Can you just shut up for five minutes?
"Can you just shut up for five minutes?" Daisy demands of Hunter, who looks mortally offended.
"Oi, I – "
"I'm trying to concentrate," she tells him, and sees Bobbi punch Hunter's upper arm, and the Brit subsides muttering sotto voce; she notices, when she glances his way, that Coulson's scowling at the other man, and the sight warms her absurdly.
She looks back at the older woman and asks, " How's your knee?"
"Not broken," Bobbi answers, sounding relieved, which is understandable since it's not that long since she got back out in the field after Ward tortured and badly injured her. "Twisted, I think, when we were shoved down here."
Daisy nods, then focuses her attention back on her arms with the shackles around the wrists – shackles which are supposed to be inhibiting her powers. She can feel the others – Hunter's simmering annoyance, Bobbi's pain, and Coulson's anxiety – but they're all muted, a background to herself and her powers. The very fact that she can sense the others tells her that these shackles aren't as good as the creator thought – which is very good news indeed.
She concentrates harder, and the shackles vibrate, then fall apart, the bits dropping to the floor.
Bobbi exchanges a startled look with Coulson, then grins at Daisy. "You're a rockstar."
She feels Coulson's hand press against her back; it's warm through her tank. "I guess we should be grateful that no one else really knows how your powers work," he observes.
"Yeah," agrees Bobbi. She looks up at the trapdoor. "Thing is, even if we could get that open, I couldn't get out of there with this knee."
"I can get you out," Daisy says quietly.
"How?" asks Coulson, before Bobbi can get the question in first.
Daisy waggles her fingers. "My powers. After I stopped Price from falling when Lash threw her off that balcony, I started practising using my powers to lower and raise people."
"You did?" asks Coulson, sounding very surprised. "Who did you practise on?"
Daisy smirks a little. "I may've volunteered some of the field agents that came to us from Gonzales' Real SHIELD."
Coulson looks torn between being impressed and horrified, Bobbi grins, and Hunter sniggers.
Daisy grins too, then turns to Hunter and Coulson. "Boost me up."
Hunter frowns, then looks up at the trapdoor. "Can't you just blow it open?"
She rolls her eyes. "Sure, Hunter, and let anyone who may be up there know that I'm not shackled and incapable of escaping? Great plan. Really."
He rolls his eyes in return, but doesn't argue. Instead he joins Coulson beneath the trap, and they cup their hands for Daisy to step into. She begins to carefully vibrate air against the trapdoor until it's loosened, then she steadily vibrates it harder until pieces begin to fall down around Coulson and Hunter.
Once the door's demolished, she gets the two men to set her on the ground again, then she turns to Coulson. "You'd better go first," she tells him. "You're less impulsive than him." She jerks a thumb at Hunter, who predictably protests until everyone else choruses "Shut up Hunter!"
"Hunter should go next – see if you can find a vehicle," she tells him, and he nods an acknowledgement – she suspects he's sulking from being told to shut up so often. "Then I'll get Bobbi out."
Bobbi nods too, and Daisy and Hunter boost Coulson up, then he leans back in through the trapdoor, and reaches down as Daisy boosts Hunter up, and between them they get the Brit out as well. He immediately disappears from view, and Daisy has every confidence that if there's a vehicle around, he'll bring it.
Then she turns to Bobbi. "Ready?
At the other woman's nod she vibrates the air around Bobbi and slowly, carefully, raises her up and through the trapdoor. It takes a bigger effort than she lets on to the others, but she gets Bobbi there, and after a moment Coulson leans down to offer Daisy a hand.
"C'mon," he says. "Jump."
She smirks. "No need. I can get myself out."
"How?" says Coulson curiously.
"Move back and watch," she says, and as she jumps up towards the trapdoor, she 'fires' her vibrations down at the floor, using the power to boost herself up and out. She's a bit too enthusiastic about it, or maybe exhaustion makes her less controlled – either way she flies out faster and harder than she'd planned, and she's grateful to Coulson for grabbing her arm and keeping her from shooting up until she crashes against the ceiling.
She staggers, then goes to her knees when her feet touch the ground, and Coulson and Bobbi lean over her, their expressions worried.
"Daisy, you okay?"
"Tired," Daisy admits. "That used up a lot of my energy."
They wait in a tense, almost breathless silence, for what feels like forever to Daisy, but is really only a couple of minutes, then Hunter arrives at the wheel of an SUV, and while he helps Bobbi to climb into the front passenger seat, Coulson helps Daisy into the back.
"Hold on tight," Hunter warns, then puts his foot down and rockets out of the warehouse that the Watchdog group had taken them to after capturing the four of them.
DJ-PC-DJ-PC-DJ
The next thing Daisy knows, she's waking up aboard the Zephyr1 in a room she doesn't recognise. She doesn't panic, however, because she senses some familiar vibrations nearby, even before she gets her eyes open and sees Coulson sitting by the bed. He's got his eyes closed, but she doesn't think he's asleep.
"Phil?"
His eyes snap open, and she sees relief in them, and something else she can't identify.
"Daisy," he says, leaning towards her and resting his hand by her arm. "How are you feeling?"
"Hungry," she says, and starts to push herself up into a sitting position. He immediately gets up and gently helps her, shoving pillows behind her to support her back.
"Okay?" he asks, and she's pretty sure she's not imagining the tenderness in his voice as he speaks.
"Yeah," she says. "How's Bobbi?"
"She'll be okay. She just needs to stay off her knee for a few days. Again." She nods, and he says, "Let me get you something to eat."
"Phil, I can get up," she protests.
"You don't have to," he says, pretty insistently, so she doesn't argue, she just nods and lets him go.
He returns pretty quickly, carrying a tray from which pleasant scents are wafting, and she recognises tomato and basil soup, and what she suspects is a grilled cheese sandwich, and she can't help smiling as he sets the tray across her lap. (There are two grilled cheese, in fact.)
"You spoil me, Director," she says lightly.
"You deserve it," he says, rather more intensely. He brushes his hand against her shoulder.
She shrugs as he sits down beside the bed again. "We all do what we can." She digs into her food, desperate to refuel, and he remains beside her, talking with her about the mission they were finishing when the Watchdogs captured them.
When she finishes her food, Coulson asks if she wants anything else to eat.
"No, thank you," she says, then stifles a yawn.
"You should get some more rest," he says.
"You look like you could use some yourself," she observes. He definitely looks like he's drooping after he got knocked out, temporarily, by the Watchdogs. "I can go and nab one of the other bunks."
"Why would you do that?" he asks, sounding genuinely confused.
"Well this is the Director's cabin, so if anyone should be resting in here it's you, not me."
"Or we could share," he says, sounding tentative. "I mean, it's a big bed."
She smiles. "If you're sure," she says. She kinda likes the idea, although she's fully aware they're not gonna cuddle up together or anything like that.
"I'm sure," he says. He gets to his feet, takes her tray and sets it on the credenza, then he pulls off his sweater, before sitting on the corner of the bed and removing his shoes.
"Are you okay with the left side?" Daisy asks.
"Perfectly, thank you," he says, and lies down beside her, then sits up again to help her when she starts dragging some of the pillows out from behind her back. Once they've got them rearranged, they both lie down on their backs, but with their faces towards each other.
After a few moments, she rolls onto her side, then reaches out and draws her fingertips down his cheek, which is starting to feel a little rough and stubbly.
"Daisy?" he whispers.
"It scared me today, when you got knocked out," she tells him in a low voice. "I'd hate to lose you."
"Likewise," he says and rolls onto his side to face her, then he reaches out and cups her cheek, ever so gently because it's his prosthetic. "Every time I've come close to losing you, I've panicked. When Quinn shot you, and Ward kidnapped you, when you were trapped in the temple, and Gordon took you to Afterlife. I couldn't do this job without you, you know. Not any more."
"Phil." Daisy can hardly speak through the lump of emotion that seems to have lodged itself in her throat.
"Daisy." He carefully slides his hand to the back of her neck, and draws her head towards his even as he leans in towards her. When his mouth touches hers she sighs against his lips, then opens her mouth eagerly under his.
After spending some time simply kissing and lightly touching each other, they pull apart and look at each other, then Coulson says, "There's something I need to tell you."
"Is it that you slept with Price?" Daisy asks.
He blushes, then asks, "How did you know?"
She snorts. "You didn't come home after going for a drink with her? And when you did come back the next morning, your shirt smelled of her perfume."
"I'm sorry, Daisy."
"Why?" He looks confused, so she asks, "What are you sorry for, Phil? Having sex with a woman you hardly know, and whom I'm pretty sure you don't actually trust – a woman whose views are radically different from your own?"
"Yes." He whispers the word.
She shrugs. "We all make bad choices, Phil. I kissed Lincoln." He looks startled, and she shrugs again. "I was trying to persuade him to let SHIELD help him."
"So you kissed him?"
"At least I didn't have sex with him."
"I deserved that," he mutters. "And I can't even justify doing it. Saying I was lonely isn't a justification."
"It's not the best reason," she tells him. "But there are worse."
"I should've come to you," he says, and she feels her eyes go wide.
"For sex?" she asks, surprised by the idea.
"To talk, at least," he says. "I haven't been as open with you as I should have been – as I promised I would last year, when I told you about the carving."
"No, you haven't," she says, but there's no condemnation in her voice – she understands that it's not easy being open when you're the Director of SHIELD.
"I should've been," he says.
"Well, I can't argue with that. But at the same time, I understand why you haven't been."
"I'll do better, I promise," he says earnestly.
"Good. In the meantime, though." She raises her eyebrows at him, and he chuckles, then leans in and kisses her some more.
She's pretty sure they're not going to stop at kissing – which is a very exciting thought – but she's also fairly sure they're not going to have sex right now. That's okay, though – she can wait, although not too much longer she hopes.