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Once Agent Davis had the Zephyr up in the air, everyone calmed down and started to catch their breath. Jemma swallowed the air, allowing her heart to slow as she processed everything. Daisy’s adrenaline began to run out, and her injuries caught up with her. She groaned in the seat behind Jemma, and Jemma turned around to see Daisy’s face all scrunched up in pain, sweat beads on her forehead. Simmons knew she had to get her fixed up before she’d bleed out.
Jemma turned to the three junior agents. “Are you all alright to fly this for now?” she asked. Agent Piper nodded in affirmation. Jemma stood, grunting at the pain shooting through her head and leg. She stumbled toward Daisy, putting a hand on her good shoulder, gently shaking her. “Daisy, come on.” She unbuckled her friend’s seat belt, attempting to help her up. The girl just groaned.
“Here, let me help,” Agent Prince insisted, standing from his own seat. Jemma stepped back, gripping her aching head. The junior agent flung Daisy’s good arm over his own shoulder, lifting her from her seat to a standing position. The girl began to slip toward the floor, but luckily Prince caught her.
“Be careful with her!” Jemma half-shouted, afraid.
“I’m fine,” Daisy assured her friend. Jemma sighed in relief.
“You most certainly are not fine, but I am glad you are conscious,” Jemma commented.
The three made their way down the corridors of the plane, then stopped in its med bay. Prince helped Daisy onto a cot.
“We have it from here,” Jemma told the junior agent.
Prince nodded. “Alright, come get one of us if you need anything. Piper has at least a little medical training.”
Jemma nodded as he left, then turned back to her friend. Daisy was breathing heavily, her face all scrunched up in pain. She was gripping her injured shoulder, blood dripping through her fingers.
Jemma winced at the sight. She gently pried the girl’s hands away from her injury. “Daisy, let me get you fixed up.” Daisy nodded as Jemma took out two disposable gloves, sliding them onto her own hands. She helped Daisy to lie down, then began prodding at her wound.
“So…” Daisy said, gritting her teeth at the pain of the disinfectant that Simmons was applying. “Feels familiar, huh?” She laughed a little at her own joke, gripping the side of the cot in pain. “How many times have you fixed my gunshot wounds…”
Jemma scoffed. “I wish it weren’t so many.” She trashed the bloody disinfectant pads, then took out some tweezers. “This will hurt, but I have to remove the bullet. Unfortunately for you, it did not come out the other side.” She worked quickly, knowing Daisy was getting paler and paler by the minute as she lost blood.
“I trust you,” Daisy said, grunting as she felt the tweezers prod around her wound. She had to suppress her quakes as Jemma slowly removed the tiny bullet. Finally, it was out, and she heard the clink of it when it dropped in the kidney dish. Jemma cleaned her wound some more, then took out a suture kit. Daisy knew the drill.
Simmons injected lidocaine to numb the area before she stitched it up. “I wonder where our teammates are,” she said as she waited for the anesthetic to kick in.
Daisy swallowed. “Not sure, maybe Greece?” she joked. “I always wanted to go to one of those coastal towns. I went to see Mamma Mia in theaters with Miles, and–”
“I’m worried about Fitz,” Jemma said quickly. She gripped her own head. Daisy tried to sit up, only to be pushed back down by Simmons. “Don’t you dare,” she said sternly.
Daisy settled to just lifting her head. “You need to get yourself fixed up, Jemma. Your leg, and you took a bad hit to the head…”
Jemma nodded. “I suppose you’re right.” She dabbed some gauze against the stab wound in her thigh. “I’ll get Piper to stitch this up later. Love you, Daisy, but I trust your quaking skills far more than your medical skills.” Daisy smiled at that. Jemma stood, reaching into the freezer and taking out an ice pack. She set it down, then began to clean the blood off her head. She then pressed the ice pack to her head.
“How are we the only ones left?” Daisy asked, more rhetorically than anything else.
Jemma shook her head gently. “I don’t know.” Daisy could read the grave worry across her friend’s face.
“Anyway,” the scientist said as she set the ice pack down. “Let’s work on that shoulder.” She began to suture it. “You’re lucky the bullet didn’t nick any major arteries.”
Daisy nodded. “I worry that was their…intention…” she trailed off, her eyes beginning to roll back into her head.
“Daisy?” Jemma said. She looked at her friend’s face as she finished stitching up her wound. Daisy’s eyes were closed, and she gave no response. “Daisy!” she shouted, panicked. She visually searched her body. Her eyes caught an immense amount of blood flowing from her left thigh. It was bleeding more than before. Jemma cursed under her breath, hastily ripping Daisy’s pant leg off. She pressed gauze to the wound, trying to stop the bleeding. “PIPER!” she yelled.
A moment later, Agent Piper appeared, shocked. “What is it?” She gasped at the sight.
“Get me the clotting agent,” Jemma ordered, not taking her hands off the bleeding injury. Piper obeyed, bringing her the CELOX. Jemma quickly applied the agent, heaving a sigh of relief once the bleeding finally stopped.
“What happened?” Piper asked.
Jemma shook her head in dismay, catching her breath and pressing the ice pack to her own head. “She passed out on me. The bullet to her thigh must have gotten her femoral artery.”
Piper gasped. “Good God…” She swallowed. “What can I do?”
Jemma pointed to Daisy’s shoulder. “Get that bandaged up while I work on her leg.” She tossed her ice pack to the side and began work cleaning up the wound.
“Is she going to be okay?” Piper asked after a while.
Simmons sighed. “Yeah, she is.” She threw another stitch through the wound. She looked up at her friend’s unconscious face, her hair matted to her face from the sweat and blood. It brought her back to that dreaded night in Italy, when she had found her best friend bleeding out on the floor with two holes in her stomach. She shook her head to shake off the memory, throwing in another stitch. “This idiot is always getting herself hurt,” she half-joked.
Piper chuckled a little, finishing up bandaging her shoulder. “Well, I’m sure she’s grateful she has someone as caring and talented as you in her corner.”
Jemma smiled a little as she finished up suturing her wound. She wiped some beads of sweat with the back of her wrist. “I just wish she didn’t have to go through this…all the time.”
Piper sighed now, putting her hands on her hips. “Unfortunately, she’s one of our strongest. Which means she always finds herself in tough situations.”
Jemma nodded as she finished up bandaging Daisy’s thigh. She leaned back, sitting on the floor, her back against the wall. She put her ice pack back on. “Could you go get Daisy some clean clothes?”
Piper nodded, leaving to go do so. Jemma looked up at her friend. She stood slowly, taking Daisy’s hand in her own. “Oh, Daisy,” she whispered. She grabbed a damp washcloth, wiping off her bloody face, then hands. Once Piper returned, Jemma turned and nodded. “Thank you.”
“Of course,” Piper said, setting the clothes down.
“Could you help me?” Jemma asked. Piper immediately understood, and the pair gently lifted Daisy’s good arm to remove her shirt. Jemma was careful with sliding it over her bad arm. Once that was off, she pulled the loose black SHIELD t-shirt on her as Piper gently held her head. They then changed her into loose exercise shorts, to allow the thigh wound to breathe. Jemma made sure to be extra gentle near her injury as she pulled the shorts on. Once Daisy was fixed and cleaned up, Piper tended to Jemma’s injuries, putting some butterfly strips on the cuts and getting her a fresh ice pack and painkillers. She stitched up her leg wound and wrapped it up tightly. The two then left the med bay to rest elsewhere.
Daisy awoke with a start, forgetting where she was. Once she gathered her bearings, she groaned in pain. She slowly sat up on the med bay cot, gritting her teeth at the pain in her shoulder and thigh. She noticed the clothes she was in and fresh bandages that were wrapped tenderly around her injuries. A black sling was set on the table next to the cot. Daisy slid it over her head, wincing as she slid her injured arm into it. She swung her legs off the side of the cot, planting her feet on the ground and standing. She immediately began to sway, dizzy from all the blood loss. She stood nonetheless, and stumbled out of the med bay, making her way into the cockpit. Jemma, Piper, and Prince were seated, discussing something. Davis was flying the plane. They all looked up when they heard Daisy’s footsteps.
“Daisy,” Jemma said, standing and rushing to her friend. “What are you doing up?”
Daisy swallowed, looking at her friend’s concerned expression. “I just–”
“You need to be in bed,” she said, gently putting a hand on Daisy’s back and guiding her back toward the med bay.
“Jemma,” Daisy said, pulling away from her. “I’m fine.” She tried to hold in a wince when she put a little too much weight on her bad leg. Of course, Jemma noticed.
She raised her eyebrows, crossing her arms. “Uh huh, just fine.” She scoffed, grabbing her good arm and guiding her to the med bay. She made her sit back down on the cot. She put her hands on her hips. “You got shot in the shoulder and the thigh. The bullet in your leg nicked your femoral artery, so no, you are not fine .” She shook her head, grabbing something off the table behind her. “You should not have been walking.”
“Jemma…”
The doctor turned around to meet her gaze. “No, Daisy, when you get hurt, you have to follow my directions if you want to heal properly.” She tilted her head, studying Daisy’s battered face. “And look, you have a black eye too.” She pressed an ice pack to her eye.
“Ow, ow,” Daisy whined. She swatted Jemma’s hands away. “Let me hold it.”
Jemma shook her head, crossing her arms again. “I can’t believe you tried to–”
“Alright, alright, I get it Jemma, I won’t do it again,” Daisy mumbled.
“It was dumb of you to sacrifice yourself,” Jemma muttered under her breath, now referring back to the terrors that occurred hours ago.
Daisy indeed heard what she said. “I don’t think it was,” she argued, removing the ice pack from her face. “I did the right thing. There was no other way.”
“I just feel guilty,” Jemma admitted. “You sent yourself into the deep end for me , and came out with two holes in your body.”
“It wasn’t just for you,” Daisy said. “It was necessary if both of us wanted to live, and if we wanted to save our teammates, and, you know, the entirety of SHIELD…or whatever’s left of it.”
Simmons sighed. “I just can’t help thinking there had to have been another way…”
Daisy shook her head, grabbing her friend’s shoulders. “Jemma, look at me. It’s over. I may be a little battered up, but thanks to you, I’ll be fine. And now we’re safe, and we are gonna find our friends, and then they’ll be safe too. It will be okay.”
Jemma offered a little smile, then wrapped her arms around Daisy, pulling her into a gentle embrace. “I love you, Daisy. I’m so glad you’re okay.”
“I’m so glad we made it out of there,” Daisy said. “The two of us can do anything, can’t we?”
Jemma laughed as they pulled away from the hug. “Yes, we can.”