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Love
Daisy has never understood love. She’s always had so much, filling her heart to such an uncomfortable degree. Until she had to leave because if she gave away her heart again only for it to get broken she would not have gotten it back.
It is strange really, the many ways a heart can break.
On the surface of it all, her heartbreak always felt like anger. And she would rage all the time if she thought it would help, but it doesn’t. But sometimes she thinks it is the only thing keeping the fractured remains of her heart stitched together. She wrapped up her pain in anger’s neat bow and hid the rest.
But she felt it. She felt it as sharply as bruises covering her skin. She felt it as a constant dull ache. Always there, and in its consistency, easy to ignore. Only noticeable when she checked the damage. Pressing on them to see if they still hurt. Testing how long they would take to heal.
And maybe they have healed, because Daisy wants things, now. She wants things she has never been allowed to have. She wants things she cannot allow herself to have. She wants love that feels safe. She wants love that doesn’t hurt. She wants to be more than a tool, picked up, used, and tossed aside. She wants to go home. She wants a home to go to.
It doesn’t matter what she wants. The world demands more.
it will not betray you
She is straining and protesting. Strapped to a table. She is trapped, restrained, and helpless.
“There are always risks involved.”
Her body is his tool. The pain is her own.
“I didn’t have a choice,” Fitz defends- as if saying it makes it true. He has absolved himself of all responsibility but she refuses to do the same.
“We don’t turn on our own.”
“Do you want me to recount all the times that you did?” He says it angrily, wielding the words like another scalpel.
“You didn’t have a choice?” She will not say it quietly.
She has anger too and she has power and that is her right, and maybe it is time she reclaim it.
dismay
Blood drips onto her tablet. Eric’s eyes are open. His cheek is pressed into the grate.
“Skye!” Ward shouts at her as she runs desperate to escape, a cop on his either side, restraining him, his face unhinged. “You don’t understand. I’m not trying to hurt you!” he bellows- as if he hasn’t already.
Her hands clench. She will probably be adding that face to her nightmares.
He was calm until she said he made her sick. Then he snapped. “Do you think this has been easy for me?” And like a switch, there was the real Ward, full of outrage and entitlement.
“I will never, ever give you what you want.”
If that is love, she wants no part of it. That is too high a cost.
or enslave you
“Sorry sweetheart, I’m just playing the long game.”
She has been sold and bought like some thing. To these men, she has no rights, no autonomy, no agency. Not over her life, not over her powers, not over her own body.
“I’m a pragmatist, all right?” Deke justifies- as if that makes it better.
She doesn’t know Deke well enough to know if he cares about these people, or if he just wants to be the hero of his own narrative. But maybe it’s even more simple, he has just absolved himself of all responsibility in the name of survival. And he will say anything to keep her from retaliating.
Daisy knows revisionist bs when she sees it.
It will set you free
It happened again. Just like before. She was drugged again. Strapped to a table and cut into again. She had her powers taken again. She had her blood drained again. She couldn’t stop it. Again.
Sousa is there, after, watching her with concern.
She remembers his voice. She remembers his promise, “We are going home, Agent Johnson.”
She wasn’t unconscious this time, she had a chance. Her arms weren’t tied down this time, she could still use them. She could still fight this time.
“Now you have got to fight.”
She gave Sousa the glass. She didn’t have to do it alone. Not this time.
He unlocked her handcuffs and carried her home.
“Thank you,” she tells him. “Thank you for...”
He is looking at her intently. He has seen her at some of her worst, but it wasn’t pity in his eyes, it was, respect. Daisy doesn’t really know what to do with that.
“I’m just glad you’re safe,” he offers- sincerely.
“Why do you care?” she asks him, confused.
See the beauty of love as it was made to be
Daisy looks over at Daniel who is staring out into space and thinks, it would be so easy to love him. This man who followed her every time without fail on barely more than an idea. This man who likes her but expects nothing from her. Who only wants to help her and support her. Daisy is surprised but so inexplicably happy to be falling for this man. And somehow, the thought of loving him doesn’t scare her.
Still, it is many months before she says it. She doesn’t plan to say it when she does. But she blurts it out one day.
“I love you.”
It’s true. She loves him in ways she doesn’t understand and she needs new words because all the ones she knows can't express this properly. And she can't possibly keep it to herself. It comes pouring out of her.
Daniel turns to her, and she shrugs a little. “I love you,” she repeats, softly.
He looks at her adoringly. “I love you too.”
And it doesn’t hurt. It feels like stability and comfort. It feels safe.
It feels like home.