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The Hydra agents tailing Daisy were persistent, she could give them that. They’d followed her up eight flights of stairs with no indication of stopping. Of course, they always could've been forced to follow her; Daisy wouldn’t put it past Ward to follow in Garett's footsteps with the incentives program.
The footsteps faded slightly as Daisy works up staircase number nine. She turned a corner and crouched, waiting. The footsteps got closer, until the ends of three automatic rifles were in her line of sight. Daisy launched herself forward, kicking one Hydra thug into two others, sending them tumbling down the stairs, blocking the path of the thugs behind them. For trained agents, they were really easy to take down. Before they could get back up, she turned back around and resumed her run up the stairs.
Her comms crackled. “Daisy where are you?”
Daisy ducked behind a corner, listening for footsteps. When she heard none, she turned on her comms. “Going up the nineteenth floor, west staircase. Hydra’s pursuing me with prejudice, I think Ward might’ve told them to use extreme force or something.”
“Try to get up to the roof, you’re not that far, and we can try to extract you.”
“Try, May? Just try?” Daisy panted slightly; running up almost 10 flights of stairs nonstop was tiring.
She could practically hear May roll her eyes. “We’ll get you out Daisy, but hurry.”
She didn't need to be told twice. She could see the door to the roof up the next staircase, and it spurred her forward. Unfortunately, the Hydra agents behind her weren’t getting any farther away.
She shoved the door open, using the momentum to tumble onto the roof. She gulped in the fresh air and relished how it felt on her skin after running up ten flights of stairs. She slammed the door, then searched for something to bar it. It didn’t have a handle on the roof’s side, which seemed like a serious design flaw. Plus it meant that the agents right behind Daisy could come right after her.
And they did, barging onto the roof right as Daisy ducked behind a utility box. Panic would've typically started to set in now, but Daisy was trained better than that.
She turned her comms back on as Hydra spread out around the roof. “May, I need that extraction, like, now. I’m surrounded and I’ve got no exit.”
“You can’t quake them?”
“I don’t want to risk bringing the whole building down.”
“Alright, stay there.” The whir of a Quinjet's engine got closer as May spoke.
A Hydra agent found Daisy right as May told her to stay put, shouting for backup. She took him down easily, but he'd already alerted at least ten other agents to her location. She was very, very screwed, to say the least.
“May, I need that extraction now!” No need to whisper, they already knew where she was.
“We aren’t up that high yet!”
Daisy’s mind raced for a solution. One came, an insane one that would either get her killed or yelled at. Neither options were inviting, but as far as she could tell there was no other way to escape without several gunshot wounds. The building was tall enough, and Daisy was crazy enough, though desperate might be a more appropriate word.
“Your Quinjet is on the west side of the building?”
“Yes, but we aren’t high enough-”
“Get close to the building, and make sure the top hatch is open!”
“Why would I need to...no, no no no Daisy! Do not do what I think you’re about to do!” May sounded both angry and concerned, a combo Daisy heard a lot. Probably too much.
“May, I’ve got no other choice, just make sure you’re close!”
Daisy heard May protest further, but she blocked it out, trying to mentally hype herself up. Hydra was closing in, and she had an incredibly risky choice to focus on. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, hoping that no Hydra goons found her in the vulnerable position she was in. She tried to focus on the words May drilled into her in training: Control. Control your mind, control your body, control your breathing.
Before she could stop herself, Daisy ran past Hydra, dodging bullets, and launched herself off the building.
~
Falling off that building didn’t kill Daisy, but May could. She had remained eerily silent the whole flight back, and now Daisy was sitting through a lecture that should go in some sort of lecture hall of fame.
“What the hell were you thinking!”
Daisy sighed, rubbing her neck under May’s sharp gaze. The lecture was over, now the interrogation began. “I didn’t have any other choice. They were closing in-”
“You should’ve waited!”
“And gotten shot?” Daisy shoot up from her chair, feeling defensive.
May moved closer, not unlike a predator stalking their prey. “A gunshot wound is better than lying dead on the sidewalk.” Her voice was rock hard with suppressed anger.
“But I’m not dead on the sidewalk. I landed on the Quinjet, which I knew I would, and everything is fine.” Daisy was trying very hard not to loose her cool.
“No, everything is not fine. You cannot keep pulling suicidal moves like that Daisy.” May backed up from Daisy, leaning against the director’s desk, arms crossed.
The director, on his part, was sitting behind his desk, head in his hands, listening to May chew into Daisy. He hadn't said anything since he asked to see her.
Daisy fell back into her chair, feeling kind of like a pouty teenage daughter. Which would make Coulson and May her parents. The idea almost made her smile a little, until she glanced back at May, and her smile died.
May turned towards Coulson. “Phil, please back me up on this. If she keeps pulling shit like this, she’ll get herself killed.”
“I’m right here,” Daisy reminded them, really feeling like a teenage daughter at that point.
May turned to glare at Daisy for a moment, before twisting back towards Coulson, giving him a look like “see what I mean?”
Coulson pulled his head from his hands, looking incredibly tired. He didn’t seem to have it in him to glare at Daisy; instead he sort of gave her a sad disappointed look. Which was ten times worse than if he had glared at her. She ducked her head, her face burning.
Coulson sighed. “May is right, Daisy. That move was crazy and stupid.”
Daisy opened her mouth to protest, she could deal with debating with Coulson as opposed to May. He put his hand up before she could say anything.
“But, it worked.”
“Phil!” May turned her glare on him.
“May, Daisy isn’t dead, and we got out with what we wanted. As long as Daisy knows not to pull stunts like that again, I don’t see the issue.”
May scoffed lightly, but didn’t argue. Instead, she turned to Daisy with an imploring look, her glare fading slightly. “So, are you going to pull stunts like that again?”
“No, Mom,” Daisy mumbled, not daring to look up.
Coulson turned his head in an attempt to hide his smile, while May shifted her stance. She stared at Daisy for a little bit, then walked out of the room, not looking back at Coulson. He watched her go, then turned away.
“You’re dismissed, Agent Johnson.” Coulson shuffled some papers and looked at her expectantly. Daisy took her cue to leave, giving him a small smile as a thank you.
May stood outside, arms crossed. Shit. Daisy considered running, but Coulson was right behind the door in case May wanted to go off.
She walked forward, a dead serious look on her face. “If you do something like that again, it won’t matter if it works or not, because I will kill you.”
For some reason, the threat made Daisy smile. She straightened, and brought her hand up in an exaggerated salute. “Yes sir.”
May raised her eyebrows. She didn't speak, and instead gave Daisy a once-over, and then walked away. Daisy let out a breath she didn't know she was holding in. Even after over a year of training with May, she still sometimes scared Daisy in the ways she had on the Bus. Only sometimes.
~
"You jumped off a building?"
In retrospect, Daisy probably should've known better than to tell Simmons. She was going full on mom friend, and Daisy had already gotten lectured once, she didn't need another one that would have virtually the same content.
She sighed. "Yes, I jumped off a building. And landed on the Quinjet, like I knew I would."
Simmons didn't even stop her work to chastise her friend. "Still, you could've landed in the turbines, or missed the jet completely!"
"I'm not stupid. Plus, I trusted May's piloting skills, she caught me."
"Last I checked, Quinjets don't have skylights."
"Well maybe they should, Dr. Simmons." Daisy adopted Simmons's high and mighty tone as she spoke. Simmons rolled her eyes.
"All I'm saying is that if you keep pulling risky moves like that, one of them is bound to fail at one point."
It was Daisy's turn to roll her eyes. "Yeah I know, I got the same lecture from May."
Simmons pursed her lips in sympathy. "How did that go?"
"I'm not dead, so good." Daisy noticed the various programs and papers scattered around Simmons's work station. "What are you doing?"
"Building a skylight for the Quinjets."
~
Apparently Daisy's impulsive move of the day seemed to be all anyone wanted to talk about. Daisy blamed Simmons; there was no way May and Coulson would be gossiping. She had gotten another lecture from Fitz, which had been hilarious considering the fact that he was just as, if not more, impulsive than her.
"How'd the mission go?" Mack walked by Daisy, ruffling her hair like she was five as he went.
She swatted his hand away. "Oh, you haven't heard?"
"Heard what?"
Daisy moved to the couch, joining Mack, Bobbi and Hunter. "I got cornered on the roof, so I jumped off it onto the Quinjet."
Hunter leaned towards her. "How high was that?"
"Twenty stories."
"Damn. You look alright for falling off a building." Hunter leaned back, dramatically putting his arm around Bobbi's shoulders.
Mack opened a beer bottle. "Why'd you ask if I knew about it?"
"I've gotten lectures from three people." Daisy rolled her eyes. "Somehow they all said the exact same thing in different words. I figured I was going to get a lecture from you guys."
"I wouldn't've lectured you, that's a ballsy move. And obviously it worked, because your here, looking alright." Daisy looked at Hunter curiously, who only shrugged.
Mack elbowed her. "What did May say?"
She smirked. "That she'd kill me if I did anything like that again." Hunter's eyes widened. "Yeah, I'm lucky to be alive."
"Damn right." Daisy looked to the doorway, where May was standing. She didn't look as pissed as before, and her tone was more amused than angry. Daisy flashed her a peace sign. May walked away, smirking.
~
"Well, it sounds like you're having more fun than I am."
Daisy bit her lip sympathetically. "You could come here and join us."
Lincoln laughed, the sound staticky over the phone. "Nice try."
"What, you don't want to come and jump off roofs with me?"
"I don't like heights," he admitted.
Daisy sighed, and checked the time. They had about 90 seconds, and she didn't know what to say. She felt like she was wasting their time, not having anything to say. She checked again. 80 seconds.
She stuck with an easy question. "How are you?"
"Not good." Lincoln sucked in a breath. "I found another one of my friends dead. I don't know how this thing is getting to them so quickly."
"We're working on it."
"I know, so am I."
Daisy took another deep breath. "Don't die, okay?" She knows he can't promise anything, and if he did it would just be to make sure she didn't worry. But she honestly was worried, and Lincoln wasn't exactly doing much to reassure her.
"I'll try." It wasn't much, but Daisy knew it was the best Lincoln could do. And that would have to be okay.