn’t know how. Powering through used to work for her.” 

Daisy let go a long, slow breath. Phil stretched an arm around her strong shoulders and gave them a reassuring squeeze, smiling when she sighed and leaned into it. 

“She’ll be fine. She’s healthy and fitter than is probably reasonable—had to tell the doctor she was ex-MMA so he wouldn’t think it was weird—” 

“Would explain the joints,” Daisy sighed. 

“Hey, I don’t want you to worry about us, alright?” Coulson tipped his head preemptively as Daisy leaned away to frown at him. “We’ve done this before. A lot. Not saying this because we don’t want you with us, but--” 

“Yeah, yeah. I already talked to Mack. I’m off for two weeks, unless something crazy comes up--had a ton of vacation time saved up anyway. Then I’ll be in and out. Couldn’t keep me away if you tried.”

“We would never,” he promised. And then hesitated, Morrissey lamenting something probably morbid in his ear, paper cup still warm in his hand. 

“What?” 

Phil met Daisy’s worried gaze, took another gulp of coffee, and leaned back before saying, “I meant it. She’ll be fine. This next part, though, until she’s back on her feet… might get rough, kiddo.” 

Daisy bit her lip, tentative comprehension only halfway to dawning behind her eyes. She was opening her mouth to say something when her phone trilled, jolting them both. 

Daisy swore under her breath, unplugging the earbuds and wedging her phone to her ear. She grimaced apologetically at him. “Johnson. Damn, already? You guys got here fast. Yeah, fifth floor. Not yet… we’re still waiting. Did you guys eat? There’s a cafeteria on the ground floor… yeah. Sure, no worries. Thanks, Mack.” 

She thumbed quickly through the alerts on her phone as the call ended, chewing her lip. 

“Mack and Yo-yo?” 

“Mm-hm. Parking was hell, apparently.” She looked up, distracted, and then stilled, squeezing his arm. “Oh—Coulson.” 

Phil looked up with a jerk. The tall doctor was striding down the beige hall towards them; Phil jolted to his feet, his pulse picking up in spite of himself. The doctor wore a small smile. 

“The surgery went well,” he said, in the calm, even voice of a professional. Daisy pressed a quick palm to her mouth beside him, muffling a sharp exhale of relief. Phil, inhaling evenly through the same, noted small lines around the doctor’s eyes and the faintest tilt about his mouth; he made a few mental faces. 

“The preexisting damage was… extensive,” the doctor continued, in a tone carefully devoid of inflection. “More so than anticipated. The procedure was successful, but we’d like to keep her overnight.  Just to ensure there are no complications. You’ll be able to see her once she’s been transferred from the recovery room.” 

“Thank you,” Phil said on autopilot, half of him wobbly with relief, the rest taken over by the stubborn instincts of an unforgiving lifetime. Daisy echoed it, pressing her shoulder briefly against his. 

“Boy did he have questions,” she mumbled beside him, as the doctor moved away.  

“Rebar accidents happen,” Phil pointed out, kind of unconvincingly. Daisy’s eyes were sharp and steely, set on alert by the same things as him. He indulged a quiet curl of pride.

She wobbled a downturned palm in midair. “Too many inconsistencies.” 

She wasn’t wrong. 

“Questions are okay. We counted on ‘em. As long as he lands on whatever conclusion comes easiest and leaves it at that.” 

: : : 

The squeak of her ratty old combats was loud on the linoleum floor. Daisy poked her head carefully into the little hospital room and found a very groggy-looking May staring straight back at her, unblinking. 

Throat catching in spite of herself, Daisy pushed the door open. “Hey,” she called softly, clomping across the room. “May. You good?” 

“Hi,” May said, too softly. 

Daisy perched carefully on the edge of the bed, reaching out to brush her fingers quickly against May’s wrist. May blinked, with an effort. “They made us wait some more, so your husband ran out to get more coffee. More coffee. Already finished the cup I brought him, and that stuff would strip rust. He’s coming.”

May’s eyes drifted shut, then stayed half open. She focused on Daisy, something naked in her eyes. “‘M not married,” she mumbled. “Any…more.”

Ouch. Daisy squeezed her wrist gently, heart aching. Was she stranded in the past? Was there any of it that wasn’t painful? “Sure you are,” Daisy said lightly, staying half perched on the bed. “You signed all those papers, remember? You brought flowers, because Andrew did that for you the first time, but A.C. brought some too, and there wasn’t a damn vase in the house that could fit ‘em all.”

They’d been as no-nonsense as they could possibly be about it. They hadn’t wanted to leave things like medical directives up in the air. But everyone had shown up, Mack had figured out how to classify the everloving crap out of their statuses but still mark them both as married, and there’d been so many flowers. The cabin had been a riot of color for days afterwards. May’d split them up into little vases and set them on every feasible surface, and they'd lasted days before starting to wither.  

May blinked up at her. Daisy watched her gaze clear, a little, swiveling slowly through the rest of the room. May squirmed her wrist carefully free to weave still-clumsy fingers through Daisy’s startled ones. Daisy ordered her tear ducts to behave. 

“Good?” she asked, still soft, faintly befuddled. Daisy understood. 

“We’re good,” she answered firmly. “You’re good. You're safe.” 

May’s eyes flickered up to her. There was something that was neither disbelief nor acceptance in her gaze. Something in between. Simple trust, but mingled with something like regret. Daisy squeezed her hand harder. 

Rushed footsteps clattered down the hall outside. Coulson swung through the door, coffee in hand—

“Hey,” Daisy called, light to ease his worry, “she’s up, and she forgot she married you.” 

He mock-clutched his chest, cups abandoned somewhere. May stared at him like something in her world had been put right. She wrinkled up her forehead when he kissed her hair. 

“C’mon, Mel, you gotta stop doing that. You forgot how you knew Fury and you tried to talk him into getting a puppy ‘cause you thought he looked like a dog person or something, it was so embarrassing.” 

“I think,” Daisy said to him softly, May’s hand still in hers. She squeezed familiar, worn fingers. “I think she’s half stuck, like, 20 years in the past or something. I…”

“‘M not.” That slow mumble, clearer now. May blinked a few times, flopping her free hand in Coulson’s direction. He took it, smiling; she didn’t let Daisy go. “I remember now. Now is less lonely.” 

“They said it went well,” Coulson told May gently. She blinked, muddled but listening. “They want to keep you overnight, though.”

May frowned. 

“I know. If we didn’t have to rely on them I would, but we might have to come back here, Mel. Wanna keep your file as uninteresting as we can.” 

The door swung open for a third time; Mack and Yo-yo came piling in, stopping just past the doorway. May blinked at them like a startled bird. 

“They weren’t gonna let us in,” Yo-yo said breathlessly, coming over to squeeze a quick arm around Daisy’s waist. She smiled over at May. “Hey, Melinda. ¿Te duele?” 

May shook her head. 

“Ooh, they’ve got you on the good stuff.” Yo-yo smiled, all creasing cheeks and warm eyes. “Better make sure you get some to take home, you know it’s gonna hit you later and it’s not like you have ‘taking it easy’ in your vocabulary…” 

“Yeah, we’re definitely not supposed to be in here,” Mack rumbled, warm and reassuring, just behind her. “Hey, Tremors. Coulson. May. Hope you don’t mind us crashing the party. We just wanted to drop by.” 

“Didn’t have to,” May mumbled, in what would have been a convincing approximation of her best stern tone if she weren’t still looking slowly from one to the other, entirely too soft and bewildered and slightly awed at the little gathering. 

“Bullshit,” Elena said derisively. Smooth as running water, Mack had positioned himself so he was in direct line of sight to the one security cam, his broad frame blocking Yo-yo from view. “Hey,” she said, low and serious, “want an extract? We can do it, Mack’s already started clearing your paper trail--”  

“I was just saying, though--” Coulson jumped in, reluctantly. 

“In case you need to come back,” Mack guessed.

“Runaway patient,” Yo-yo teased. 

“You’ve gotta have AMA stamps in, like, every hospital you’ve ever been to,” Daisy realized, blinking. 

Coulson wore a look of mild despair. “Yeah, but most of the time we never go back.” 

There was a moment of silence. 

“‘S fine,” May murmured, breaking it. Coulson looked torn. 

“I’ll stay,” Daisy offered. “They’re probably only gonna let one of us, at most. Coulson, that sad lil’ couch will kill your back.” 

He started to protest, at the same time May shook her head. 

“Be fine,” she said. 

Yo-yo was frowning, but didn’t press the point. “Well, May, if you need subs for a class, let me know, okay? I bet Daisy and I can keep the kids in line.”

Mack tugged Coulson gently off to one side, probably to talk logistics. They’d driven an honest-to-god getaway car here, Daisy realized, fighting the slightly hysterical urge to laugh at the image of the three of them hustling a groggy May out some side door like cartoon secret agents, making their escape. All so May would be able to recover in the peace of her own space. She’d earned that, maybe more than anyone. 

They’d do it, too. They’d all do it in a heartbeat. 

“I am staying,” Daisy told May. Yo-yo, smiling a little in Daisy’s direction in a way that acknowledged May’s low walls, sidled after the guys. Daisy watched May watch their backs, watched her blink, watched as slow tears leaked quietly from the corners of her eyes. 

“Hey,” she said softly. May’s eyes flickered towards her. Daisy padded back over to perch on the edge of the bed and knuckled the wetness away, the slow rise and fall of May’s chest calming her own heart. “None of that. May, c’mon. All this time, you still don’t know how much we love you?” 

She didn’t say anything. But she let Daisy wipe them away, those tears that weren’t sorrow, and watched her family watch over her like she knew they’d still be there when she opened her eyes. 

: : :

Once you’d felt light for long enough, you stopped expecting the beast to come back. 

After the first week back home, despite it being home, despite everything she’d worked so hard to build, Melinda watched the unease creep in like a tide. The teetering, and then the drop. Get up. Scramble. Ground. Repeat. Old patterns. 

She could logic her way through it just fine. She did badly when she didn’t feel in control of her own body; that had always been true, even before badly had taken on a whole new meaning. Being laid up like this meant both feeling helpless and getting bored, both of which tended to make her the world’s most infuriated and infuriating person to be around. Simple enough, but the tamped-down nastiness of it brought older, more abstract things back up; she got stretched thinner. Shit got bigger. Rinse and repeat. 

She didn’t say anything about it, watched it build and fought it and failed, until Phil caught her almost crying into a half-done Wordle. 

“There’s, like, no odds it won’t be an English word,” he pointed out, reasonably. 

“But vowels,” Melinda growled, much less reasonably. 

“Well, yeah, so start with ‘em—”

She chucked the phone with flawless accuracy into the gap between couch cushion and arm. 

“I know you’re more of a sudoku kinda girl--you’re stupid good at sudoku, I still don’t understand it--but I didn’t think you hated Wordle that much,” Phil and his raised eyebrow teased, all gentleness. It made her want to find something else to chuck. Which made her feel increasingly like a child throwing a tantrum. 

“Patterns,” May grunted, trying to ease through the pissed-off breathing and pull herself together. “That’s it. Nothing to it.” 

“May.” The way he said it, the old ease and newer weight and a certain knowing, made this about something that wasn’t the stupid New York Times and its stupid mobile games. “I knew this would be rough, okay? It’s okay. Talk to me.”

“Nothing to say,” May said, madder than she meant. 

It filled her up, without an outlet. Went from unease to a buzz, eventually crowded everything out until it felt like there wasn’t any of her left. Just simmering, suppressed panic, frustration at it, a deep thread of horrible sadness she couldn’t even locate the core of buried way down beneath it all. She hated this feeling. She’d forgotten what it felt like; twenty years ago she wouldn’t have believed that was possible.

“Ouch,” Phil said, still smiling. He patted her good knee as a check-in, then reached out for her cheek with his good hand. The kindness of the touch, as well as the complete lack of a kick of panic in her chest in response, nearly broke her in two. 

“Hey. Hey, hey.” He rubbed a thumb gently under her eye, even though she hadn’t actually let any tears fall. “It was always gonna take you back. You knew that. I knew it. Doesn’t mean you haven’t made it anywhere.” 

She shook her head. 

“You feel like shit right now, and then it’ll be gone again. We’re here, we’re safe. We’ve got all the time in the world.” 

It wasn’t true. It could never be true. But it didn’t matter, did it? In the span of that moment, in a life where she’d forgotten what inescapable sadness felt like, they’d live forever. 

He placed a palm gently on her chest, projected the motion before he took her hand and placed it flat over his heart. 

“That’s in the sixties,” he said, grinning. His pulse thudded, steady and unhurried, beneath her palm. “Look at you. You’ve never hated the New York Times more in your life and your pulse hasn’t broken seventy.” 

And it was taking work. May shut her eyes, took a breath. 

His shredded heart and her broken body. And here they still were, hands kind and souls stubbornly whole. 

She tipped forward, thudded her head lightly against his collarbone. Breathed some more. He wrapped warm arms around her, and Melinda almost cried properly, relief and frustration and mostly bewildered, inarticulable relief. 

It felt safe. Inherently, undeniably safe. Like she could still feel safe in this world, even if her own legs wouldn’t hold her up. There was enough love around her for all the darkness to die into nothing. Didn’t matter how much of it they each thought they carried. It was the unchanging nature of the truth that sometimes made it something cruel, but never smaller. Never worth less. For better or for worse. 

Phil clasped gentle hands around the sides of her face, tipped away so she’d look at him. “C’mon, May, go easy. You’re healing up. You always do.” 

(The word of the day turned out to be NASTY. Daisy had gotten it in three.)

: : : 

[You, 5:38 pm]:  hey may. where were u when the hulk happened? 

[May, 5:39 pm]: What 

On the scene. Why? 

[You, 5:39 pm]:  WHAT 

AND YOU NEVER THOUGHT TO MENTION THIS

[May, 5:40 pm]:  It never came up. 

[You, 5:40 pm]:  it never came up oh my GOD

what else never came up??? 

[May, 5:41 pm]:  Aren’t you working? 

[You, 5:43 pm]:  i’m doing crucial correspondence so this one douchebag doesn’t talk to me, shhhhh. how r things btw? how r u?

[You, 5:51 pm]:  may? don’t ignore me come back

[May, 5:52 pm]:  I’m not. 

We were stuck on cleanup. Wasn’t that exciting. Andrew had to evacuate though. 

Need a flight out? 

[You, 5:53 pm]: nah. got it covered. be home probs late tmrw btw

what, miss me already? :P

[May, 5:55 pm]: Yes

: : :

Daisy stared blearily at the digital clock on her nightstand, fumbling blindly for the hair tie she could swear she’d left beside it. 2… something a.m., the rest of the digits getting lost somewhere in between her eyes and her brain. 

She hadn’t slept a wink on either flight, sailed through some smarmy conference they’d all collectively forgotten was scheduled on nothing but caffeine and finger food, and crashed the second she got home. The proper soldier’s vigilance always kind of abandoned her in the cabin. Either it was the knowledge that it would wake up if needed, and the sheer coziness of her damn bed after barracks bunks, or simply the sheer amount of defensive measures she knew were set up around the place. And the way the always-wired part of her brain dipped off for a nap as soon as she was close to May. 

Vigilant or not, though, Daisy was unfortunately—and unwillingly—familiar with the sound of someone parting violently with the contents of their stomach. She stood listening for a long second, eyes adjusting, half-wondering if she’d dreamed the whole thing. 

The sounds of quiet retching had stopped by the time she made it outside. The cabin was dark and quiet, moonlight washing the floorboards with a watery glow. Daisy hesitated and hesitated, walking slowly towards the bathroom with no semblance of a plan of action in mind. 

The door was ajar, inky dark leaking out. Her whisper was loud in the silence. 

“May?”

There was a rustle. May’s voice, a little rough, and otherwise perfectly normal. “Go back to sleep, Daisy.” 

Daisy braced her hip against the wall, pulling her hair into a sloppy ponytail. “Can I come in?” 

May sighed. Daisy shouldered the door open a smidgen, her socked toes just outside the threshold, letting her eyes adjust to the darkness. 

May was a small shape in the darkness, sitting on the toilet, a trash can barely discernible at her feet. Her head was down, one hand wrapped around the edge of the sink. 

Daisy took a breath. “Guess it wasn’t something you ate, huh?” 

“I’d find a kinder way to break Coulson’s heart. Go back to bed, Daisy. I’ll be fine.”

“You look… very not fine.”

“Looks can be deceiving.” She sounded exhausted. 

“You also look stunningly not-scary.”

“Who’re you kidding, you’re scared shitless.” The trash bag had already been replaced, the little bundle of the old one knotted and set aside. Daisy had no idea how she’d managed it. May sighed and sat up, rubbing at the side of her neck. “Help me up?” 

Daisy swallowed her surprise and pushed inside, reaching out a hand; May wrapped a hand around her bicep and mostly hauled her own self to her feet. The bulk of the knee brace threw her balance despite her best efforts. 

Daisy steadied her, reaching out one hand for the crutches propped against the wall. May hesitated, wavering in place, the need to leave no evidence behind clear in her. Daisy squeezed her elbow. 

“Let me.”

May’s composure flagged for the first time, and it just about broke Daisy’s heart. 

“You don’t—”

“It’s nothing,” Daisy said firmly, keeping a hold of her. May was steady on her one good foot, but Daisy could feel her shivering, however determinedly she was breathing through it. “I got it. We gotta get you off your feet, May, c’mon.” 

“I’m fine.” 

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m gonna make you some tea and we’ll camp out on the couch and watch something really stupid, it’ll be great.” 

“Any preference?” Daisy asked, two mugs of tea steaming on the coffee table as she scrolled through--ahem, creatively acquired--streaming access. 

“Not Friends,” said May flatly, “unless you want to see me ugly-cry.” 

“...not a sentence I ever thought I’d hear in your voice, wow, um. Okay, X-Files?” 

May made a face. 

“Hey, Simmons used to put episodes on in the lab, okay, that vampire episode is prime television. Gilmore Girls?”

May looked like someone had just decried the existence of green tea. “Hell, gimmie that.” 

“No, we got stuck on the day-trading site for, like, six hours last time. ER?” 

May blew out a breath of what was definitely resignation. “I don’t know, I don’t care, just pick something.” 

“You sure sound like you care. I’ll turn on a nineties rom-com for you, just you wait.” 

“You’ve Got Mail-me and I’m changing the locks.”

“See? You care. Ooh, Stranger Things!” 

“Never heard of it.”

“Inconceivable. This is happening.” 

May shook her head and retrieved her mug as the theme began to play, settling back into the cushions and closing her eyes. “You just got home,” she groused. “And don’t even tell me you slept on the plane, I know that’s bullshit—”

“I didn’t. Did drink, like, three espressos, though.” 

“I’m telling you I’m fine—” 

“Hey. I want to stay with you, okay? I’m not going anywhere. I can nap tomorrow, May, seriously.” 

May didn’t answer, or move, but she did give up on arguing. On the screen, a terrified Will loaded a shotgun with small, shaking hands. Daisy found herself tugged between unreality and nostalgia. 

“Feels like I’ve spent half my life on this damn couch,” May mumbled after a while, a little muffled. 

“May, it’s been, like, a week.” 

“And probably more time on a couch than the rest of my life put together.” 

“...I would say you’re being dramatic, but that actually sounds possible.” Daisy glanced sideways at her, sipping at her own tea. “You alright?”

May made an incomprehensible noise and waved vaguely at the tablet screen, eyes still closed. Daisy rested a tentative hand on one legging-clad ankle; May’s eyelids didn’t flicker. Daisy left it there, breathing softly, willing every muscle in her body not to tense up. 

May opened her eyes, after a while, watching her tea more than she drank it. 

“This guy’s gonna die,” she said after a while, as Nice Diner Guy shook Eleven’s tiny hand. God, Daisy had forgotten how tiny they’d all been. 

“Oh, you’re the worst.” 

“‘Cause I’m always right?”

“Just because you guessed the ending of Lost after, like, five episodes--”

“I was right, though.” 

Daisy sighed. “It’s unfair.”

“Life is unfair.” 

Daisy gave May’s good leg a jostle; she got the beginnings of a smirk in response. 

“Doing better?” she ventured. She  wasn’t sure how she could tell, exactly. Something in the way May held herself. May watched the bright little screen, rotating her mug between her palms.

“Mm.”

“Nightmare?” 

May shook her head. “Couldn’t sleep.” 

“You’re maybe the calmest panicking person I’ve ever seen.”

“Wasn’t panic. I don’t panic.” May studied the glare of the tablet screen, not really seeing it. She made a face. “I panicked once. Sucked.” 

“Yeah, no kidding.” Daisy hesitated. “Then what was it?”

May studied the tablet in silence long enough Daisy was sure she wasn’t going to answer. 

“Noise,” she said eventually. Daisy didn’t startle, but it was a near thing. May rubbed at her neck again, the warm glow of the lamp reflecting in her eyes. She grimaced. “I don’t know why.” 

“I could probably guess,” Daisy offered, tentative. It wasn’t like she hadn’t noticed. Without something to throw herself into, and a refusal to fade away, the strain had been starting to show. This might be rough, Coulson had said, and Daisy had figured he meant the recovering part, the staying still part, the restless, impatient patient May had always been. She hadn’t thought enough about why she’d always been that way. 

May gave her a small, tired smile, surprisingly wry. “Think you can spar me sitting down?” 

“Don’t know ‘til we try, right?” 

May huffed. “I just need to move.” 

Daisy nibbled at her lip. “You can lift, though, right?” 

May shrugged, sure. Daisy thought about the unthinking constancy of the training regimen May still kept to, the steady, dogged discipline to it she’d only half-understood. 

“We’ll work something out. Weights, maybe, and mobility? I dunno how you’re gonna do any cardio, but--whatever, that can wait. I’ll help. Just wipe yourself out with core or something, not like you need it—” 

“Daisy.” 

Daisy pulled up short, peering over at her. “No, hey, don’t look like that. May, when I busted my back last winter you washed and fed me like a baby. It wasn’t even weird. I…” Daisy took a breath. “You can let me help.” 

May’s lip twitched. Amused, and uncharacteristically vulnerable. “Never did have one of those, I guess.”

Daisy choked on air, just a little bit. May smiled slightly. 

“How’d DC go?” 

“Fine. Like usual. May, why didn’t you wake Coulson?” 

“Not usually a group activity,” May said, very dryly. “You never told me how Tokyo went.”

“Messy. But the productive kind. May—”

“Heard one of your kids ran point?” 

“They’re only kind of my kids. May.”

May sighed. “What.” 

Daisy opened her mouth, and then stopped. May had gone back to watching poor Nice Diner Guy meet his demise, propping her cheek against one closed fist. She blinked slowly, distant even with Daisy there, turned inward. Daisy studied her profile a moment and went quiet, letting it lie. 

May turned towards her, after a while, features cast a little strangely in the lamplight. Too much behind her eyes and nothing on her face. Just looking. Daisy looked back, something tender and protective and uncertain fluttering behind her breastbone. She gave May’s ankle a squeeze. 

“I’m here,” she said, and May shut her eyes. 

: : :

“--no shame in it, May,” Simmons’ voice, slightly tinny, was saying, as Daisy pushed her way through the cabin door the next afternoon. 

“I was married to a shrink for thirteen years,” May said impatiently, more heated than Daisy had heard her in a while. “You really think that’s my hang up?” 

The phone was propped against a colander; Simmons was on video call, May belligerently out of frame and… batch-rinsing a heaping bundle of kale? Daisy shrugged to herself and hauled the fruits of her errand-run inside: a few gallons of cleaning stuff, laundry detergent, toilet paper, a mop because their old one was steadily giving up the ghost, the set of hinges May had wanted for whatever reason from the hardware store. May pivoted a little, glancing over to acknowledge her, and then tipped her head slightly towards the window. Coulson was gardening, then, or out fiddling with Lola. May’s crutches were leaned against the counter, her hips taking the brunt of it with her weight swayed lightly to one side. 

“No,” Jemma said, determinedly stern and familiarly empathetic. “I don’t think you're hung up at all. I think you’re being entirely too hard on yourself. You don’t need to fight this, May. It doesn’t need fixing. You don’t need fixing.” 

“Didn’t say anything like that,” May protested. Daisy suddenly wished she’d taken a little longer with the car, dawdled around on the porch or something. Empty cabin or not, if May wasn’t willing to be overheard she wouldn’t have decided to have this conversation on speakerphone in the middle of the house; but Daisy felt acutely like she was intruding, somehow, disrespectful of all May’s composure and dignity. She wandered in the general direction of her own room, determinedly thinking of nothing but sweatpants and the softest tank she possessed. 

The voices floated in after her. 

“--waste of time,” she heard May say, distantly. 

“Was there a trigger? Or do you think it’s just the restlessness?” 

“No. I don’t know. I think I’ve forgotten how to do this.” 

Daisy stood in the friendly, dappled light of her little bedroom, staring unseeingly at five bent-headed daisies nodding in a jam jar on her bedside table, trying to pretend she hadn’t heard the very faint little thread of helplessness buried in May’s voice. 

It’d already been dark, when she’d come in last night. She hadn’t noticed the flowers. 

“You haven’t,” Jemma was saying gently, as Daisy emerged. She was just as stricken, Daisy could tell, hiding it flawlessly. “It’ll get easier, May, I promise. This is just a blip. It happens.” 

Hiding something flawlessly was not the same thing as hiding it from May. May buttoned up that split-second of vulnerability with a quick, efficient jerk. 

“It’s not at all unprecedented, you know. I should probably have anticipated this,” Jemma said, an apologetic grimace in her voice. “I’m sorry. Perhaps with a little warning…”

“Not your job,” May cut in, brusque but not unkind. “Thanks, Jemma. Don’t worry. I’m alright. I’ll tell you if I’m not.” 

Daisy could hear Jemma squinting suspiciously in the pause, see the crinkle in her brow. It made her grin, entirely involuntarily.  

“I’m not sure I believe you.”

“Give me some credit.” 

“Perhaps. Probationary. Say hello to Daisy for us.”

May looked over, an invitation. Daisy dropped whatever she’d palmed to fiddle with and padded over, squeezing May’s elbow in greeting. She got a small smile in answer, lightening anxieties she hadn’t even realized she was carrying. 

“Hey, Jems. How’s everything?” 

“Daisy! Everything’s fine.” Jemma beamed, all bright eyes and toddler-borne dark circles. “Good. Ellie's asleep, thankfully. I’m doing meal prep in the lull.” 

“What’s Fitz up to?” 

“Oh, he’s home, so he’s on napping duty--which apparently means napping with her.” Jemma rolled her eyes, all soft fondness. “Leaves my hands free, though. All this is really not all that different from the lab, when you get used to it.”

Daisy wrinkled up her nose. “Uh. Less gross stuff?” 

“Oh my goodness, make a rotisserie chicken from scratch and you’ll amend that theory.” 

“...I actually have no idea what that involves and I don’t want to know.” 

Jemma smirked at her. “I should go, get back to it before chaos descends. May, don’t think I haven’t noticed, you’ve been on your feet for far too long already.”

May made a protesting sound.

“And, Daisy, I’ll call you sometime soon--I still want to hear how that 0-8-4 went.” 

“Oh, yeah, I got Sash’s notes for you,” Daisy said with a grin, laughing at the way Jemma’s eyes lit up. “She got all stammery when I told her Dr. Jemma Simmons asked for a copy.” 

“Pffft.” Jemma flapped a hand, flattered and flustered all in one. “I look forward to reading them.” She studied them both through the screen for a moment, softening. “May… we’re all within reach. Perfectly safe. It’s not a bad time for it.”

May grunted, focused the heavy leaves in their stack before her. 

“We love you very much, you know. Let us know if there’s anything we can do for you.”

“You take care of your lil’ handful,” May told her, a smile lurking around it. “And take care of yourself.” 

“Send Coulson our love. I’ll talk to you two soon.” 

The kitchen was quiet for a while, after Jemma clicked off the line. Daisy rescued May’s phone from getting soaked on the draining board, bullied a complaining May gently to a seat at the island, and took over the remainder of her frankly ridiculous pile of kale, settling into a rhythm with May’s presence anchoring her from behind.  

It was surprisingly hypnotic, getting each frilly leaf clean. The bowl of water was frigid beneath her fingers. 

When Daisy broke the silence, she could feel May’s attention settle on her like sunshine down her spine. “I know you’re not gonna like me very much for this,” she said, refusing to let it come out tentative. “But I’m not letting you off the hook.”

May, being May, responded to that with a non-committal, “Like you okay so far.” 

Daisy spun around to stare at her. May looked back. Daisy sighed. 

“If I wasn’t here last night--” 

No apt simile, this time, but she could swear she felt May roll her eyes to heaven. “Daisy--” 

“Or even if I was, you wouldn’t have woken either of us,” Daisy said stubbornly, back turned. “And that’s not--” 

“Not what? Not acceptable?” 

“Not smart,” Daisy said, despairingly. 

“Why not?” 

It wasn’t the edge to her tone that took Daisy by surprise as much as the balk to it. Daisy propped her hip against the corner, half-turning, incredulous. 

“Why-- are you serious? May, you literally have one working leg, in the dark--” 

“I’m not senile,” May snapped—not angry, but properly frustrated, and fully ready to throw down over it. Daisy inhaled through her nose. 

“When did I--? This has nothing to do with you being senile. Or helpless, or- or less--” May’s expression shuttered. Daisy didn’t have time to linger on that. “May, that’s not the point.” 

“So what is your point?” 

“The point is--” Daisy inhaled a second time, made herself slow down. “May, you can let us be there for you. You have to.”

“I have to?”

“Does Coulson even know?”

“He has eyes.”

“That’s not the same and you know it.” 

May stood staring at her, long sleeves pushed up to her elbows, nothing at all in her eyes. Daisy wrapped her hands in the red-and-white checked dishcloth and stared back. 

“They good?” May asked finally, nodding towards the draining kale.

“Yeah. Tupperware?” 

The tension in the air hadn’t dissipated an inch. May nodded towards a waiting box. Coulson appeared in the doorway behind her, took in the bizarre Mexican standoff taking place in the kitchen, and ducked wisely out of sight. May was still standing, leaning on a single crutch, eyes following Daisy’s every move.

She sighed and unbent an iota, not bothering to turn. “We’re fine,” May called, clear enough to carry. “Stop lurking.” 

Coulson clomped nonchalantly inside, keen-eyed, every line of him gentled by clinging earth and wintry light. “Hey. Dais’, everything go okay?” 

“Hm, what? Oh. Yeah. The mop needs assembling, I guess, but they said it’s a sturdy one.” 

“We have any chamomile?” May asked vaguely, as he started around the kitchen. Daisy watched, nonplussed, as Coulson’s whole demeanor shifted. 

“Yeah.” He leaned his forearms against the island, attention sharpening, and then winced back to peel off a slightly muddy layer. “You want it now?” 

“No. Before… before bed, maybe.”  

Coulson nodded his acknowledgment. Daisy watched with wide eyes. He wasn’t ignoring her, or paying the kind of pointed attention that would have made her want to move away, but she was suddenly outside of this. There was a language of care she wasn’t privy to, something that made room for May’s tense shoulders and palpable discomfort, even as she was clearly finding all the words she needed. 

“So it’s still bad, huh.”

May said nothing. 

“You called Alyssa?” 

May winced. “No.” 

“Aw, come on. You know you missed her.” 

“That’s what the end-of-year text is for,” May mumbled, almost inaudible. 

“Mel.”

“I have the number. If I need it.”

“Okay.” He rumaged around in the fridge, tossed a few things onto the counter. “You up for…”

“Anything. It’s fine right now.” 

Coulson gave May a long, lingering look, and then smiled with a gentle sort of tiredness. “Left our pick today outside. Give me a minute.”

“Happy?” May asked Daisy pointedly, as he vanished back out the door.

Daisy had a split second to register her eyes. Her heart leapt into her throat. “I… oh. I, uh, you good if I hug you right now?” 

May grunted, but her arms came up to squeeze around Daisy’s back. Daisy held her tightly, squeezing her eyes shut and pretending not to feel something drip, featherlight, onto her shoulder. 

“I didn’t mean to push,” she mumbled at last, pulling away, at a complete loss as to what to do with that split second glimpse of May’s eyes, red-rimmed and teary. 

May rubbed rough palms over her face, gave a sniff, and faded uncannily back into her old stoic self. 

“Nobody makes me do anything,” she said plainly, a little chiding. “You were right. And it’d be worse for you if I didn’t listen. You’d be worrying all the time.” 

Daisy swallowed hard against the lump in her throat. “I wasn’t saying it for me.” 

“I know.” May gave her a very wan smile. “Do you want me to listen or not.”  

“Why…” Daisy paused, summoned all the courage she possessed. “Why do you look like your heart just broke, though?” 

May shook her head. “I hate it when people worry.” She gave Daisy another small, rueful smile. “There’s this look he gets. Like I’m so far from home.” 

: : :

Some of May’s students tried very hard to send their convalescent instructor a care package. 

“That was the flimsiest excuse I’ve ever heard,” Daisy called, sitting on the floor inside a donut of mission stat printouts. 

“They’re determined,” May said dolefully, pacing hoppingly back and forth across the floor. 

“You told your poor students to mail their package to Nebraska.” 

Coulson poked his head out of his and May’s bedroom, spitting out some screws to call, “You didn’t.” 

“I panicked,” said May feebly. 

Daisy gasped a startled, full-bellied laugh. “Bullshit, you’re just all flustered ‘cause they actually like you.”

“This kid used to be scared of me,” May told no one in particular.  

“No, but—” Coulson came out to join them, halfway through whatever it was May had forgotten she couldn’t currently do with those hinges. “Mel, you seriously still know the Nebraska address?”

“Yep.”

“And you gave it to them. The address to that one safehouse we blew three ways to Sunday.”

“What? It’s standing. Mostly. I know for a fact Nat routed a magazine subscription there for a while. Like a dummy email.”

“Melinda.”

“Guys, seriously, what happened in Nebraska?” 

“Oh, no no no,” Coulson said immediately, wagging an emphatic finger. “We are not getting into that without a lot more scotch on hand.”

“That’s what you said about Glasgow!”

May frowned. “I told you about Glasgow.”

Daisy gaped, flicking frantically through every unspecified anecdote May had ever told her. “When?” 

“Okay, focus,” Coulson interrupted. “May. There has got to be another dummy address. Why are you even giving them a dummy address?” 

“What, do you want me to give them this one?” May looked indignant. “Most highly classified registered safehouse, known only to eyes-only SHIELD files and three random civvies down in town—”

“Didn’t she say something about bread? Cake? Some kind of food?” 

“Apple pie.”

“Yeah, no way in hell,” Daisy hopped to her feet, papers spiraling to the ground like snow. “She wants to give you apple pie, we are not letting it go to half a safehouse in the ass end of Nebraska. Can I meet her somewhere? At the studio? I’m housesitting for you while you’re in Nebraska, I can get it to you with my, uh, logistics contacts. Save her the postage. See? Bona fide.”

“Daisy…”

“C’mon, May, you’re like, destiny-bound to have successive generations of students shower you with unwanted attention when you’re down, or something.” Daisy grinned. “Just roll with it, okay?” 

“You must be Skye.” 

Daisy startled the slightest bit--a normal amount, she decided. Not the slightly abnormal non-reaction she’d have given at work, not the exaggerated motions of someone visibly jumpy--why was she thinking about this like it was an op?

“I’m Carrie,” said the woman standing behind her, smiling. Early fifties, Daisy estimated, warm brown skin and stunning eyes. Her grey hair was cropped short with the faintest suggestion of a spiky edge; Daisy took this in, instinctively charmed. 

“Hi,” she said quickly. “Yeah--I used to be a student of May’s…”

Carrie’s brows knitted. “Oh? I’m sorry, from the way she spoke about you, I’d assumed you were her daughter...” 

“I- yeah, that too.” So smooth, Johnson. Maybe it would be a good idea to treat this as an op, Daisy thought weakly. Would at least prevent her from dissolving into a hapless puddle all over this pretty tiled floor. “I was her student first, actually, if you’d believe it,” she heard herself say, smiling, not totally sure why she was bothering. This wasn’t usually how she sold a cover, instinctive, unnecessary honesty in a package of adjacent-to-the-truth. “Kind of took the long way home.” 

Carrie’s expression softened, not in saccharine sympathy but a surprising depth of warmth. 

“Well,” she said briskly. “I know Melinda would prefer we all completely forget she exists until she’s back in class, but we’re not having it, so.” She twinkled. “We had to figure out something to tide her over, with how much she must miss us already.” 

I think I love her, Daisy thought, a little hysterically. Carrie all but thrust a sizable cardboard box into her arms; Daisy caught a corner in the chest with a little oof.

“The apple pie’s mine, light on the sugar and heavy on the cinnamon--I suppose you’ll have it all to yourself now.” Carrie winked. “Elizabeth said she had a spare Risk game lying around… who has a spare Risk game lying around, I don’t know, it might be a little well-loved, but everything’s there, and we figured it was better than… oh, Monopoly or some predictable thing. A few odds and ends in there, can’t imagine how difficult errand runs are right now, with them living all the way out wherever they are… we didn’t know about you, you see.” Carrie smiled kindly, pausing for breath. “And the kids wanted to send some things, when they heard…” 

There was a little stack of drawings at the bottom. Daisy took it all in, a sudden lump in her throat. 

“This is…” she looked up. “This is so kind of you. Thank you. I’ll make sure it gets to her.” 

“Of course! Well, you can go to town on the pie. You snooze, you lose, right?” 

 “That’s… I, yeah. Totally. I’ll enjoy that. Thank you, truly.”

Carrie leaned in. “She’s not really in Nebraska, is she?”

“Sorry?” 

“Well, I talked to Elizabeth, you know, and Sarah G--she’s got her precious little niece Ro taking classes, the mom wasn’t so sure about it at first, but now she’s thinking about joining, too--” 

Daisy had an absurdly vivid vision of May as some suburban mom somewhere, keen eyes and sturdy kindnesses, reaching out to a struggling young mother at soccer practice; of Mack, hand in hand with a grown-up Hope, laughing under the sun; of herself, softer, lighter, seeing new places for the sake of seeing them, built of something other than drive and longing. Carrie brushed her elbow. Her eyes were bright, as steely as any seasoned warrior Daisy had ever known. 

“I’m not asking for any information. I don’t want it. Just tell her, okay? If some fuckers come nosing ‘round where they shouldn’t, her students haven’t seen a soul.”

: : : 

Phil swore under his breath, setting the pair of mugs down with a hasty clatter as hot coffee splashed all over the counter. 

“Phil,” May groaned from the couch. She’d craned over to watch, somewhat immobilized with her leg propped on Daisy’s lap. 

“I know, I know—” 

“A.C., c’mon, you gotta come get Europe back from May. She’s getting too powerful, c’mon—”

Little plastic packets of creamer were scattered over the scrubbed wooden surface. He fished two out of the little pool of spilled coffee with a grimace. The kitchen smelled nice, at least. 

“Thought you two had an alliance going, or something,” he called back. The gloominess was warranted, they’d thrashed him with it. 

“Mutually beneficial arrangement,” May informed him primly. She was studying the Risk board with a critical eye. 

“Which is now over, meaning it’s within my interests to keep you from getting wiped off the board.” Daisy peeked over at him. “Uh, you want a hand?” 

“No, Mel looks comfy. Ugh.” He mopped up the mess on the countertop, rinsed off Daisy’s pilfered creamer packets, and grabbed May’s steeping tea, distributing mugs as he made his way back to his spot. Daisy and May broke what appeared to be an honest-to-goodness staring contest to turn and give him matching smiles of thanks; Phil hid a laugh in a too-big gulp of scalding coffee and spluttered, sinking back into his own seat to recover himself. 

“Who’s turn is it?” he asked brightly, knowing full well whose turn it was. 

“Yours,” Daisy said solemnly, maybe a little too much glee in it. Phil surveyed the board forlornly. A sad little cluster of infantry guarded his little corner of South America, hemmed in on all sides by May’s army of nonchalantly threatening cavalry. He had a tenuous hold on Madagascar and Alaska, the latter making him a massive nuisance to both May and Daisy’s ambitions of conquest; he also had a stronghold in Greenland. What good a stronghold in Greenland was supposed to do him, he had no idea. 

“Alright, Daisy, we’re going to bat.”

And there went Madagascar. 

Daisy scratched her head, looking at the board. May had her cavalry reinforcing borders and bottlenecks, holding two continents and a half; despite far and away sufficient numbers, she’d almost entirely opted out on swapping in artillery. Coulson still wasn’t sure whether she was enjoying the irony, or unironically enjoying taking over the world with tiny blue cavalry. 

“Okay, you guys are strategists, right?” 

“Tactician,” said May smugly. Phil snuck a glance at her, letting himself take in the loose line of her shoulders and the gleam in her eyes. She wasn’t all the way back to herself yet, but she was getting there. His gaze roved to Daisy, fiercely present and stubbornly uplifting. What lights he was surrounded by. 

He pulled his attention firmly away from the ache in his bones. 

“I had a strategy, it’s the luck I don’t have--” 

His luck turned. Ish. He held onto Greenland for the next seven turns. By the time Daisy finally kicked him off the board for good, another hour had passed, the sun had mostly set, and she was howling with laughter, squinting at her newly acquired territory card through her tears. 

“How. How did you last that long, you were down to three guys!”

“Either the board game gods hate me or love me, I dunno which one it is.” 

“Both,” May said solemnly. 

He made a face at her, and then made grabby hands for her phone, lying faceup on the coffee table. “Alright, gimmie. I’m soundtracking this battle.” 

May tossed it over without complaint--they tended to use her phone for music, partly because she reached for it least and partly because her music applications had been curated to all their tastes at this point--and then looked up with a jerk, thirty seconds later. 

“Oh, no way in hell.” 

Phil caught a throw pillow with his grin and spluttered, properly catching the second one she lobbed his way. 

“Did I say I wanted to be back in flight school?” 

“You love this song!” 

She paused to listen for a second, as Sinéad hit her first high note. The song was as searing as it’d ever been. For a second, Phil was staring out at the dizzying whirl of a spinning sky as May tore through gleeful loop-the-loops; hearing her old flight instructor’s vaguely-proud-bellowing ring in their ears, her hair lashing his face as they raced on a rattly motorbike back towards campus. 

Daisy mouthed along with the first chorus, eyes wide, momentarily distracted from the dice cradled in her hand. Listen to the man in the liquor store… “Okay, this is… whoa.”

He glanced sideways at the nostalgia writ uncharacteristically plain over May’s face. “May’s always had her stuff in her playlists.” 

“Mm, bits and pieces.” May canted her eyes towards the board. Daisy screwed up her eyes and rolled--and then groaned. 

“Yeah, no, I remember the album cover from… somewhere. Never heard this one, though.” 

May shook her head. Coulson nudged her. “When was the last time you listened to this?” 

“Night after your memorial,” she said offhandedly. Coulson choked a little. Damn. May cut her eyes at him, but affectionately. “How'd you remember? We weren’t friends until… I don’t know, a year after this? At least.” 

“Oh, you were still playing it.”

Daisy looked between the two of them, eyes bright with curiosity. “What year was this?” 

May squinted. “‘87? I think. I was nineteen. First year at the Academy.” 

Daisy choked on a mouthful of tea. “Y- you--” she wheezed, “fuck, sorry, May, you joined SHIELD when you were nineteen?”

May thumped her on the back, one eyebrow raised. “Yes?” 

Daisy stared at her, stunned. For one fleeting second, her eyes went dangerously glassy; May looked alarmed. 

“No, no, don’t start looking for exits. Sorry. I’m not freaking out. Or anything. It’s--” Daisy cleared her throat. Phil thumbed quietly at the volume controls, hushing it a little as the song crescendoed. You live in the past and talk about war… “May, that’s… that’s a really long time.”

May studied her, questioning. Phil smiled gently as Daisy’s gaze skidded over to him. 

“Coulson…”

“I was twenty-one. We didn’t share a ton of classes until our second year. Well, my second year. May’s third, right?” 

May hummed. “Well, there was that time in the Sci-Tech lab.” 

“That doesn’t count, that was just me watching you scare the shit out of some punks with half an Erlenmeyer flask.” 

“Mm. Don’t remember what they did. They probably deserved it.”

“Wait, wait--” Daisy waved her hands like she was batting away a swarm of mosquitoes. “Wait, you guys were babies!” 

Phil grinned at her. “May had short hair. And then she grew it out all the way to her waist and took out people’s eyes with the braids for a while, it was a thing.” 

“Phil actually had hair,” May told Daisy. She snatched his retaliating throw-pillow projectile out of the air without even looking at it. 

“Hey! Rude.”

She gave him a familiar, faintly wicked smile and held out her hand for the phone. “‘C’mon, your turn to time travel.” 

“Oh no.” 

She put on 1959, which was a brilliant and simultaneously deeply unfair pick. It had Daisy sitting up straight again. 

“The Sisters of Mercy!” 

May smiled at her, and then swore as Daisy rolled the dice. Daisy crowed. 

“Two in a row, thank you very much--”

“You guys should just agree to split the world down the middle,” Coulson said, staring at the board. “How is this gonna--” 

May’s phone buzzed. She peered over at it, and then full-body winced. Daisy looked up. 

“Who--?” 

May flashed the screen at her. Dad. 

“Ah. So did you tell…?”

“Nope.”

“Aha.”

May stared at the screen in silence for a long, long second, and then shut her eyes and answered it like that. 

“--not alone,” May said loudly enough to cut right through the hushed discussion Coulson and Daisy had started on the side, mostly to offer her some privacy. 

 They both sat up like meerkats. May was looking plaintively at them, head tilted slightly to the voice on her phone. She sighed a little melodramatically and put the phone on speaker, extending it in their direction. 

“Wanna say hi?” 

“Hi, Mr. May!” Daisy piped up, a little tentative. 

“William!” Coulson called, searching May’s gaze over Daisy’s head. She looked helplessly at him, conveying I don’t want to worry him but he was married to a goddamn spy without having to say a single word. 

“Hello, Phillip, Daisy. Daisy, what did I tell you?” 

“That I can-- yeah,” Daisy stammered, clearly still a little awed, and thoroughly unable to convince herself to first-name May’s dad. “Yep! How are you?” 

“Well,” he said, as serenely dignified as ever. “My daughter, meanwhile--”

“Dad!” May protested. 

He switched into rapid Cantonese, too quick for Phil to keep up with. May buried her head in her hands. 

“I promise I’m eating enough--”

“You must make time to sit by your graves,” William May said calmly in English. May stilled so completely it was as though she’d startled. “Take the time you need, Mellie. Do not be ashamed.”

At that last word, May looked away. Something froze in the air of the little cabin, all of May’s usual reticence a sudden chokehold. Daisy looked to Phil, wide-eyed. 

“What are you fighting, hm?” William asked rhetorically, stern enough that Daisy’s eyebrows hiked up her forehead, sterner than even Phil had ever heard him. He sounded like May. “You lose once and you think you must live there for the rest of your life.”

“Dad, enough,” May said roughly, hand pressed over her eyes. Her tone softened, as soon as she could get it to without cracking. “It’s been twenty years. I brought you a grandkid, eventually, didn’t I.”

Phil watched Daisy give the silent version of a squeak. That landed tenderly, he thought, something already on Daisy’s mind doing the work of peering through May’s ragged tone. 

“It is not yet twenty.” William corrected primly. He softened in turn. “And yes. Do you still think this is about disappointment, Mellie? You are almost sixty; I would hope you know better by now.” 

May fizzled further into the couch, letting loose a string of quiet, vehement syllables. 

A long-suffering sigh filtered through the line. “You and your mother. Always Russian for cursing.”

“Wasn’t cursing,” said May, lamely. “Dad—come on. Let’s talk about something else. How are you? How are the cherries?” This was visibly desperate; William’s miffed silence said as much. May sighed. 

“Do you need anything?” she asked in Cantonese, her cadence always familiar enough for Phil to get the gist, however useless he otherwise was at the language. “Can I do anything for you? I’m not back where I was, Dad. And they’re taking care of me. Don’t worry. Please.” 

“I cannot call just to say hello to my daughter?” 

May groaned. 

“Let your family take care of you, Mellie. I know what you have done in your life; but it is a father’s job to worry anyway.” Gently, he said, “My daughter always gets back up.” 

There was a long silence after the dial tone. May cleared her throat and then offered her phone to Daisy, finally looking her in the eye with a small smile. 

“Here. Your turn to take us back in time.” 

The chokehold broke. Daisy gave a soft, surprised chuckle, tentative but no longer frozen. Phil moved around to the sofa arm at May’s back, sinking onto it and wrapping an arm around her shoulders. She leaned into it. 

Daisy rubbed a palm absently over May’s good shin, typing with one hand. Only Phil saw May shut her eyes for a long moment, saw her face crumple for a fraction of a second and then smooth out like a calm sea. 

She gave his wrist a squeeze, reached out to touch Daisy’s cheek and brush her hair behind her ear, and then disengaged gently, limping off into the kitchen to fiddle with something or other. Daisy looked up to meet Coulson’s eyes as Bitter Sweet Symphony began to play, something soft and new and unnameable in her eyes. 

: : :

After dinner, the second Terminator movie played on low volume to a dozing May and the twilight sky. 

Daisy hopped lightly up to sit on the counter, feet swinging, settling herself with a hum. 

“Hey. A.C., how d’you feel about consults?” 

Phil glanced up from the dishes to slant a distracted smile at her; he was trying to get their cutlery to clink as little as humanly possible. “You know how I feel about consults, Dais.” 

“I mean, yeah. Only ever a phone call or a couple inter-dimensional rips in space-time away, yada yada. That’s… like, at least sixty percent so I know I’m never alone, though. Not how you feel about ‘em.” 

He blinked up at her. Daisy was smiling at him, as incisively perceptive as May had ever been, but with the slightest hint of a self-depreciation May had belligerently banished from her person.

Daisy had shown flashes of leadership from the beginning, the skills that could have made May a great leader and the qualities that had instilled in Phil a desire to be one somehow united in her. The ease to it, though, of her role and place in it all, was a much newer thing. 

Something about the thought made the heavy, gently melancholy thing that had been hovering around him all day finally settle over his shoulders like it fancied itself something warm. 

“That’s important,” Phil heard himself say. 

Daisy rolled her eyes, all affection. “I know. You guys’ve made that clear, trust me. That’s what you’ve built, Coulson, don’t forget. That’s your legacy.” She waved a hand. “Finding people who are lost, giving them purpose, a place to belong. A way to matter, a place to come home to. Of course it matters.” 

“So…?” he prompted, firmly ignoring the slight clogging thing his throat was trying to do, and flapping a hand to get her to pass a sauce-stained pan. Daisy obliged. 

“We…we think of you guys a lot, you know? I mean, base isn’t the same without you two--or FitzSimmons, of course--there’s that. But--your experience, your vision.” She shrugged. “Things are…shaky right now. Climate’s uncertain, at home and everywhere. Geopolitical heavy-hitters keep swinging hard enough we’re scrambling to grasp what some parts of the job are gonna look like going forward, you know? Contingencies, and all that. You and May, getting your input, your guidance, are  part of a lot of them. But I’m not gonna make that policy before we’ve had a chance to talk about it.”

“What’d May say?”

“Nothing.” Daisy shook her head. “I mean, not her kind of nothing, I just haven’t asked her yet. I know she’s feeling rough, I didn’t wanna talk shop before she’s...” Daisy hesitated. “I mean, I don’t think she’d mind. But.” 

“You don’t have to tiptoe,” he heard himself say, despite the fact that Daisy’s unabashed refusal to ever tread too carefully around May was one of the things he was pretty sure helped her the most. 

Coulson shook himself. 

He’d woken up that morning with some part of him stuck years in the past, with certainties he’d lost and things he hadn’t understood well enough to fix. May’d been awake, early-morning grey softening the lines of her face, but hadn’t moved, because he’d reached out for her at some point before falling asleep and she hadn’t wanted to let go. The unwilling remembering felt like it was blurring his vision, making him see things that weren’t there. Or missing things that were. 

“She’s alright,” Daisy said gently. 

“I know.” 

Daisy craned to look over his shoulder, half a fond smile settling into place like it sat there regularly, grooves worn comfortable and warm. “God, that’s the best scene. I can hear it from here. She wakes up if you breathe wrong but she sleeps through that?” 

May was fast asleep on the couch behind them, a quilt drawn up tightly the way she liked it and her face turned towards the cushions, blocking out the world. She was still barely sleeping, nights, restless at best and struggling at worst--but she’d been napping agreeably enough, most days, so he was trying not to fuss. It helped that turning on literally anything, dumb action flicks or nature documentaries or How I Met Your Mother, tended to work like the world’s best lullaby. 

Provided it wasn’t the kind of no-holds-barred horror he’d accidentally turned on in shitty hotel rooms a few times, and she was somehow prevented from moving or reading--and thus staying awake to be judgy--May had been that way since they were young. Andrew had made fun of her for it for years. She’d very gruffly told Daisy not to resume Stranger Things when she’d fall asleep and Daisy had been gleeful about it for about an hour afterwards. 

“Mostly, I think you have kinda different feelings about it than she does.” Daisy had gone back to watching him, too-shrewd. “More complicated ones.” 

He shook his head, considered denying it, and decided he couldn’t be bothered. Not with Daisy. “Who’d’ve thought, right?” 

“I mean. I did.” 

“She compartmentalized,” he said finally. “From the beginning. She loved the work, always did, but she wanted more for her life. So she had to learn to keep things separate--was good at it, too. But she cut everything out but work, when it all fell apart, so it got hard to see. That skill, though, it’s still there.” He shrugged, a little helplessly. “Ask her. Talk to her about it. But I’m pretty sure, if you really need her, she’ll know what needs to be done. I’ve only ever lived the one life, Daisy. Up until now. I don’t know if… I know how to do both. Straddle the line without losing something?” 

Daisy nodded. “May’s usually the one scared of fucking things up.” 

And wasn’t that a weird thing to hear out loud, spoken so kindly, and be registered as true. Daisy’s tone was empathetic in a way he didn’t question.

“She has no idea.” 

Daisy laid a hand on his arm, reached out and wrapped strong fingers around his hand once he’d fished it out of the water. The fingers of his right hand pruned, the left didn’t. A little thing, but it’d never gotten less weird. 

“Look, Andrew died, and she just kind of showed up for work the next day, right? She gets impaled and she just gets back up and beats the crap out of some aliens. She wasn’t okay. But, Coulson, I’ve never seen her like this. She’s just letting us see her. Like it’s not hard. You know how huge that is, for May?”

It’d been hard, sometimes, back when he’d been clinging desperately to Quake’s trail, to not feel like he was stuck in some kind of alternate nightmare universe and hunting the Cavalry. 

May had taught Daisy all her tricks. All of them. They just played out differently. A different eye. 

May’d had such a good instinct for the macro, right from the time they started off. Long term strategy, pressure points and Batman gambits, for all she called herself a tactician. She liked the practicality of it all, the nitty-gritty of the tangible side of things, but she’d get bogged down in the same details Phil had a knack for. Daisy had both. 

Sloppy, despondent, and desperate as Vigilante-Daisy had been, she’d still so clearly been trained by the best. 

He’d never actually tracked May, of course. Even when he couldn’t reach her, he’d almost always known exactly where she was. 

“I missed her so much, kiddo.” I missed both of you. Two of the people he loved most in the world drowning right before his eyes, and nothing he could do but watch. 

Daisy studied him. God. Talking to her on the phone sometimes, imagining her on missions, he still pictured Skye. Brave and bright and aching for things she should have been able to take for granted. But how this beautiful girl had grown. 

“She talks about it more than you do, you realize that?” 

Phil blinked. “What?” 

“Bahrain. After. All of it.”

For a second, he could only stare. 

“Just casually, in conversation. She told me depression’s a bitch, and you can’t address it by itself if it’s coming with something else.”

“She said that?”

“I mean, not yesterday, but a few months ago, yeah. I called her in a funk, kind of hoping for a lecture, and I got that instead.” Daisy shrugged it off. “Another time she told me a little about working in Admin, when I asked. The girl in the cubicle right beside her would play country music concerts on late shifts, on speakers. She said she couldn’t touch a gun without wanting to barf for years, but she’d just go sit by the firing range. Until she could. She just talks about it. As much as she talks about anything.”

Daisy almost looked surprised herself, telling him. He knew the feeling. May was so sparse, when she decided she was willing to talk about things, that you never realized how much you’d learned until you were thinking about it. 

“But you just don’t.”

“Not mine to talk about.”

“Maybe you should.” 

He blinked again. 

“She’s not breakable, and you get just as sad as she does, sometimes, but about different things. So talk about it. Doesn't have to be with me.” Daisy flapped a hand. “But, seriously. I talk to her like she’s gonna be okay, because I know she will be. But you have to talk to her when she’s not, or when you’re not, so she knows she’s not letting you down. It’s not rocket science, Coulson!”

“Letting me…? What?”

Daisy shook her head. “Look, I wasn’t there, right? You were. You were there for her. And you brought me home. Or—you made sure I knew I had a place to come home to, and you waited until I was ready. You know what she told me, my first night back? When I was at rock bottom?” 

He shook his head wordlessly. 

“She told me you weren’t the kind of person who gave up on people. And she knew that because you never gave up on her.”

He remembered that day. Nothing she didn’t already know, May had told him. She’d been pissed about a lot of how things were going, but she’d also started painting her nails again. Curling her hair. It’d filled him with a relief he wasn’t brave enough to think too long about. 

“Don’t treat her like glass, Coulson,” Daisy said softly, still holding his hand. “You’re doubting yourself, but you’re doubting her, too, and she’s worked way too hard for that. You guys need to talk.” 

: : :

Trying to get to sleep sucked for a lot of reasons, these days; Melinda, lying stiffly on her back and trying vainly to convince herself she didn’t need to pee, was making a conscious decision to be pissed about the pettiest ones.

Coulson came padding out of the bathroom as she was prodding fruitlessly at one of the pillows stacked under her knee, a single sock in hand, the lights already dim. 

“You alright?”

May slumped back and resigned herself to sleeping on her back, waking up stiff to her hips. “Should’ve peed.” 

He laughed, prowling around for the missing sock. “Wouldn’t it be better to get up now, than, like, at 3 in the dark?”

“No.”

He pulled a lone maroon sock out of a drawer, stared at it for a second, and then pulled it on along with the grey one. “May…”

It was late. Warm in their little room. The curl of voiceless, purposeless dread in her gut was exhausting but easy enough to disregard. God, it’d been so long since she’d felt like this. Held. Lonely, in the grips of her own warzone-head. Suffocating a little in the kindness surrounding her, and yet clearheaded enough to be soaking it in like a lifeline. Fragile and tired and old and loved and home. 

She wasn’t sure she’d ever felt like this. She was still deciding if that was a blessing or a curse. 

“I love you,” Phil said softly, randomly, mid-awkward shuffle to his spot against the wall. Melinda blinked out of a mental debate on continuing to ignore her bladder, startled. 

He was watching her, grey-haired and compassionate. She touched his cheek, smiled as he settled down with a plop and leaned over to kiss her. The words settled somewhere, softly. 

She still slept on the side by the door, more because she slept better there than because she’d be any real good at defending them in her current state. This knowledge sat in a strange place that was neither easy nor uncomfortable. 

“Sleep tonight, alright? Properly. Don’t try and stay half-awake for me.”

“I wouldn’t have to, if you’d just wake me when you dream or if you need to get up—”

“Then there’d be two of us awake,” Melinda said reasonably, despite the fact that they’d had this exact discussion almost every night for the past two weeks. “What would be the point of that?” 

She could still move around without disturbing him, barely. This had been a relief she couldn’t possibly explain, and a source of endless despair he did not hesitate to. Frequently. 

“But then I know you won’t, which is why I wor—”

“I love you too.”

He halted mid-protest, mouth half open. “Dammit.”

“Daisy tell you what she’s been sitting on?”

He wrinkled his nose. “Not all of it, I think. But she wants to talk to us about consults. On a more official basis. Brought it to me first because she thought I’d take it weirder.”

“That why you’re uneasy?” 

For a split second, the chameleon skin made an appearance, entirely belying his next words. “Am I uneasy?” 

That look. Daisy had at some point called it The Professionally Bland Look of Polite Curiosity and May hadn’t been able to think of it as anything else since. Instantly irritating, but so intrinsically a part of him that she thought she’d probably miss it if it ever disappeared for good. 

“Phil.”

He sighed. The chameleon withdrew, scale by scale, leaving a much more unpolished honesty in its wake. Slowly, he admitted, “I didn’t realize I had so much fear in me.”

“Fear of what?” 

Hesitate; reboot, a half step to the left. Patterns in trench coats, all of them. “I asked you to risk your life every goddamn day for so many years. Mel, Daisy’s right, you know. We were kids.” 

“And? We were young and stupid. We were doing the best we could. None of this is news.” 

“I never doubted it, you know that? Never. Not even in Bahrain. You always come back.”

And oh, the lump in her throat came rushing right back, didn’t it. She’d taken her eyes off them for one second, and every wall she’d ever built had gone as flimsy as fuselage. From a fortress to a log cabin built by the water. 

“I never stopped believing that. But that doesn’t make it okay for me to take you for granted.”

Melinda swallowed. “Don’t waste time feeling guilty over things beyond your control.” 

“It’s not, though. The things I asked of you—”

“And why do you think I answered? ‘Cause you had a pretty face? ‘Cause you said please?” 

He pulled up short, stung by the sharpness despite himself. Melinda steadied but didn’t temper herself.

“I never agreed with every choice you made. But if I’d ever stopped believing in you, I’d have been long gone. Don’t sell either of us short.” 

“You’re still in pain today because of things I asked of you,” he said flatly. “How is that okay?” 

“I’m facing the consequences of my own choices. You have to live with yours, too. But don’t overestimate your own importance in this, Phil.

“Quit being scared of it getting bad for me,” Melinda said quietly, into his silence. “That doesn’t even make sense.” 

“I don’t know how to help,” he said, barely audible, audibly helpless. 

“You don’t have to. I hoped you’d know that by now.” 

“But—”

“You’ve loved me so well. You don’t need to do anything more than this. I’ve got it.” 

For a long moment, he didn’t speak. 

“Daisy sees more than we give her credit for,” he said eventually, voice still the slightest bit thick. 

May shrugged. “She gets it. I hate that she gets it. But she’s stronger for it. And you still don’t understand what it means to someone, to believe in them.” 

He shut his eyes. With a little fumble, he took her hand, calloused fingers sliding over calloused palm to lace carefully with hers. “I got a lecture,” he mumbled, half sheepish, half teasing, voice worn. 

“You asked for it.”

He had to get up after a second, to properly turn off the lights. 

“Hey, so wake me, okay? Mel. I swear, the thought of you hopping around in the dark has given me twenty new grey hairs—”

“Sure.”

“That was so unconvincing.”

“You know, there‘s nothing special about dying for someone?” Melinda said, her voice abrupt in the darkness. She felt Coulson still beside her, the world reduced to shape and shadow. 

“You’re worth living for. Living better. The last five years? I’m better, and that’s for me. But you’re worth all that work, and if that wasn’t true, any dying wouldn’t mean anything.” 

: : : 

The thing about the beasts is that they always come back, and they hit hard enough it’s easy to forget they’re never here to stay. 

May limped out into the breathless gold of the dawnlit cabin the next morning, wide awake, well-rested for the first time in days. 

She breathed out, once she made it to the kitchen table, and propped the single crutch she’d grabbed upright against its edge. All was still. 

She breathed in. 

Birdsong crept through the windows. Sunshine filtered through the trees sheltering their cabin, dappling the floor. She’d left her phone here the previous night; the screen flared softly to life with an alert, and then another. 

Melinda tugged a chair out without a sound and sank into it, propping an elbow against the chill surface of the table. The peace of the warm, empty room felt almost tangible, settling in a gauzy blanket over the waking world. She sat in the quiet for a long minute, weighted down by nothing but herself. 

Daisy’s tangled earbuds had also been left on the kitchen table, half the wire’s length dangling precariously off the table. Melinda, rousing, leaned over on impulse and snagged them with a fingertip, thumbing her phone awake. Whatever tracks Phil and Daisy had been playing scrolled sluggishly across the screen, names familiar and unfamiliar. May paused on one. 

In answer to that flicker of something, gentler than longing but heavier than reminiscence, she chose some 90s live performance of Feel So Different and let it play. 

It wasn’t much more than a drone at first. Crowd sounds. The spoken word at the beginning, the cadence of it jarringly familiar. Andrew had liked this song, she remembered vaguely. Those rare times they’d traded tapes. 

Memory washed over her, a gentle tide. 

The expected ones. Nights in DC. Cleaning her whole one-counter-and-a-half kitchen at the ass-end of the night more than once, all the lights on, desperate to do something other than lie idle in the darkness. 

Learning to, eventually. 

They weren’t quicksand, the memories, free of the expected lance of remembered sorrow, shame. Memories, not memories of heartache. 

In the same easy wash she remembered lying on the porch swing listening to this song, Andrew still asleep, the whole world breaking gold over her head. Earphones in, just like this. One of those moments when music was as good as flying and the entire world was beautiful. 

Melinda wiped roughly at her wet eyes, bewildered with herself, dropping her face onto one sweatered arm for a moment before lifting her head. She was still breathing easily. Of all the things she’d expected to feel, free had never really been one of them. 

With a quiet rustle, Daisy padded out into the soft morning. 

May gazed at her, laid bare, unable to find it in herself to care. Daisy just smiled, no worry or fear in her face, sliding easily into the chair at May’s side. 

She picked up the phone, tipping it towards herself; she went soft and surprised at once, taking a moment to watch the little screen. Spotlights swinging, the strings picking up. 

“Damn.”

“I miss her,” May said simply, and was surprised to find it was true. Some people left such an absence behind them, when they went. 

  Daisy hummed and seized the other, dangling earbud, leaning her warm weight against May’s side. May shifted to get an arm around her, pressing her cheek against the top of the girl’s head. Daisy held on tighter, and didn't comment. 

“You ever listen to her later stuff?”

May shook her head. “Didn’t keep up.” 

The first two albums had soundtracked such a specific period of her life, was the thing. Simple days, whatever they’d felt like at the time.

“Some of it is pretty cool. I went digging the other day.” 

“Show me, sometime.” 

Daisy lit up with it, when she nodded. Melinda loved her so much in that moment she was pretty sure she could cry again. Like some sentimental old lady. 

Like someone’s mom. 

Daisy nudged her. “Is it too early for Stranger Things?” she asked, half teasing. 

May rolled her eyes. “No. I want to know what happens with the fake body.”

“I thought you said it was fine, a nice distraction—”

“It’s good, I want to know what happens. Happy?” 

“Oh, beyond happy. I’m vindicated. I’m—”

“Stalling,” May said gently. Daisy screeched to a halt. “What did you want to talk about, hm?” 

Daisy stared at her a second. And then lifted her worn old hand off the tabletop and squeezed it. “Wanna take a walk?” 

It took more concentration than Melinda liked to navigate the sodden ground without eating dirt. Daisy kept unthinking pace at her shoulder, lost in thought, chewing at her lip the exact same way she’d done playing Scrabble on the Bus a lifetime ago. 

Melinda waited, squinting up at the sky when she could afford to. 

“Coulson told you about our conversation last night?” Daisy said at last. 

May nodded. 

“And… what do you think?”

Melinda shrugged. “I don’t think anything. You need help, Daisy, you tell us.” 

She could see how it got complicated for Phil, internally, everything all wrapped up into itself. Past and pain and personhood. It’d been all of him for too long. But she’d been the shield-bearer, if you had to get dramatic about it; she’d carried the weight, she’d collapsed under it, she’d picked it back up. On her own terms. She’d had practice, even before that, putting it down. 

Melinda could see Daisy nod, the exhale slipping out of her. She wasn’t such an open book out in the field, these days, chameleon and statue at once. At home, though, she couldn’t hide and didn’t try to. 

“He has stuff he has to work through,” May offered. “What he’s comfortable with, playing an old role a new way. It’s part of it.” 

Daisy’s brow furrowed, even as she nodded along. “And you don’t?” 

I’m never getting back in, May wanted to tell her. I’m out, I’m done. I’m tired. 

I’d still go to war if you asked, she thought about saying. That’s not getting back in. 

“My body doesn’t feel like mine yet,” she said, too-honest, instead. “I’m not comfortable with anything right now. It’s a separate issue. You needing help will never be a problem.”

Daisy, eyes a little wide, took this in. She chewed over something for a long moment, wrestling with the shape of it, her hands bundled in her pockets. 

“You’ve never told me about your childhood,” she blurted eventually, a hint of desperation to it. 

May’s eyebrows hiked up her forehead. “Not much to tell.”

“I so don’t believe you. See, you say that, and then drop half a story about, I don’t know, accidentally causing a diplomatic incident over celery when you were five or something--”

“That was an exaggeration.” 

“--and then never elaborate. I mean, come on.” 

Melinda waited her out. The odd, minor diplomatic incident aside, there really wasn’t much to tell. She’d tell it, if this weren’t such a desperately obvious side-track. 

“I didn’t know you joined SHIELD so young,” Daisy ventured eventually, caving a little. 

May shrugged. 

“‘Cause Coulson joined out of college, right? And I guess I just figured… but it’s like enlisting, right? I should have…” she shook herself. “How did you know it was what you wanted?” 

“My mom wanted me in the CIA. Follow in her footsteps, and all that. Even cleared me ahead of time.” She smiled wryly. “It was a point of contention. Dad just wanted at least one of us not to disappear into a world where he couldn’t follow. I wanted something that was mine.” 

Daisy squinted against the sun, studying the horizon. “It’s such a long…”

She lapsed into silence again. 

“Daisy,” Melinda said gently. 

“I think it might be time for me to,” Daisy blurted, and slammed to a halt. Melinda looked at her. She was marching along, head down, cheeks flushed, a little bit torn and a little bit miserable. 

“Does it feel different?” May asked gently. Daisy looked up at her with a jerk, eyes swimming. I am not like I was before. She blinked, cleared her throat, and retrieved her composure. 

She nodded. 

“I’m not talking, like, short-term or anything,” Daisy said, in the same breathless plunge. Her fingers twisted around each other, fidgety, and she tucked them back into her coat with a shudder. Their breath misted in the air. Daisy’s brows furrowed, fierce. “I’m not- not just going to leave Mack with no one.” 

“You wouldn’t be,” May pointed out mildly. 

“Well. Yeah, but.” Daisy shook her head, hard. “You know, he and Yo-yo, they’re thinking about… expanding. Family. You know. I want them to feel like they can have that, so badly. I know I can keep the ship steady. And I have a team to run, kids to train, I just--” 

She took a breath. 

In a small voice, Daisy said, “I don’t know what I want, May.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“I want to see things.” Daisy shook her head again, frustrated. “Places. I feel like I’m- I’m running in place, or I’m throwing myself against a wall… just trying to get it back, you know? How it used to feel.” 

“How did it used to feel?” 

Daisy took a deep breath. “Like me,” she said, on the exhale. “Even stressed as fuck and miserable sometimes and drowning some days, it felt like me. It meant something to me. Everything meant something to me. And now…” 

“Take a vacation,” May said flatly. “No, I’m serious. Not here. Not with us, how much we still live and breathe it. Not on call, not somewhere you’ve been before. Just go, be. You don’t have to make any decisions right now.” 

“But I- I can’t--” 

“What’s stopping you?” Melinda stopped, waited till Daisy looked her in the eye. “I’ll talk to it, or punch it. Daisy. I’m not messing with you. You haven’t had a break, a real one, ever. No one can go like that forever.” 

“And if…” Daisy said slowly, eyes downcast, “and if after, if someday… I don’t go back.” 

“Well, I don’t have my house any more, so. Might want to make some plans.”

That startled a laugh out of her, shaky and real. “You’d- you’d be okay with it?”

They slipped into the shade of the treeline. Melinda propped her butt against the gnarled trunk of an old pine to flex her wrists, her one good knee. Daisy started forwards, concerned, and May shook her head. “You don’t owe us anything, Daisy.”

Daisy was left hovering a little, unsure what to do with her hands and herself. “It’s not…”

“Hey. If you went and joined a circus troupe in Bolivia we’d still try and get you weird extra-speed charter flights through thirty-year-old contacts whenever you come home. You need to understand that.” 

“A- a circus troupe?”

May shrugged. “Anyone ever tell you how Hawkeye got his name?” 

She watched Daisy file that away to bring up later, eyes going from the cabin framed in morning light behind them, to the pines around the property, to land on May, and flit off again. 

“It’s not SHIELD I want to get away from,” she said, haltingly. “It’s still so much of what I believe in. I couldn't-- where would I go? That’s home.” 

“You have your whole life ahead of you. Just because SHIELD was our whole life doesn’t mean it has to be yours.”

Daisy looked at her, really looked. Her eyes shone, and Melinda knew she’d hit the nail on the head. She ached. 

“SHIELD gave me a place in the world,” Daisy said, voice cracking. “You guys gave me a place to belong to. I didn’t think I’d ever have that. And I’m just going to, what? Leave?” 

“Yeah. Yeah,” Melinda straightened, stepping so Daisy couldn’t look anywhere else. “That’s what happens.” She tilted her head. “You move on.” 

“I don’t want to move on.” 

Melinda swallowed a smile. “You just told me you do.”

“Yeah, but I—”

“You’re allowed to do that, you know? You’re allowed to want things. To change.” 

Daisy ducked her head. Melinda stepped closer. 

“We were talking about a break,” she reminded Daisy. “Doesn’t have to be that dramatic. Yet.” 

“I’d be abandoning the front line. Turning my back on the good fight.” Daisy tried for a watery smile. 

“You choose the world, you choose something other than yourself, that makes you good, that makes you worthy.” Melinda shrugged. “You don’t have to be good.”

Daisy stared at her for a long moment, wide-eyed. Finally, choked, “…did you just quote poetry at me?”

“I hope not.” 

“Isn’t that the whole purpose of what we are?”

“What we do, maybe. Not what we are.” 

“But you’re…” Daisy stumbled to a halt.

May smiled. “Still not convinced I’m a good person? Deserve good things?” 

Daisy just stared. 

“I’m scared of it too, Daisy. Moving on. Why do you think I’ve been so out of it, hm?” 

“You’ve done it, though. So many times…”

She shrugged. “For years, when I woke up, the first thought that went through my head was, I killed her.” 

Daisy was stepping lightly now, back ramrod straight, no longer curling into herself. Carrying herself carefully, like this conversation was something fragile, something flighty. It wasn’t. Melinda had learned a long time ago what it was, to settle into her own skin even when her head didn’t feel like the safe place it was supposed to be. She’d forgotten. 

“How’d you get out?”

“I wanted to.”

“That’s it? That’s all it takes?”

“That’s the only thing I couldn’t have done without.” 

Softly, Daisy said, “It felt wrong. Like a betrayal.” 

Melinda nodded. “It doesn’t any more. “Jemma’s right, you know. Moving on, it’s not… you close the door. Not move out, leave town. You get better at living in the rest of the house, over time. That’s not the kind of moving on we were talking about, though. We were talking about the growing up kind.” 

Daisy looked at the ground. “Kinda feels the same, though,” she mumbled. 

“I’m not saying it’ll be easy. But you don’t need our permission, or our advice. You’re gonna be showing us how.”

Daisy shook her head, valiantly muffled a sniffle. “Bullshit.” 

“You want to be happy,” Melinda said gently. Daisy looked up at her with a jerk. “And you’re scared, because you’ve been through so much shit, and life has a way of throwing more at you right when you finally believe you deserve it. That it’s still possible.” 

She reached out a hand, wiped Daisy’s tears. Daisy, on instinct, caught at her elbow to steady her. They stood there like that for a second, May thumbing tearstains away, Daisy keeping her upright. 

“You have your whole life ahead of you. Don’t be afraid of what you want.” 

I have not seen freedom before

And I did not expect to

Don't let me forget now I'm here

Help me to help you to behold you

—Feel So Different, Sinéad O’Connor