Chapter Text
Daisy wasn't sure whether to be annoyed or secretly smug about the fact that Deke was following her, trying to keep her from going after Simmons.
“I can’t let you do this,” he insisted, and she didn’t bother to hide the way her eyes rolled. As if he could do a damn thing.
“What I do isn’t up to you,” she snapped, turning to face him, his bright blue eyes panicked, probably about her ruining his precious Framework speakeasy.
“Do you have any idea what you’re doing?” he demanded. “Do you know how many people you might get killed in the fallout? Of course, seeing as you’re the girl who tore the Earth apart, why would you care at-”
“Do me a favor, Deke, and shut the hell up,” she countered. She’s getting sick of his “you quaked the Earth apart” barbs. Even if she could do that (and there was no way that was possible, was it?), she wouldn’t. Never.
Deke only glared at her, quiet for about five blissful seconds before saying, “So what if you do get to your friend? What then? Where are you gonna go? Where are you gonna hide? It might be nice if you had a plan-”
“I’ve got a plan,” she lied. “I just need you to tell me where the Kree keep their prisoners.” It’s a long shot, she knows, but it’s worth a shot.
He scoffed. “What makes you think I know that?”
She shrugged. “You seemed pretty buddy-buddy with them, I thought it was a fair question since you’re such good friends with them.”
Deke tensed a bit. “I’m not friends with them.”
It was her turn to scoff. “Yeah, okay.”
He started to protest, but she cut him off. “Look, I’m doing this with or without you. Now, you can either tell me where Simmons is being held and help me figure out the least noticeable way to get her out, or you can go back into your Framework opium den while I take out every Kree I see and let your little escapist business crumble.” She lets that implication dangle, remembering how upset he’d been at the fallen aliens when she had rescued Yo-Yo and Mack.
He hesitated, and she shrugged, turning away. That only seemed to piss him off.
“You already destroyed the world once,” he said furiously, grabbing her arm with a vice-like grip, “I’m not letting you do it again!”
Anger and instinct took over, and she shoved him away before blasting him into the wall. Unfortunately, he wasn’t knocked out. He staggered a bit against the wall, trying to regain his footing.
“There she is,” Deke sneered triumphantly. “Quake, Destroyer of Worlds.”
She gritted her teeth. He was such an ass, but the best thing to do was ignore his accusatory comments.
She held out her hand, and he shrank back, ever so slightly.
“Either run or help me,” she said. “It’s your choice, but I’m not letting some knockoff Han Solo stop me from saving my best friend. Are you in or out?”
They stared at each other for a few moments, and she could see the gears turning in his head. If he helped her, they could pull off something a lot more stealthy, and his business would be protected and uninvolved in the fallout. The same couldn’t be said for her alternative plan, which involved guns blazing.
“Fine,” he huffed through bared teeth, “But if we get caught, I’m not bailing your ass out.”
“I won’t need you to,” she said. “Earthquake powers, remember? The kind that destroys a planet?”
He closed his eyes as she tossed his own words back at him, choosing not to acknowledge it as he said, “There’s a closed-off space in the far south section of the Lighthouse, on the third level. It’s rumored that that’s where they hold prisoners...at least, the ones they feel like sparing, and the ones the roaches haven’t gotten already.”
He must’ve seen the anger in her eyes at the implication of what had become of Simmons because he held his hands up in surrender. “Jeez, I’m not saying Simon or whatever is dead-”
“Simmons,” Daisy corrected him in a tight tone. “Her name is Jemma Simmons.”
“Whatever,” Deke said. “Let’s grab some flashlights and go.”
“For the record, this is a terrible idea,” Deke said as they descended into blackness.
“When I want your opinion, Deke, I’ll ask for it,” Daisy said, her voice acidic before turning her attention back to empty gloom.
“Simmons?” she whispered into the darkness, ignoring the annoyed mutterings of Deke behind her. “Jemma, are you there? It’s me, it’s Daisy.”
Nothing at first. And then, something quiet, barely able to be heard over Deke’s mumbling. She hissed for him to shut up.
“Hello?” she said, a little louder. “Is someone there?”
Again, soft and rasping.
Her name.
“Daisy?”
It sent a chill down her spine. That didn’t sound like Simmons, she thought, advancing towards the source. In the dark, something softly luminescent moved and a scraping sound echoed in the emptiness, like metal moving against concrete.
She moved towards the source, feeling like a white girl in a horror movie, casting the bright beacon of her flashlight over the ground, until it came to rest on a strangely familiar black sneaker with a white stripe, and then another one, connected to the pant legs of jeans so dirty it was almost impossible to tell they were blue.
Someone was definitely down here, and she pushed down a horrible thought in the back of her mind.
The flashlight traveled up, and her heart pounded before sinking into her stomach when she saw the signature black leather jacket.
Not here.
Not here.
There was no way, it couldn’t be-
“Robbie?” she said, her breath caught in her throat. The flashlight was bright enough that it cast a white haze over his face, and the restraints wrapped around his wrists and chest.
How could he have been here? He was supposed to be in another dimension, in their time, looking for a way to destroy the Darkhold. Had something happened? Robbie seemed to have been dabbling in things that were way beyond anything she could have imagined.
He looked awful. The odd, faintly glowing chains were one thing, but the gauntness of his face and the weariness in his eyes were something else.
He looked at her like he’d seen a ghost, eyes wary and tired, and it occurred to her that he probably couldn’t even see her around the glow of the flashlight. She knelt down next to him, setting the flashlight down so that it shone towards the ceiling, casting a white halo over both of them.
“Robbie?” she said again, softly. “It’s me, it’s Daisy.” She reached for his hand, but he jerked away, chains clinking.
“No,” he rasped. “No, you can’t be here. It’s-it’s not possible.”
“Yeah, we said that, too,” she said, her eyes scanning him up and down. He looked way too thin, and in really rough shape. How could this have happened? He’d only been gone for a few hours, maybe days at most (granted, she didn’t know how long the people who had picked the team up had kept them in that stasis), there was no way he could be in this state after so little time.
“Daisy? What’s going on?” Deke came up, shining his flashlight right in Robbie’s eyes. Robbie winced and turned his face away from the light.
“Deke, don’t shine it in his eyes, you asshole!” Daisy reprimanded him, holding her hand up in an attempt to shield Robbie’s eyes.
“You know this guy?” Deke asked, reluctantly lowering the flashlight.
“He’s a friend, he worked with us,” Daisy explained briefly before turning back to what really mattered. “Robbie, listen-”
“You’re not here,” Robbie muttered. “You can’t be, it’s not possible-”
“I promise, it’s me,” Daisy said, laying her hand on his knee. “Hang on and I’ll try and get you out of these chains-”
“How can you be here?” Robbie snapped. “This isn’t real, it’s all in my head or something-”
“Robbie, please, I swear I’m real,” she said, starting to panic. “There’s something really horrible going on here, Simmons is in danger-
“The Earth is gone and no one knows what happened to it, yeah, yeah, yeah,” Deke said. “Can we catch up later? This is really-”
“What are you talking about?” Robbie said, looking thoroughly perplexed. “‘No one knows what happened?’ I fucking lived it, I know exactly what happened.”
“You-” Daisy stopped. How was that possible? The Lighthouse had been here for at least almost a century, there was no way-
Her mind went back to one of the first conversations she’d had with Robbie, discussing the Ghost Rider while they sped to rescue Gabe from a shady part of town.
“So you think that if you right whatever wrong your uncle was trying to fix, that you can get rid of it?”
He didn’t look at her, but his jaw clenched. “Or else I have to ride with it forever.”
She remembered how he’d tried to hide the way that thought truly bothered him. And now...
I fucking lived it .
“Oh my God,” she whispered.
This wasn’t Robbie Reyes from her time.
It was Robbie Reyes in the future.