Chapter Text
She doesn’t want it to feel like an ambush.
But, in some way, this is totally an ambush, so why shouldn’t it feel like one?
Because you don’t want to frighten her away before you can speak your mind, Jemma, for god’s sake.
“G’morning.”
“Good morning!” Too chipper to be casual, especially for six am, what is wrong with you? “Can I help you with some breakfast, Daisy?”
That stops her on her tracks, as Jemma was expecting: out of her drowsy state to look at her with suspicious eyes.
“I might have been gone for awhile, but you in the kitchen at this hour is unusual, Simmons. You are either still tucked in or in the lab already. I thought you didn’t care about breakfast.”
Well, straightforward to the point, then. She can handle that.
“I don’t. But I know you do. And I, um, I want to ask you something.”
Daisy looks her over, her face completely neutral, May’s training explicitly at work.
“Shoot.”
“Breakfast first?”
Daisy looks down at the coffee and the toasts Jemma lay previously on the table, and then back at her face. Jemma wonders if her reservations are clearly written on it as they once were.
“Okay.”
“I have to say, Simmons, for a tea girl you make great coffee.”
“Well, one doesn’t get two degrees in three years by drinking orange juice.”
Daisy snorts into her mug and Jemma smiles, because she almost have forgotten how it sounds.
After a short silence, Daisy clears her throat.
“Thought you would be in your new apartment by this time.”
Jemma lowers her eyes, trying to hide the trembling of her fingers, but, of course, Daisy sees right past through her and goes to hold her hand tenderly.
“Let’s just say that there have been some, ah, unexpected setbacks.”
Daisy hums and waits, probably for her to explain herself, but Jemma doesn’t feel like saying anything more, not because she is ashamed of venting about Fitz with Daisy, more because it makes her feel exhausted just thinking about it, she doesn’t want to discuss it any further.
“Ah. Problems in paradise?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know. Maybe a bit.”
Daisy smiles at her encouragingly, and Jemma’s heart aches for her, she has missed her so much.
“Don’t worry. You will figure it out. You always do.”
“I know.”
Daisy squeezes her hand one last time and then stretches her arms behind her ears.
“I don’t want to be that guy, but let’s talk business, Simmons, shall we?”
Jemma sits up straight. She is not double-guessing what she wants, she is just afraid Daisy will take it the wrong way. They just got her back, she doesn’t want to strain this relationship already. But first and foremost Daisy is her friend and she trusts her, and there is no one else with whom she rather do this.
“I want you to train me.”
Daisy looks at her, dumbfounded.
“Come again?”
She inhales and exhales, gathering courage to lay her entire argument in one go.
“I want you to train me. The same way May trained you. I don’t plan on becoming a field agent any time soon, but the lines are getting more blurred everyday, and I might not be the bright-eyed innocent girl I was when I failed my field assessment, but I don’t want to improvise anymore. I want to know what I am doing. And I want you to teach me.”
Daisy is not downright refusing to do it, but she is not accepting it either, and Jemma bites her lower lip nervously while she thinks her answer.
“Jemma, I don’t know if I can do that. You have May at your disposal, why don’t you ask her?”
“May has a lot on her plate. And even if that weren’t true, I want you. You are my friend, you are like my sister, and I trust you completely.”
Daisy swallows and looks to the side, presumably to hold the tears that Jemma can see shining in the corner of her eyes.
“I don’t-, Jemma, I don’t know if I should. Everything I touch breaks.”
Jemma takes her hands in hers, and waits till Daisy is looking at her to continue talking.
“Daisy, I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere. I have been broken before, and it wasn’t your fault. I know what it feels like to be unmade. And I know this won’t be the final straw for me. So don’t worry, I won’t break. But I need this, and I think you might need it, too.” She makes a pause and waits for Daisy to nod slightly. “You don’t want me to break? Then help me be stronger.”
Daisy takes one of her hands out of Jemma’s grasp to wipe a tear from her cheek, and Jemma really would like to know what is going on inside her head, but this is okay for now. They can go slow.
“I have seen you fighting, you do pretty well all by yourself.”
“I know.” And she emphasizes her cocky tone just to get a laugh out of Daisy. “My natural, amazing skills and your training? Imagine everything we could do!”