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1
He barely knows her, but there’s something about the way that Skye says, “Stay,” that makes him stop walking away. Her fingers hover hesitantly just above his wrist, as though he wishes to pull her back towards him, back to where they had been moments before.
“I shouldn’t,” Lincoln says quickly, because while she is beautiful and most certainly his type, she’s also the daughter of the boss. Which means she ought to be untouchable, no matter how sweet her smiles are. There are rules even in Afterlife and staying the night with her would be breaking one of them. “Not that I wouldn’t-“
“Oh no, not like that,” she says, quickly cutting him off. There’s a hint of blush on her cheeks, hidden when she looks away, back at sheets on her bed. “I just don’t want to be alone, and I mean you were already creepily watching me sleep before.”
“Technically I wasn’t watching you sleep, I was monitoring your transformation.”
“Same difference.” She makes a dismissive wave of her hand. Before shooting him a grin. “Look, I get nightmares sometimes, and I don’t want this whole place to go tumbling down because I wake up and panic, so it would be nice to have somebody looking out for me. That’s all.”
He could understand that. The first few days after he had gained his abilities had left him shaken, more often than not knocking out all the nearby lights the second his emotions got even the slightest bit on the fritz.
“That’s all?”
“I promise not to make it super weird, if you platonically share a bed with me,” Skye insists, “I’ll even keep my cold toes to myself.”
“Well, in that case.”
2
She’s drunk that much is clear.
Then again, what sort of person came knocking on his apartment door at two in the morning unless they were drunk? He knew the signs all too well, he’d been in that very same place before, such that it almost pained him to see the dark circles under Skye’s eyes.
She was trying to forget something, and he had a vague idea about what. Enough that he didn’t ask her why, he didn’t even scold her using the doctor voice that all med students were trained to have. He just opened his door and let her inside.
"Skye, I-"
"Call me Daisy," she says, though it nearly sounds like a question. Not for the first time that night he wonders just how drunk the woman currently sprawled across his couch is.
"Daisy, then," he corrects, "I need you to drink this, Daisy. It'll help with the inevitable hangover."
"I feel cheated - shouldn't superpowers come with the ability to not get hangovers or some cool shit like that?"
3
He’s not sure if she hacked into the room, or if one of the perks to being high up in this place is a lanyard that lets her in everywhere, but whatever the case, this is the third time in less than a week that he’d found Daisy in his room when he returned from his work outs and evaluations.
“Evening,” she says, looking up from her laptop long enough to give him a slight grin.
“You know, I’m pretty sure I heard Fitz mention that you had a room of your own, that isn’t here.”
“You met Fitz,” is about the only think Daisy gains from his sentence. “Fitz is nice, you’ll like him.”
“Somebody’s avoiding the topic,” Lincoln says.
Though he lets he get away without pushing, instead crossing to his closet to grab something new to change into. He’s learned from prior experience that asking Daisy if she’d like to leave so he can change just makes her more determined to stay, and the likelihood of her looking up from her screen to actually watch him is slim to none.
He’s just finished pulling on a pair of joggers when Daisy speaks up, “Do you like it here?”
“This rooms bigger than my last one, furnished too, so that’s a plus-“
“Lincoln, that’s not what I meant,” this time she does look up from her laptop. Her eyes meeting his, earnestly and honest, “I mean, do you like working with SHIELD, with our team. I know we tracked you down and you weren’t happy about it.”
He snorts. That was putting it lightly.
“If was SHIELD or die, you had to know I was going to choose SHIELD.”
“And what if it wasn’t? What if you could walk out of here right now and go back to your old life?”
Go back to being a doctor, back to everything he had worked so hard for, everything that had been gone in an instant the second Lash showed up at that hospital. A week ago he would have said that he would have given anything to go back to that but now – now with Daisy looking up at him with an almost hopeful look on her face - things have changed.
“I’m still here, aren’t I?”
4
“Is it alright if I kiss you?”
Those simple words is all it takes, to start an avalanche. He kisses her in an answer and she responds in kind, soft and sure against him, because they’ve both needed this. They spent too long stepping around it, pretending that first time didn’t happen, that now finally as they kiss again, the flood gates seem to have opened.
He cannot help himself, not when she is before he like this.
And Daisy returns his kisses with equal passion, her hands gripping onto him as though he might slip away from her.
But as they break apart for air, gasping lips barely an inch apart, and he meets those dark eyes, he knows in an instant that there’s no going back. There never really was.
5
"You know I could beat you up, right?"
He's half asleep, and her voice is anything but soft, in its attempts to rouse him.
Lincoln makes a small noise of agreement, which gets him prodded in the back in return. Beat him up alright.
"I could do it if I wanted it."
"I know," he tells her, rolling over to look at Daisy.
Who looks far too awake for this time of night, though he knows commenting on that will do him no good. Not now that she's got her serious face on.
"Daisy what is it?"
"We're a team right? Not just me and you but all of us, those of us who still remain."
"Of course."
"And if I thought about leaving SHIELD, having the secret warriors freelance?"
A small part of him knew that this was a long time coming. Daisy had been disagreeing with boss more often than not lately, taking risks that got them reprimanded when they returned. He'd seen her flight or fight instincts all too clearly, they reminded him of his own.
"I'm here for you," Lincoln tell her, though for him it feel like the most obvious thing in the world. "Where you go, I go, end of story."
"That's all I needed to hear."
+1
“Daisy, you know, I love you right?”