I didn't mean to kiss you
"I didn't mean to kiss you."
Daisy stares at Coulson in disbelief. "Really?" she asks, almost scornful, because that's the lamest thing he's ever said.
He blushes, which is something she'd find interesting in other circumstances. "I'm sorry," he whispers, his gaze on the ground.
"Why did you do it if you didn't mean it?" she asks. She's doing her best to maintain her anger because she doesn't want him to realise how hurt she is: she's loved Phil Coulson for a very long time, and while she knows he cares about her a great deal, she also knows he doesn't love her like that, and then he'd kissed her – very dramatically, like a superhero movie-style kiss, and for a moment she'd hoped – She cuts that line of thought off
"I – " He finally lifts his gaze from the ground and says softly, "I was so relieved you weren't dead after all."
She snorts. "So why not just hug me, like any other time?"
He bites his bottom lip, then shakes his head, his expression a mixture of guilt and pleading.
She snorts again, with considerably less sympathy this time, then says, "Whatever, Phil, we don't have time for this. I need to finish off Aida and Ivanov." She leans through the doorway of the room where the others are: Mack's helping Mace, who's still a mess after being beaten up by Ivanov's goons, and May's in an even worse state. Fitz – she swallows, wondering how Jemma's going to react to Fitz's death.
"You'd better help May get out of here," she tells him, turning her attention back to Coulson. "And send Elena and Piper in for Fitz."
He swallows, then nods, still a bit shamefaced. "Daisy – " He begins, and she shakes her head, but less unkindly this time.
"Help May," she repeats. "I need to get after Ivanov and Aida."
"Will you be all right?" he asks. His hand seems to twitch towards her, as if he's going to touch her arm, but he doesn't.
"They're only LMDs," she says. "I've killed their kind before." She makes herself walk away before he can say any more, swallowing down her hurt and regret: those emotions won't help her now – she needs to hang onto her anger at what Radcliffe and Aida have done to her friends.
She shoves her hurt feelings into the box in the back of her brain where she keeps all other such instances of people's carelessness over her feelings (and there have been far too many), and makes herself take several deep breaths – not to calm herself so much as to psyche herself up. She wants this over and done.