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"She took it upon herself to get them out. Said she could fix the problem. So she went in, crossed off the enemy force. Didn't say how."
"Did she lose anyone in there?"
"Herself."
Phil Coulson had once told Skye, but she hadn’t considered the real meaning of his words to her… How much it would influence her future actions until she had gone through them herself. She hadn’t understood the real emotion someone could be put through until she had been thrown head first into the events following their clash with her mother. Then as soon as she had lost herself in the clean up, she was oh so well aware of how much she couldn’t find it again.
Daisy. That was the first coping mechanism. She was Daisy now for her parents sake; not like she had parents anymore. She should have gone to May for help but her supervising officer had left her helpless without warning weeks before everything had become too much to handle alone. All those nights lying awake unable to sleep for constant criticism or worry over all the people who were going to be hurt by their careless mistakes. Her carless mistake of trusting Jiaying.
Crying came next as Jemma had been lost to the Monolith, Daisy had had to be strong for Fitz as he came to terms with his loss. Then slowly, after time passed and crying was not enough, Daisy had come to learn that they left the door of the lab open at certain times of the day, leaving the opportunity to slip in when no one was looking and the lab lackeys had left for lunch. She collected blades scalpels like bottle caps… She had learnt that pain hushed the voices that consumed her sleeping mind.
No one had noticed yet, they were all too caught up in their own dramas to notice how she winced when touched or how her uniform now came to include a set of long arms and pads by the thighs. They were oblivious and she was falling apart.
“Skye! Coulson said you wanted to-…”
The junior agent flinched but remained in fighting stance whilst subconsciously tugging down the legs of her ‘just too little’ shorts for concealment. May had entered the gym on a direct beeline to the young woman and was now shocked beyond words to what she was faced with.
Melinda’s jaw tightened and her lips thinned in disappointment. Daisy, her name was Daisy the S.A. reminded herself before correcting her mistake.
“Daisy…” Agent May’s voice came strong through the girl’s flurry of fists on the punching bag which had now increased upon her arrival, and so did the light touch of cool fingers against the very backs of her inner thighs. It was so intrusive. They were precise and professional and everything the senior agent stood for. The inhuman jerked away from the unexpected inspection in alarm and corrected herself up against the sand bag with her back flush against its leather, face white as a ghost. Her superior stared her down discerningly, and narrowed her eyes as she tried to decrypt the situation.
“What on earth are those on your thighs?” May deliberately played ignorant in the face of worry, caution maybe; she knew what the uniformed slices were but just simply did not want to acknowledge that she recognised them, recognised them on her subordinate. Again, Daisy tried to back away, shying away from her prying gaze “I- can explain May.” She tired. There was an urgency in the girl’s expression as she spoke as if she wanted the woman to believe her lie, the first signs of burning tears in the corner of her eyes like glistening pools of morbid anticipation. She was going to bolt, all mannerisms told May so and she was ready to test just how well Daisy’s control of her powers had developed over her time away from the base.
May shook her head slowly, rolling her eyes before yanking the girl over by the wrist and to the Daisy’s elation, instead of a slap across the side of her shoulder in reprimand, she was pulled into the senior agent’s front with a soft ‘oomf’ on her part. Now neither could look the other in the eye, just the way Melinda preferred it really; emotions gave away too much about a person.
“Don’t ever scare me like that again.” May gave in and allowed a frog to form in her throat as she spoke. Daisy felt a strong set of arms wrap around her torso and squeeze her tightly, she suffocated a small keening noise in the back of her throat with a well-practised choke and willed the prickling tear not to roll down her cheek but to no success. No, she was meant to be an agent. Clause 1 (c), she recalled to herself, “This stability is essential for both his/her and the mentor’s safety in missions and should not be taken lightly.” Where in fact she had blatantly disregarded that; after all, The inhuman had seen this ‘episode’ coming for quite a while now, it had been bubbling away in the back of her mind and now boiling over, she could not have stopped herself doing that, even if she tried. It wasn’t as if there was a lack of tools to use either in a facility which was as much a laboratory as it was its main purpose.
“Kid…” Agent May warned, inhaling sharply and pulling back to observe the well-developed junior agent properly in the light of the gymnasium; her arm muscles strained as fists clenched and unclenched by her sides. The floor below began to tremor. “Why didn’t you tell me? It’s my job to deal with these things.” Melinda pursed her lips, half prepared to unleash hell on the girl for her shear lack of worry for her own well-being until the inhuman uttered three simple words that melted her heart.
I. Was. Scared.
She was so scared- and May hadn’t been there for her as she had to go about ‘normal life’ as the darkness overwhelmed her. Why hadn’t no one else noticed this? Melinda feuded to herself. Her girl had been in pain and they had just let her go on. Fitz was so concerned with Jemma, Lance was already obsessed with Bobbi’s health, and Phil… She didn’t know about Phil anymore, nor Andrew.
“I was scared.” There it was again, with the same attitude that only Daisy could voice to sound both frightening and cocky at the same time.
She was scared of her, and not just in a respectful way, that May could handle. Daisy was so terrified of her in that second that she couldn’t stop the tremble in her legs and her arms and most humiliatingly, her lip. The floor was shaking now with loud creaks of the supports, and all the lights had begun to flicker. Then as if nothing had happened, it all went stoic. Everything stopped. That little tremble of Daisy’s bottom lip solidified into thinned lines as if she was trying to bite them out of existence. She was building walls far too quickly for the senior agent to tear them down.
Instead, May chose to crouch down, Daisy’ eyes following her in terror as her nimble fingers returned to the uniformed pink gashes to her inner thighs, still fresh; little welts in the centre where she had lost control of her quivering hands. The woman’s cool fingertips made contact with one of the worst lacerations below the hem of her shorts and Daisy drew back hissing, the contact instantly stopped. Why hadn’t she locked the doors to the training area…? She always locked the doors. “Please… I don’t want you to-“ Daisy urgently demanded but she was unable to continue that thought . Melinda returned to her feet and tugged softly up, more than Daisy believed her capable of, on the flimsy tank top the junior agent always insisted on wearing to training.
What she was faced with made even her cringe. “Skye, you need to stop this right now.” The girl cringed also, “Daisy.” She looked completely mortified, “I don’t know what has happened to make you do this, but I need you to stop it right this-“
“Agent May! This is none of your business!”
“-And I’m going to help you.”
“What?” Daisy babbled; “Why?”
“Because I should have seen this before it even started, I’m you’re supervising officer. I should have noticed.”
Without warning, Daisy threw herself forward with tears that she had previously willed to keep at bay from springing from her eyes in attempt at a short-lived freedom. This was so unpredicted that the older had to take a couple of steadying steps back to keep the two upright.
There was an unadulterated gasp which indicated her mentee had indeed started crying and Melinda had now accepted the fact that she had become the brunt of her pain, holding onto her subordinate tightly until the shaking seemed to travel through brutal osmosis into her own body, the single tear dripping down her cheek. How had she let this happen? She couldn’t comprehend the reasons her junior had gathered to make this her only coping technique.
“I’m so sorry.” Daisy sobbed into her chest and it was an ugly, snivelling cry, one which shouldn’t belong to a girl of her confidence and status. She was one of them, one of the team, nothing like she used to be. The older woman dropped her lips to the crown of the girl’s head and rested them there in contemplation momentarily, a reassurance was drowned by Daisy’s dark musky hair. “Don’t be.” Melinda said again, with greater conviction. “We’ll get through this.”