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Daisy pulls her hair back in a ponytail, wiping sweat off the back of her neck.
She’d forgotten how hot Texas is, even near sunset. Just one of the many reasons she’s finding to regret tracking down Miles.
But she needs a place to stay for at least a few days while she tracks down the Watchdogs, and no matter what’s happened between them, she’s pretty sure Miles will be willing to let her in. And if he’s not?
Well, she lived practically on the street for years. She can do it again.
It’s a half-hour’s walk from the bus stop to Miles’ apartment. For Daisy, it takes closer to forty-five minutes, avoiding cameras. Because she knows Coulson will be keeping an eye out for her and she doesn’t want to be found. She doesn’t want them to try to make her come home.
…right?
Daisy gazes at the door of the apartment for a few minutes, contemplating the choices that brought her here. Wondering what he’ll say when he sees her. Wondering if he’ll even recognize her, now, because she looks different, she knows she does.
Finally, before she changes her mind, she knocks.
It takes another minute- giving her more time to want to run away- but when the door opens, she musters up a bit of a smile.
Miles doesn’t look much different- scruffier, hair slicked back. He raises his eyebrows. “You’ve got some nerve.”
“Nice to see you, too.”
“Three years.” Miles scowls. “You break up with me and leave me in Hong Kong, tagged like some feral animal- I’m lucky I got back home at all- and then you don’t contact me for three years-”
“Okay, the breakup was the only part of that I had anything to do with.” Daisy shifts. “And, I can get rid of the tracker. It’s not being monitored anymore, so.”
“Is that why you’re here? Because you’re late to the punch.” He shakes his wrist, where the bracelet is missing.
“Actually-”
“Always the catch,” Miles says bitterly.
“I just need a place to lie low for a few days.” Daisy meets his gaze. “Just while I get some things in order. If I had any other place to go, I’d be there, believe me.”
“Fancy SHIELD friends toss you to the curb?” He steps aside, gesturing for her to come in.
Daisy moves inside, dropping her backpack beside the couch as Miles closes the door. “Not exactly.”
I ran away. The words burn her tongue but she doesn’t say them out loud.
He gives her an unimpressed look. “So you’re hiding from them.”
She doesn’t answer, sitting down on the couch and pulling off her dusty combat boots. It’s unconscious habit to toss them at Miles, and he catches the shoes easily, dropping them on the mat.
“I said you could lie low, not move in.”
“So you’d rather have me tracking dirt all over your apartment?” She smirks.
“Hell, no.” He goes into the kitchen, glancing at his watch. “Hungry?”
Daisy follows him, wondering how she got herself into this situation and why she always ends up with ex-boyfriends. “That’s it?”
“What?” Miles opens the fridge.
“Just, ‘hi, I’m mad at you, want something to eat?’” She leans on the counter. “Just like that?”
“Believe it or not, Skye, I’m still not over you.”
She grimaces. “Yeah, um- it’s Daisy.”
“Daisy.” He slides a plastic container along the countertop. “It’s nice.”
“Thanks, my parents gave it to me.” She pops open the container, wrinkling her nose at the smell of crappy Chinese takeout. “Still can’t cook, huh?”
“I dabble.” Miles sits against the edge of the counter. “You found them?”
“It is… a long story. But yes.” She picks half an eggroll out of the jumbled mess, popping the whole thing into her mouth.
“I want to hear about it. If you want to tell me.”
Daisy hesitates. “Look, I… I get that you still like me, but I don’t feel that way anymore. I don’t want to get into anything here.”
“I get it.” He shrugs. “You moved on.”
Lincoln’s lips brush against hers, running his hands down over the curve of her hips. His touch is electrifying, impossibly right-
“Yeah,” she says, shaking her head to clear away the memory. Slamming a mental barrier into place to keep from remembering-
“It’s the first time I said I love y-”
“Good for you.”
Daisy swipes her hand across her face. She is not going to cry in front of Miles. Not over Lincoln.
“So,” he says after an uncomfortably long pause. “Tell me about your parents.”
“Not much to tell.” She shrugs. “They sucked. My dad’s a murderer and my mom was a psycho, so.”
“I’m sorry,” Miles murmurs, reaching out as if to touch her hands. He stops an inch short.
“Yeah.” She stares at the tiled floor between them. Her mood is dipping again, a constant cycle she’s gotten stuck in. She doesn’t think she’s been happy since- since-
“I love y-”
“But hey, at least you know.”
“Fair.”
“And you found out your birth name.”
“Daisy Louise Johnson.”
Daisy, daisy, give me your answer, do…
After a second Miles laughs, loud and a little mocking. Daisy glances up quickly, scowling. “What?”
“Your middle name is Louise?”
“Shut up.” She smacks his hand.
His laughter dissolves into quieter chuckles. “Louise. I can’t believe it.”
“Shut up!” Daisy rolls her eyes. “I come to you for sympathy-”
She stops herself before she can finish the sentence. She doesn’t want to fall back into this rhythm with him, this easiness. They’d fit together, for a while at least, and she had thought that was enough.
She’d thought it was enough with Lincoln, too.
Trapped in the same damn cycle. It’s enough to make her want to-
No. Lincoln wanted her to live. And it’s hard and it’s turning out to be the closest thing to literal actual hell she’s ever experienced but Lincoln wanted her to live and she can do that for him. She has to.
“Sorry,” Miles says after a few seconds, a little bit of laughter still in his voice. “Sorry, it’s just- that is about the most unfortunate middle name I’ve ever heard of.”
She fixes him with a glare. “Bold words from a man whose middle name is Gavin.”
“I told you that in confidence!” His tone is playful, light.
If she wanted to, Daisy could pretend it was like the old days. Back when she was Skye and the worst thing she’d ever experienced was being sent back from the Brodys.
Miles takes her hand, his callused thumb brushing gently over her skin. “I missed you,” he murmurs. “I tried to move on- I figured you had- but I just couldn’t do it.”
Daisy bites her lip. It would be so easy to give in. Let him strip away her defenses and kiss her senseless, make her forget the pain and grief for at least a little while.
She pulls away. Pretends not to notice his hurt expression.
She won’t get into this, not now, not with him. It wouldn’t be right. It wouldn’t be Lincoln.
“So,” he says after a minute. “What do you need?”
Daisy leaves the kitchen, curling up in a big chair opposite the couch. Her phone is buzzing in her pocket again, and she pulls it out only to turn it off. “A new phone, for one thing.”
“That bad?” Miles sits on the couch.
She scoffs. What do you think?
“…anyway, I do have some of that million dollars left. Unless you’re not comfortable taking blood money.”
Daisy glares. “You kept it?”
“SHIELD took most of it. I invested the rest. Figured it might come in handy someday.”
Daisy’s getting ready to yell at him some more when she realizes she doesn’t really have any right to judge. Not after the things she’s done, the people she’s killed.
“Yeah, it might.” She turns the phone over, noticing the paper tucked into the clear case. LT’s number. She should probably text at some point. Let her know she got to Austin safely.
The silence stretches on.
And on.
Daisy only realizes she’d fallen asleep when she wakes up to the smell of pizza, to hear the door closing. There’s a blanket thrown over her, haphazard.
She lifts her head, rubbing sleep from her eyes. Miles sets a flat box down on the coffee table, giving her a quick grin.
“Pepperoni and mushrooms,” he says. “Anything to drink?”
She groans, untangling herself from the blanket and sliding off to sit on the floor. “Do you still buy that cheap beer from the place downtown?”
He opens the fridge. “Thought you hate that stuff.”
“I mean, it’s crap, but.” She shrugs. “I kind of want to get drunk tonight, thanks.”
The bottles clink against the glass top of the table. Daisy grabs one and pops it open, taking a long swig as Miles offers her a paper plate.
“Easy there. I’m not gonna hold your hair back when you’re throwing up in the bathroom tomorrow morning.”
“We’ll see.”
Twenty minutes, two slices of pizza, and a third beer later, Daisy’s gotten to the stage of intoxication Coulson refers to as snapping turtle.
In other words, she’s pretty well pissed off at nothing in particular.
“I haven’t seen this side of you before,” Miles says.
“What, I’m not allowed to be jaded?”
“You used to be so-”
“Naive?” Daisy scoffs. “Idiotic?”
He knocks the cap off another bottle of his own, tosses it aside to join the slowly growing pile. “Optimistic.”
“Yeah, well.” She reaches for another slice of now-cold pizza. “I was a kid then.”
“You were twenty-four.”
“Twenty-five.” She stares moodily at the table. “Not that it matters. I might as well have been six, for all I knew about the real world.”
“And you know more now?”
“I’ve hurt people, Miles.” Her powers buzz under her skin. “Killed a few. Lost- way too many.”
“I’m sorry.”
The sympathy makes her angrier, makes the bottle in her hand fracture and crack. “I don’t want your pity.”
“Easy there-”
“I’m fine.” She puts the bottle down before she can shatter it with the restless tremors.
Miles is quiet for a minute. “Who did you lose?” he asks, voice off-kilter but gentle.
Who didn’t she lose? Ward- Fitz, kind of- Trip- her parents-
“Lincoln.”
“That’s the boyfriend?”
The way he looked at her, like she was the only good thing in his world. The smile that reached right to his blue eyes. His hands, that were always so gentle, so careful-
“Yeah.” She kind of wants another beer, but the six-pack is empty and going to the fridge would be too much work.
“Sorry.”
“God, enough with the sympathy, it’s sickening.” Daisy shoves back against the couch.
Miles nudges her knee. “I remember the days when you were a fun drunk. Not- whatever this is.”
“And I remember when you had morals.”
“That’s fair.”
She lets her head fall back against the cushion, some of her anger ebbing away. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry I never tried to contact you.”
“I worried, when SHIELD went down. After the bracelet stopped working, I started looking for you, but nothing ever turned up, it was like you’d just- vanished.”
“I did that on purpose.”
“I wanted to apologize too.” Miles grabs her hand, and for some reason, she doesn’t bother pulling away. “What I did was awful-”
“No shit-”
“And I regret that it tore us apart.”
Daisy blinks hard, staring at the ceiling. She knows better than this, knows better than to give in to the temptation- than to forgive him-
“Because what we had was really good- you were the best part of my life, and-”
“Stop.” Daisy smacks at him sloppily. “Stop talking.”
Miles leans over, hesitating for just a second- giving her time to pull away, time to say no- before kissing her quick and careful. She doesn’t even think, pulling him in for a second kiss.
It’s just like old days and it’s all wrong and all right at the same time and she wants it to be Lincoln but she can’t get him back and maybe this is the next best thing.
Somehow, between frantic kisses and soft touches they make their way to the bedroom. The alcohol buzzes through Daisy’s body, drowning out all her inhibitions.
~~~
A too-soft hand skims over Daisy’s stomach. She blinks, rolling sideways and pulling the sheets up to her shoulders.
Miles’ quiet chuckle echoes in her ears. “Morning,” he murmurs.
She lets out a long guttural groan, burying her face in the pillow as she remembers the previous night.
There’s some cosmic entity out there that exists specifically to make her life hell. To make her fall in love with the wrong men, ruin all the good ones. To make her hook up with her ex while she’s still grieving her boyfriend.
“If you throw up in my bed, you’re gonna clean it up yourself.”
Daisy lifts her head. “I’m not gonna puke.”
Her head is throbbing and her whole body aches but she’s not nauseous, at least. Small mercies. Very, very small mercies.
Miles’ knuckles brush against her back. “Hungry?”
“How are you not hung over?” she snaps, pulling away again.
“I have a much higher tolerance than you. Besides, one of us needs to be functional.”
“I’m functional.” She kicks free of the sheets. “Hot shower and a cup of coffee and I’ll be able to hack the Pentagon.”
Daisy stumbles across to the bathroom door, not even caring that she’s completely naked. Miles calls after her before she can close the door.
“Still take your coffee the same way?”
“I literally do not care what you do with it, just caffeinate me.” She rummages in the cupboard under the sink, finding a bottle of floral scented shampoo. “Oh my god.”
“What?”
She holds the bottle through the half-open door. “This is my shampoo.”
“Yeah, you left it here when you moved out. Never got around to throwing it out.”
“Wow.” She draws out the word. “Sentimental bastard.”
“Anyone ever tell you you’re mean when you’re hung over?”
“Yeah, a few times.”
The shower works wonders, as always. Miles has the decency to toss her backpack in without being prompted, and Daisy kneels on the cold tile, digging for clothes of her own. Anything that doesn’t belong to Lincoln.
She checks her phone again, briefly. They’ve stopped calling, at least, but there’s another six texts from Coulson. The most recent one shows up on her lock screen.
A.C.: Please, come home. We just…
Daisy dismisses the notification, trying to ignore the lump in her throat.
That’s the hardest part about walking away. Knowing that they care about her. She wishes she could make them understand that this will be better in the long run. For everyone.
People get hurt around her, it’s just a fact. Daisy Johnson pulls people into her orbit and then they get hurt and they die and it’s better if she just. Distances herself. Doesn’t get attached.
She lets out a bitter snort.
Ward’s style. She’s becoming him and maybe it’s the natural conclusion to the path she’s been put on, forced to walk against her will. Maybe she was meant to be just like him, this closed-off backstabbing-
“Coffee!” Miles calls.
Daisy packs it all down. Right now it’s unimportant. She has bigger problems. Like the fact that she’s in one of the hottest hellholes on the planet, with no personal transport and no income. And, oh yeah- no plan.
She pulls her wet hair back in a ponytail and goes into the kitchen. Miles slides a mug down the counter, and Daisy catches it with one hand.
“Thanks,” she mumbles.
Miles leans on the counter. “Hungry?”
“Nah.” She gulps down half the contents of the mug, making a face at the bitter taste. “This is horrible.”
“Thanks.” He grins.
“Yeah, yeah.” She rolls her eyes.
“So, ah… do we need to talk about last night?”
“We do not.” Daisy sets the mug down, fixing him with a glare. “If you ever mention it again, I’ll shatter every bone in your body.”
He raises his eyebrows. “Forgive me if I don’t seem very threatened.”
She knows better than to tell Miles of all people her secret.
So, she doesn’t.
“Your mistake.” She shrugs.
The quiet drags on. Daisy empties the mug and Miles refills it wordlessly. Passes her two organic off-brand poptarts, which she eats without complaining. It’s far from the worst breakfast he’s made for her.
Finally he glances at the clock, sighs.
“I need to get to work.”
Daisy can’t contain a derisive snort. “You have a job?”
“Yeah, well, with our biggest target practically gone…” He shrugs. “Rising Tide’s extinct, Daisy. It’s gone.”
“Good riddance.”
Miles takes a long look at her. “Now who’s compromising their morals?”
“It’s been three years. I’ve changed.” She shoves away from the counter. Changes the subject, because they’re straying dangerously close to personal territory. “I’m gonna go to that used car lot downtown, see if I can pick up something cheap. Be out of your hair by the end of the week.”
“There’s no rush.”
Daisy doesn’t look at him. She doesn’t want to see the look in his eyes that goes with the tone she knows too well. The look that will make her want to stay.
“I told you I didn’t want to get involved,” she says.
“Yeah, and then we slept together. I call that getting involved.”
“Miles, I can’t.”
His hands wrap around hers, breath puffing hot against her neck. “Why not?”
Daisy closes her eyes. She can’t do this. Won’t. “It’ll hurt too much.”
“Hurt who?”
“I don’t want to see something bad happen to you.” She pulls away in one quick movement. “I’m sorry, I should never have come here.”
“I’m glad you did,” he murmurs.
Daisy isn’t.
~~~
She takes what money Miles is willing to give her and buys a secondhand van, a burner phone, and enough canned food to last her a few weeks. She leaves him a note with the phone’s number and leaves.
Daisy has to leave before she gets too involved. Before she can’t get out.
Leaving him the phone number is a tactical move. He is one of the best hackers in the world, after all, and she might need his help one of these days.
That’s all this is.
A partnership, not a relationship.
Music blares from her phone’s speakers as she pulls onto the freeway.
“Cause baby now we got bad blood… you know it used to be mad love… so take a look what you’ve done… cause baby now we got bad blood, hey!”