may i hold you, may i be your shield, when no one can be found, may i lay you down (♫)
This wasn't part of the plan.
The thought goes through Daisy Johnson's mind a thousand times as she walks the streets of 1940s London. The clothes she wears feel wrong, like she's in a costume with hair and makeup to match, but this is real. The Zephyr had jumped without her, a glitch in the system that had sent them hurtling forward in time seconds before she'd reached the ship. It had blinked out of existence right in front of her eyes and she's spent the days since assembling pieces of the puzzle and trying to keep herself together.
At least the Chronicoms seem to have jumped as well. She doesn't have to worry about them messing up the timeline, only herself, which is... difficult. Ripples, not waves. It's a mantra she repeats hourly, keeping her head low for those first days until she realizes that she might be stuck here for a while. There's no telling when the Zephyr might pop up — there's no telling if it ever will. She might be stuck here for the rest of her life, meeting the team again only as an old woman when they eventually reappear. The thought is beyond terrifying if she's honest. The very idea of never seeing her family again is horrifying.
Maybe that's why she ends up at a bar for yet another night, watching the soldiers celebrating their latest victory from across the room. At least it is a celebration tonight; the day before, they'd been in mourning. She reaches into her purse and pulls out a few bills, paying for an anonymous round for the men in uniform, focusing on the moment of joy it will bring them instead of the memory of what her fingers had brushed against when she'd reached into the bag. Strategic Scientific Reserve is stamped across her flawless identification and she can't stand to look at it. She is a SHIELD agent and her team is out there, somewhere, without their strongest fighter while she—
She orders another drink from her seat at the end of the bar, downing a third of the pint in one go when it's placed in front of her.
He wasn't among the group of soldiers celebrating. The news of a big victory at the front had rippled through every battalion and no soldier was missing the chance to have a drink to the boys they hadn't lost tonight. His own unit had raised a glass, or a lot more than one, at another pub down the road, most of the boys trickling away as they picked up girls or were picked up by them - one of the very first things Steve had learned about English girls was that they weren't shy - until it was just him and Dum Dum and almost immediately after walking into the new place his friend had gotten distracted by a pretty redhead. Which had meant Steve made his way to the bar on his own, intending on a single drink before he headed back to the barracks.
The woman at the opposite end caught his eye almost immediately, he didn't miss the gesture she sent to the boisterous group across the room, didn't miss how quickly she drank so much of the glass, or the sad look she had about her. She'd lost someone, was the immediate conclusion he had to draw. There were always casualties, always those who couldn't feel the same joy in victory as most. Steve got it; he always felt a little guilty when, even when he wasn't anywhere near the campaign, he couldn't save everyone. What good were all his new abilities if he still lost?
After placing his order with the bartender, he made his way down the other end of the counter to stand beside her. Prettier up close, he decided in an instant, but something didn't quite place right. Something he couldn't place his finger on; she didn't stick out in any real way.
"This seat taken?" he wondered, gesturing to an empty stool.
The sensation of someone approaching isn't unexpected. There's usually at least a few soldiers who try their luck while she enjoys a drink or three and tonight has been no different. She doesn't even look until the man speaks, first taking in his gesture before her gaze travels upward past the usual uniform.
"Actually, I'm—" The words cut off as she forgets how to breathe. That's always seemed like such an exaggeration whenever she's heard the phrase in the past, usually used for when someone in a romance sees the love of their life. It's what happens now, though, and the way she's looking at him is anything but romantic.
Of all the people in the world to walk into this particular bar at this hour on this day, it had to be him. The one tie to the world she's temporarily left behind and is struggling to get back to. Steve Rogers. Captain America. She'd have been less surprised to see an actual ghost instead of just feeling like she's seeing one now.
A few torturously long seconds pass before she shakes herself out of the ridiculous stupor and forces a cordial smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes. "No, go ahead."
It wasn't convincing in the slightest, but Steve took the seat he'd asked for all the same. A kind gesture deserved a moment of acknowledgement, even if he doubted that she wanted it. No one sent drinks and didn't at least watch them delivered if they wanted to be thanked for it.
"That was a nice thing you did for those boys," he noted, not so much as glancing in the rowdy group's direction, trusting that she knew exactly what and who he was referring to. She didn't strike him as thick. "You don't want to join them?"
Not that Steve could blame her. That was a little much for him, too. Hell, his own unit was a little much for him sometimes and they were all his closest friends. The men he trusted his life to. But Steve wasn't one for big shindigs or getting rowdy in a pub. He was more a quiet round of drinks to celebrate, if anything at all, and usually only the big things that really deserved it like tonight was. Some nights, it felt like they'd come to a turning point in the war - though the brass were probably holed up in their meetings saying the opposite.
He'd noticed. She shouldn't be surprised by it, she's heard more than a few stories about his skills in perception and strategy, yet it still catches her slightly off-guard. Already, she's slipping into the mentality of being anonymous and alone, wrapping it like armor around her fragile heart, and then here he comes sauntering up and calling her out.
Ripples, not waves. Those words have never been more important than they are right now.
"They don't need my help to enjoy themselves," she informs him with a smaller smile, one that's a little more real this time even if it's also a little sadder. It's a risk to show even this much of herself, Daisy knows, but... Well, she's just too tired to hide everything from him. "They deserve this tonight, and I'm not very good company these days."
"Did you lose someone?" It wasn't really Steve's place to pry. He knew that, but the words came out before he could even think to stop them. He was just going to have to hope that he didn't put her off completely; most folks were okay talking about those sorts of things these days anyway. It was just a fact of life, something that just about everyone had gone through or was going through, something people had in common. They could commiserate, lean on a stranger for a few minutes. In some strange ways, the worst brought people together.
A part of Steve wished it could be that way without the pain that went with it, but he was no stranger to harsh realities and he wasn't naïve.
Maybe, though, just for a minute between him and a strange woman with a surprisingly American accent in a London pup, the world could be a place where strangers did something nice just for the sake of it and could be an ear or a shoulder. At least as long as it took for Dum Dum to completely abandon Steve. At which point he'd be just as likely to get into trouble as he was to do something kind.
Damn, he really is perceptive. He's got the wrong idea, of course, but he's not that off. And really, there's no way even he could guess that she's from the future and missing her team while worrying about the fate of the entire planet. He might be the world's first super soldier, fighting an evil scientist who looked like a sundried tomato, but somehow she has the feeling that time travel and alien robots might ring a little too heavily of the fiction side of science-fiction for him.
Still, she can't lie to him, not about this. Even just the idea of it feels wrong. So she's quiet for a moment, fingertips tracing the rim of her glass, before she nods slightly, her perfectly curled hair bobbing with the motion.
"I lost everyone," she answers softly, keeping her gaze firmly on her drink. Once those three words are out, more demand to be set free, and for once she doesn't fight it. So long as she's careful, what hard could it do? "My mom. My dad. The first man who ever loved me..."
Her response gave him a lot more questions than it did answers, but it really wasn't his place. Steve didn't know this woman; he couldn't just tell her to tell him everything, get it off her chest, and he couldn't make any assurances about things being okay even if he wanted to. He didn't know they would be. But he can't not say something, not try to offer whatever little comfort is in his power to give.
"No wonder you're treating that drink like it's your last." Maybe he wasn't exactly what anyone would call good with words. Or people. Or talking to people. But his heart was in the right place. "I won't do the 'it'll get better' thing; I'm sure you've heard it enough already." He'd heard it enough times himself, years ago when he'd lost the last of his family. And that didn't even begin to compare to what she'd lost. At least Steve had still had Bucky.
"But, if you're feeling up to remembering them," he paused to thank the bartender when his drink arrived to him, lifted his glass in her direction, "I've got some time. I don't think my friend over there's going to be looking for me any time soon."
In their line of work, any drink could be their last. Every day, there's a new fight, another close call, too many friends lost, and the only way she gets through it is by not thinking about it. Because once she starts down that path, she just ends up drowning in it all. There's too much pain in her past, too much guilt and sadness; it's better to just not deal than risk losing against the strength of her own grief.
Leaning forward, she rests her forearms on the bar, missing the comforting long sleeves she usually wears. She feels so exposed in this dress, even if it does help her blend right in with the crowd. A deep breath, in and out, and then she turns slightly in her seat to better face him.
"Growing up, I never knew my parents," she tells him quietly, letting the words out carefully so she doesn't say something she shouldn't. There's hesitation in her voice that she hopes is mistaken for the trepidation of baring your heart to a total stranger. "I don't have things to remember about them because I didn't know them until I was grown, and then it was only a few weeks before I lost them."
She was grieving, that was clear as day, and there wasn't really a damn thing Steve could offer to make it any easier for her except to listen. That hardly seemed like enough, as sad as she looked and as much as it seemed like she'd been through. In not a very long time by the sounds of it. Losing both her parents so soon after finding them had to be tough; he didn't remember his own father at all and that helped, having years of memories of his mother did too.
It might have been easier on her if she'd never met her parents at all, but bad with people as Steve might be, he wasn't dumb enough to come out and say something so tactless.
"Sorry," he offered instead, the polite thing to say. "Did they get caught in the bombings?" It would have made sense if they had been, it would explain what she was doing in London, if she'd come looking for them and the timing had just couldn't have been worse. The other option was worse; if they'd been on the continent, gotten caught in any number of raids or battles or bombings, any part of the path of destruction the war had caused.
They were all grieving, an entire world mourning together each night before waking up the next day to continue fighting. It's so much, so incredibly overwhelming to look around and see what's happening... and not be able to do a damn thing about it. There are moments when Daisy wants to scream and leave the timeline in shreds, marching out onto the front and ending this war herself if only to save these people from all the suffering ahead.
But she can't. All she can do is sit here and wait, pretending to be someone she's not with a man who deserves better than that.
So, a little more truth than lie this time.
"No, it wasn't the bombings," she tells him with a small shake of her head. "It's complicated and I can't exactly... It was HYDRA. What happened to my family is the reason I joined the SSR."
Those last words still taste like ash on her tongue, the lie a bitter reminder of everything she's lost and is trying to get back to. But there's still enough truth in it to make it an easy sell.
The truth of it was something of a surprise. The SSR was far from a small organization, and Steve would never think that he'd cross paths with everyone in it, but it still somehow seemed strange to him to have never seen her, especially since she had such a personal reason to hate the very people he spent his time hunting down. Something didn't sit quite right but again, he couldn't put his finger on it. He'd attribute it to this woman being unique, different, and leave it at that until he had some kind of indication he should do otherwise.
"Wish I could've saved them for you," he offered, the same as he'd do for any family member of someone he hadn't gotten to on time. It didn't always feel like he was doing much good when he looked at that side. "You ever thought about asking to be transferred back home?"
It might be easier on her to be stateside, rather than in the thick of things. It sounded like running to Steve but he wouldn't blame anyone for doing it.
A few weeks, Steve had promised the last time he'd seen Daisy. Ninety years and more than a lifetime ago. A few weeks had turned into the end of the war. She'd been gone when he'd made it back to London and he'd shipped out on a mission he'd never made it home from before he'd been able to find out anything more than no one recognized the face he'd sketched to show around the SSR. There hadn't been enough information to search for her when he'd come out of the ice the way he'd done everyone else who'd mattered to her, and as the years went on it had stopped mattering. The woman he'd met in some London Pub had just become another on the long list of people he'd lost, another spot of sadness in the past he learned to leave where it was.
And then he'd seen her. Just a flash of her face on the news one day and he'd been anything but sure it really was her. It was so long ago, even for him, and the Daisy he'd known had to have been long dead. A relation, maybe, or an uncanny resemblance. He didn't have the time to find out, caught up in too many things and living on the run himself.
He'd all but forgotten when the world ended.
For years, Steve's heart was broken all over again, even as he kept a brave face and tried to help people through. Time went on and almost everything he'd known seemed to blur together into small flashes of good in the sea of bad. He'd failed everyone and when no one was there to see him mourn, he found himself at the end of a bar no so different than the one he'd met one of the flashes of good he still remembered, nursing the same brand of whiskey and wondering about what might have been.
The world was saved. Again. By overcoming seemingly insurmountable odds, risking everything they had, the scrappy SHIELD team had once again averted disaster, preserving what life was left on their little blue planet. None of them had survived unscathed, of course, and their family had scattered to the winds in the aftermath, but they had survived — Daisy tried to find comfort in that fact as she dealt with the new reality of being alone again.
Not that her family wouldn't immediately have been there for her if she'd asked. She knew they would drop everything to help her if she needed them, just as she would do the same. But they weren't together. In the days following their return to 2019, they've all gone their separate ways, trying to piece together new lives in the changed world that was still standing thanks to them. It was why she'd jumped at the chance to lead her own team on Z-3, to head back out into space to make allies and get a read on any enemies who might make the mistake of thinking Earth was easy prey. She'd needed something to throw herself into and it had been the perfect solution.
Three years she'd been out there after months of preparation, coming back twice a year to resupply and swap out any crew who needed a break or were ready to move on to something else. Such a break has brought her back now, though they're grounded for a slightly extended length due to Simmons putting her on medical leave. The small, scary Brit isn't even on the same continent or technically working for SHIELD anymore, yet she still rules with an iron fist when it comes to her best friend's health. (And Daisy wouldn't have it any other way.) So while she might not like it, she isn't going to fight it; honestly, she's just glad she's not confined to HQ for the duration.
Still, she longs to be back in the field, tracking down some bad guy or investigating something weird, tracing data through digital records or hacking into a supposedly impenetrable system. Being back home and doing nothing is exhausting, especially with the world in its present state. Everywhere she goes in the city is different, darker and full of grief, and there's no way to forget how things have changed. It's certainly worth a try though, and a bar seems like a good enough option. She finds one in a still semi-decent part of the city, a few others seeming to have the same idea of escape, and makes a beeline to the bar.
She doesn't make it very far before she stops, staring at the man sitting there with a glass of amber liquid in his hand. The universe really said it was time to mess with Daisy Johnson again, didn't it? Taking a deep breath, she tugs at the sleeves of her shirt, pulling them just a little lower so she can wrap her fingers around the fabric, and steps up next to him.
"Beer, please," she addresses the bartender. "Whatever you have on tap."
Nerves make it impossible for her to turn to face him. Steve. Will he recognize her? Her hair isn't curled anymore, and the streaks of purple are back. Her clothes are different, and her tone of voice. Plus, it's been a good eighty years since... Maybe he won't even remember her. Maybe he'd forgotten her the moment he'd walked away that night. She certainly deserved it.
He wouldn't have noticed if she hadn't come up beside him. Steve didn't keep the sharp eye on his surroundings that he used to anymore. Watching his own back seemed a lot less important when he had nothing left. Which, perhaps, was an exaggeration; he had Natasha when he wanted the company, he had his work even if he didn't make much of a difference. It wasn't all bad, but some nights he had more trouble finding the silver linings.
He almost didn't even look until he heard her voice. It wasn't quite right, not quite what he remembered, but there was no way he'd have forgotten what Daisy sounded like. For a moment as he turned toward her, he was sure he'd be looking at the descendant he'd seen on the news, the woman who looked too much like the one he'd met during the war to be anyone but her but couldn't possibly be. But actually seeing her, new hair, new clothes, just like he had, there was no way. Somehow, impossibly, it was still Daisy. How she'd come through the war and through all these years without aging a day, Steve had no idea. It shouldn't be possible. It wasn't possible. And yet somehow, there she was.
He had too many questions to even begin asking, too many things he wanted to know but didn't understand. And he knew he should be sure, he shouldn't jump to conclusions but Steve Rogers had never been one for thinking before acting.
"I thought I was supposed to track you down, not the other way around." It wasn't much of a greeting, and it came out a lot more light-hearted than he was feeling. But she'd made him feel similarly back then, too. Like everything was good and normal. He hadn't felt like that for a long time.
Something in her chest tightens when he turns to her, fear wrapping around her heart in a way she hasn't felt for a very long time. And then, with just a single sentence, he makes her want to cry. Somehow, he knows. He knows that it's her, that she's not just some lookalike who happened to cross his path.
He remembers her and that means so much more than he could ever possibly understand.
"I guess the universe just really wanted us to meet again," she replies, slowly turning to face him with a hesitant smile. That fear is still coiled tight in her chest, a part of her dreading what he'll say when he finds out the truth. It's been years for her since they met and she still carries the guilt around with her, the weight of it continuing to press down on her no matter how much time passes.
The bartender deposits the full glass in front of her and offers him a quiet thank you before drinking down a third of it in one go, just as she had back in the bar where she'd first met Steve. Then, setting the glass back down with a thud, she says, "I know you have questions."
Tension he hadn't realized had crept into his shoulders released the second it was confirmed she was who she appeared to be. She was the same woman and by some miracle she still remembered him. Steve never imagined he'd left much of an impression in one evening, not even a full evening really more like an hour or two. There wasn't any reason either of them should have remembered each other so many years later.
But she was exactly as he remembered her, right down to the way she downed so much of her drink without a breath and that look in her eyes that he'd called grief then, would call guilt now that he had so much of his own.
"I don't even know where to start." His questions were many, but faded beneath the happiness of reconnecting with one of the better parts of his past, however brief a time they'd had. "How are you here?"
She should be long dead, should have lived a happy life and died of old age. He'd imagined that for her; wound up married to some guy home from the war, settled somewhere in the northwest. Big house, picket fence. He'd imagined she'd had a couple of kids and spent her time between kitchen table assignments and PTA meetings, her time with the SSR left in the past where it should be. He'd imagined peace and quiet for her. Home and family. He'd imagined that would have made her happiest.
Peace and quiet. Home and family. Those things are little more than distant dreams for her, pictures of a life she'd once longed for and now accepted was far beyond her reach. She'll be lucky to live to see old age, but if she does live for all those years, they'll be spent protecting the world with SHIELD.
Daisy glances at the bartender, ensuring he's far enough out of earshot before she reaches for something in an inner jacket pocket. The SHIELD badge and ID are laid out on the bar between them, a somber expression on her face as she watches his. "I was never supposed to be there."
She has so many things she wants to say. A dozen apologies want to spill from her lips but she knows that a thousand I'm sorrys would never make up for what she's done. It's too much for anyone to forgive, even someone as good as Steve Rogers.
The badge caught him off guard. After tearing SHIELD down years ago, he shouldn't have been be surprised that something had risen from the ashes. He wanted to believe that only the good had survived, didn't want to believe Daisy was anything but good, but he'd believed in the good of the organization for too long to be sure. He should have payed more attention in the years since. He'd had a lot going on and not many contacts to start with. Maybe he'd ask Natasha if she had any information.
"How?" How a lot of things. How was she a SHIELD agent? How had she gotten to his past? How had she gotten to the future again? How had it happened that they'd crossed paths not just then but a second time without ever really looking for each other?
Steve just assumed she hadn't been looking for him. It wouldn't have been as hard for her to find him through the years as it had been for her. He was a known face, a familiar story, and all he'd had was a first name and an empty basement flat.
"It's... complicated," she offers lamely, taking another large gulp of her drink and suddenly wishing she'd gone for something a lot stronger. Taking the badge back, she returns it to its pocket before elaborating. "There was a mission — there always is. We were trying to save the world from... an enemy who could travel through time."
Reaching up to run a hand through her hair, she lets out a heavy sigh. It's been so many years and she can still feel the stress of that particular mission, the weight of what would have happened if they'd failed. "They needed SHIELD out of the way, so they tried to stop us in the past to change the future. But when we were in the 40s, our ship's time drive malfunctioned and I got left behind. It wasn't until a few weeks after we met that I saw my team again."
There's so much more to the story. A hundred details that he might not even care about but that had meant everything to all of them. But, honestly, she wouldn't blame him if he left right then and never looked back.
"Time travel?" Steve didn't know how he was supposed to believe that, or why he actually did. Going that far back didn't seem possible, going back at all didn't seem possible. And doing it without completely rewriting the future? Assuming she wasn't lying to him, he had every reason to believe she was but he didn't, he couldn't even imagine the amount of damage they'd done. He couldn't imagine what could have been different.
Trust it to be aliens to be the problem behind all of it, though. With very, very few exceptions, aliens just caused problems in Steve's experience.
"Okay. Guess that explains why I couldn't find any trace of you back then." She'd never been an SSR agent to begin with, no wonder she'd just disappeared, like she'd never existed to begin with. Like a ghost. He didn't think of what mentioning that he couldn't track her down implied, that he'd looked for her enough to know there was no trace. That a chance meeting had lingered with him and just how much he'd meant it when he'd said he'd see her again.
Aliens really do seem to cause nothing but problems. What would he say if he found out she was part alien herself? Would he see her as the abomination that so many do? Nothing more than a weapon of mass destruction with a pretty face...
"I know it all sounds crazy," she acknowledges, something close to distress slipping into her expression. With anyone else, she'd be able to hold her perfectly crafted exterior and carry on with whatever persona she was wearing that day. With him, though, it just wasn't so easy. "Most things in my life do, so I don't blame you if you don't believe me. And I—"
The bartender wanders closer and she goes quiet, fiddling with her sleeves again. With a sudden spur of the moment decision, she orders herself a whiskey, sending the man off again so she can continue before she loses her nerve to finally do the thing she's thought of for so long.
"I'm sorry," she tells Steve, meeting his gaze and waiting for whatever sentence he'll deem worthy of her transgressions. "I'm sorry for lying and for not warning you about what was going to happen. I wanted to tell you everything but I... I couldn't risk it. I'm so s—"
The man returns and she cuts off the words, taking the glass and immediately downing it. She doesn't let herself think about the fact that he'd looked for her because that just makes all of this so much worse. He'd searched for a woman who didn't exist. A woman who had lied to his face again and again, who could have saved him from so much pain...
Steve wasn't most people, he didn't generally make rash decisions about a person and when he did it tended toward the positive until he was shown otherwise. Where Daisy was concerned, though, he couldn't imagine ever thinking badly of her. Even knowing that she'd been lying to him with almost every word, knowing she'd looked him in the eye knowing what was going to happen to him and everything he'd loose. He couldn't hold that against her.
The bartender coming by actually felt like something of a saving grace, gave him a second to jump in.
"You don't need to apologize," he assured quickly before Daisy could start saying she was sorry again. "I don't mind how life turned out for me." Not anymore, anyway. Not completely. Did he wish some things had been different? Sure; there wasn't anyone who didn't. But knowing what could have changed? With few exceptions he wouldn't have changed anything. The last few years, since they'd lost really, aside, things had been pretty good for him.
"You better not have been feeling guilty over that for the last eighty-odd years." That wasn't something he wanted for to have to carry with her. He wanted for her to have forgotten all about it until she'd seen him again by chance. Knowing how alike they'd seemed then, that didn't seem likely.
If their situations were reversed, Daisy can't be sure she'd be as understanding as him. Anger comes quickly to the Destroyer of Worlds and grudges are held close to her heart. If she'd lost as much as he had and there had been someone who could have changed things... But that's why she'd stepped down as Director, isn't it? When it comes to the people she loves, she can't be objective. Maybe one day she'll learn that skill, but today is not that day.
Even with his easy dismissal of her apology, she wishes she had another shot of whiskey. She's already had too much alcohol for an empty stomach but at least it's helping with the pain.
"No, only just a little over three," she replies, trying and failing to make a joke of it. The words fall flat and she feels one hand fisting despite the ache in her wrists. He has to know the extent of her betrayal. "That's how long it's been for me. Three years."
Three very long years since she'd last seen him in the flesh almost a century ago. It makes her sick to think of it and her voice drops to a hushed almost whisper. "I knew about Thanos, Steve. I'd lived with that for a year before I met you."
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— inspiration
— may i be your shield
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The woman at the opposite end caught his eye almost immediately, he didn't miss the gesture she sent to the boisterous group across the room, didn't miss how quickly she drank so much of the glass, or the sad look she had about her. She'd lost someone, was the immediate conclusion he had to draw. There were always casualties, always those who couldn't feel the same joy in victory as most. Steve got it; he always felt a little guilty when, even when he wasn't anywhere near the campaign, he couldn't save everyone. What good were all his new abilities if he still lost?
After placing his order with the bartender, he made his way down the other end of the counter to stand beside her. Prettier up close, he decided in an instant, but something didn't quite place right. Something he couldn't place his finger on; she didn't stick out in any real way.
"This seat taken?" he wondered, gesturing to an empty stool.
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"Actually, I'm—" The words cut off as she forgets how to breathe. That's always seemed like such an exaggeration whenever she's heard the phrase in the past, usually used for when someone in a romance sees the love of their life. It's what happens now, though, and the way she's looking at him is anything but romantic.
Of all the people in the world to walk into this particular bar at this hour on this day, it had to be him. The one tie to the world she's temporarily left behind and is struggling to get back to. Steve Rogers. Captain America. She'd have been less surprised to see an actual ghost instead of just feeling like she's seeing one now.
A few torturously long seconds pass before she shakes herself out of the ridiculous stupor and forces a cordial smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes. "No, go ahead."
Shit.
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"That was a nice thing you did for those boys," he noted, not so much as glancing in the rowdy group's direction, trusting that she knew exactly what and who he was referring to. She didn't strike him as thick. "You don't want to join them?"
Not that Steve could blame her. That was a little much for him, too. Hell, his own unit was a little much for him sometimes and they were all his closest friends. The men he trusted his life to. But Steve wasn't one for big shindigs or getting rowdy in a pub. He was more a quiet round of drinks to celebrate, if anything at all, and usually only the big things that really deserved it like tonight was. Some nights, it felt like they'd come to a turning point in the war - though the brass were probably holed up in their meetings saying the opposite.
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Ripples, not waves. Those words have never been more important than they are right now.
"They don't need my help to enjoy themselves," she informs him with a smaller smile, one that's a little more real this time even if it's also a little sadder. It's a risk to show even this much of herself, Daisy knows, but... Well, she's just too tired to hide everything from him. "They deserve this tonight, and I'm not very good company these days."
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A part of Steve wished it could be that way without the pain that went with it, but he was no stranger to harsh realities and he wasn't naïve.
Maybe, though, just for a minute between him and a strange woman with a surprisingly American accent in a London pup, the world could be a place where strangers did something nice just for the sake of it and could be an ear or a shoulder. At least as long as it took for Dum Dum to completely abandon Steve. At which point he'd be just as likely to get into trouble as he was to do something kind.
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Still, she can't lie to him, not about this. Even just the idea of it feels wrong. So she's quiet for a moment, fingertips tracing the rim of her glass, before she nods slightly, her perfectly curled hair bobbing with the motion.
"I lost everyone," she answers softly, keeping her gaze firmly on her drink. Once those three words are out, more demand to be set free, and for once she doesn't fight it. So long as she's careful, what hard could it do? "My mom. My dad. The first man who ever loved me..."
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"No wonder you're treating that drink like it's your last." Maybe he wasn't exactly what anyone would call good with words. Or people. Or talking to people. But his heart was in the right place. "I won't do the 'it'll get better' thing; I'm sure you've heard it enough already." He'd heard it enough times himself, years ago when he'd lost the last of his family. And that didn't even begin to compare to what she'd lost. At least Steve had still had Bucky.
"But, if you're feeling up to remembering them," he paused to thank the bartender when his drink arrived to him, lifted his glass in her direction, "I've got some time. I don't think my friend over there's going to be looking for me any time soon."
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Leaning forward, she rests her forearms on the bar, missing the comforting long sleeves she usually wears. She feels so exposed in this dress, even if it does help her blend right in with the crowd. A deep breath, in and out, and then she turns slightly in her seat to better face him.
"Growing up, I never knew my parents," she tells him quietly, letting the words out carefully so she doesn't say something she shouldn't. There's hesitation in her voice that she hopes is mistaken for the trepidation of baring your heart to a total stranger. "I don't have things to remember about them because I didn't know them until I was grown, and then it was only a few weeks before I lost them."
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It might have been easier on her if she'd never met her parents at all, but bad with people as Steve might be, he wasn't dumb enough to come out and say something so tactless.
"Sorry," he offered instead, the polite thing to say. "Did they get caught in the bombings?" It would have made sense if they had been, it would explain what she was doing in London, if she'd come looking for them and the timing had just couldn't have been worse. The other option was worse; if they'd been on the continent, gotten caught in any number of raids or battles or bombings, any part of the path of destruction the war had caused.
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But she can't. All she can do is sit here and wait, pretending to be someone she's not with a man who deserves better than that.
So, a little more truth than lie this time.
"No, it wasn't the bombings," she tells him with a small shake of her head. "It's complicated and I can't exactly... It was HYDRA. What happened to my family is the reason I joined the SSR."
Those last words still taste like ash on her tongue, the lie a bitter reminder of everything she's lost and is trying to get back to. But there's still enough truth in it to make it an easy sell.
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"Wish I could've saved them for you," he offered, the same as he'd do for any family member of someone he hadn't gotten to on time. It didn't always feel like he was doing much good when he looked at that side. "You ever thought about asking to be transferred back home?"
It might be easier on her to be stateside, rather than in the thick of things. It sounded like running to Steve but he wouldn't blame anyone for doing it.
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And then he'd seen her. Just a flash of her face on the news one day and he'd been anything but sure it really was her. It was so long ago, even for him, and the Daisy he'd known had to have been long dead. A relation, maybe, or an uncanny resemblance. He didn't have the time to find out, caught up in too many things and living on the run himself.
He'd all but forgotten when the world ended.
For years, Steve's heart was broken all over again, even as he kept a brave face and tried to help people through. Time went on and almost everything he'd known seemed to blur together into small flashes of good in the sea of bad. He'd failed everyone and when no one was there to see him mourn, he found himself at the end of a bar no so different than the one he'd met one of the flashes of good he still remembered, nursing the same brand of whiskey and wondering about what might have been.
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Not that her family wouldn't immediately have been there for her if she'd asked. She knew they would drop everything to help her if she needed them, just as she would do the same. But they weren't together. In the days following their return to 2019, they've all gone their separate ways, trying to piece together new lives in the changed world that was still standing thanks to them. It was why she'd jumped at the chance to lead her own team on Z-3, to head back out into space to make allies and get a read on any enemies who might make the mistake of thinking Earth was easy prey. She'd needed something to throw herself into and it had been the perfect solution.
Three years she'd been out there after months of preparation, coming back twice a year to resupply and swap out any crew who needed a break or were ready to move on to something else. Such a break has brought her back now, though they're grounded for a slightly extended length due to Simmons putting her on medical leave. The small, scary Brit isn't even on the same continent or technically working for SHIELD anymore, yet she still rules with an iron fist when it comes to her best friend's health. (And Daisy wouldn't have it any other way.) So while she might not like it, she isn't going to fight it; honestly, she's just glad she's not confined to HQ for the duration.
Still, she longs to be back in the field, tracking down some bad guy or investigating something weird, tracing data through digital records or hacking into a supposedly impenetrable system. Being back home and doing nothing is exhausting, especially with the world in its present state. Everywhere she goes in the city is different, darker and full of grief, and there's no way to forget how things have changed. It's certainly worth a try though, and a bar seems like a good enough option. She finds one in a still semi-decent part of the city, a few others seeming to have the same idea of escape, and makes a beeline to the bar.
She doesn't make it very far before she stops, staring at the man sitting there with a glass of amber liquid in his hand. The universe really said it was time to mess with Daisy Johnson again, didn't it? Taking a deep breath, she tugs at the sleeves of her shirt, pulling them just a little lower so she can wrap her fingers around the fabric, and steps up next to him.
"Beer, please," she addresses the bartender. "Whatever you have on tap."
Nerves make it impossible for her to turn to face him. Steve. Will he recognize her? Her hair isn't curled anymore, and the streaks of purple are back. Her clothes are different, and her tone of voice. Plus, it's been a good eighty years since... Maybe he won't even remember her. Maybe he'd forgotten her the moment he'd walked away that night. She certainly deserved it.
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He almost didn't even look until he heard her voice. It wasn't quite right, not quite what he remembered, but there was no way he'd have forgotten what Daisy sounded like. For a moment as he turned toward her, he was sure he'd be looking at the descendant he'd seen on the news, the woman who looked too much like the one he'd met during the war to be anyone but her but couldn't possibly be. But actually seeing her, new hair, new clothes, just like he had, there was no way. Somehow, impossibly, it was still Daisy. How she'd come through the war and through all these years without aging a day, Steve had no idea. It shouldn't be possible. It wasn't possible. And yet somehow, there she was.
He had too many questions to even begin asking, too many things he wanted to know but didn't understand. And he knew he should be sure, he shouldn't jump to conclusions but Steve Rogers had never been one for thinking before acting.
"I thought I was supposed to track you down, not the other way around." It wasn't much of a greeting, and it came out a lot more light-hearted than he was feeling. But she'd made him feel similarly back then, too. Like everything was good and normal. He hadn't felt like that for a long time.
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He remembers her and that means so much more than he could ever possibly understand.
"I guess the universe just really wanted us to meet again," she replies, slowly turning to face him with a hesitant smile. That fear is still coiled tight in her chest, a part of her dreading what he'll say when he finds out the truth. It's been years for her since they met and she still carries the guilt around with her, the weight of it continuing to press down on her no matter how much time passes.
The bartender deposits the full glass in front of her and offers him a quiet thank you before drinking down a third of it in one go, just as she had back in the bar where she'd first met Steve. Then, setting the glass back down with a thud, she says, "I know you have questions."
Because really, who wouldn't?
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But she was exactly as he remembered her, right down to the way she downed so much of her drink without a breath and that look in her eyes that he'd called grief then, would call guilt now that he had so much of his own.
"I don't even know where to start." His questions were many, but faded beneath the happiness of reconnecting with one of the better parts of his past, however brief a time they'd had. "How are you here?"
She should be long dead, should have lived a happy life and died of old age. He'd imagined that for her; wound up married to some guy home from the war, settled somewhere in the northwest. Big house, picket fence. He'd imagined she'd had a couple of kids and spent her time between kitchen table assignments and PTA meetings, her time with the SSR left in the past where it should be. He'd imagined peace and quiet for her. Home and family. He'd imagined that would have made her happiest.
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Daisy glances at the bartender, ensuring he's far enough out of earshot before she reaches for something in an inner jacket pocket. The SHIELD badge and ID are laid out on the bar between them, a somber expression on her face as she watches his. "I was never supposed to be there."
She has so many things she wants to say. A dozen apologies want to spill from her lips but she knows that a thousand I'm sorrys would never make up for what she's done. It's too much for anyone to forgive, even someone as good as Steve Rogers.
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"How?" How a lot of things. How was she a SHIELD agent? How had she gotten to his past? How had she gotten to the future again? How had it happened that they'd crossed paths not just then but a second time without ever really looking for each other?
Steve just assumed she hadn't been looking for him. It wouldn't have been as hard for her to find him through the years as it had been for her. He was a known face, a familiar story, and all he'd had was a first name and an empty basement flat.
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Reaching up to run a hand through her hair, she lets out a heavy sigh. It's been so many years and she can still feel the stress of that particular mission, the weight of what would have happened if they'd failed. "They needed SHIELD out of the way, so they tried to stop us in the past to change the future. But when we were in the 40s, our ship's time drive malfunctioned and I got left behind. It wasn't until a few weeks after we met that I saw my team again."
There's so much more to the story. A hundred details that he might not even care about but that had meant everything to all of them. But, honestly, she wouldn't blame him if he left right then and never looked back.
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Trust it to be aliens to be the problem behind all of it, though. With very, very few exceptions, aliens just caused problems in Steve's experience.
"Okay. Guess that explains why I couldn't find any trace of you back then." She'd never been an SSR agent to begin with, no wonder she'd just disappeared, like she'd never existed to begin with. Like a ghost. He didn't think of what mentioning that he couldn't track her down implied, that he'd looked for her enough to know there was no trace. That a chance meeting had lingered with him and just how much he'd meant it when he'd said he'd see her again.
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"I know it all sounds crazy," she acknowledges, something close to distress slipping into her expression. With anyone else, she'd be able to hold her perfectly crafted exterior and carry on with whatever persona she was wearing that day. With him, though, it just wasn't so easy. "Most things in my life do, so I don't blame you if you don't believe me. And I—"
The bartender wanders closer and she goes quiet, fiddling with her sleeves again. With a sudden spur of the moment decision, she orders herself a whiskey, sending the man off again so she can continue before she loses her nerve to finally do the thing she's thought of for so long.
"I'm sorry," she tells Steve, meeting his gaze and waiting for whatever sentence he'll deem worthy of her transgressions. "I'm sorry for lying and for not warning you about what was going to happen. I wanted to tell you everything but I... I couldn't risk it. I'm so s—"
The man returns and she cuts off the words, taking the glass and immediately downing it. She doesn't let herself think about the fact that he'd looked for her because that just makes all of this so much worse. He'd searched for a woman who didn't exist. A woman who had lied to his face again and again, who could have saved him from so much pain...
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The bartender coming by actually felt like something of a saving grace, gave him a second to jump in.
"You don't need to apologize," he assured quickly before Daisy could start saying she was sorry again. "I don't mind how life turned out for me." Not anymore, anyway. Not completely. Did he wish some things had been different? Sure; there wasn't anyone who didn't. But knowing what could have changed? With few exceptions he wouldn't have changed anything. The last few years, since they'd lost really, aside, things had been pretty good for him.
"You better not have been feeling guilty over that for the last eighty-odd years." That wasn't something he wanted for to have to carry with her. He wanted for her to have forgotten all about it until she'd seen him again by chance. Knowing how alike they'd seemed then, that didn't seem likely.
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Even with his easy dismissal of her apology, she wishes she had another shot of whiskey. She's already had too much alcohol for an empty stomach but at least it's helping with the pain.
"No, only just a little over three," she replies, trying and failing to make a joke of it. The words fall flat and she feels one hand fisting despite the ache in her wrists. He has to know the extent of her betrayal. "That's how long it's been for me. Three years."
Three very long years since she'd last seen him in the flesh almost a century ago. It makes her sick to think of it and her voice drops to a hushed almost whisper. "I knew about Thanos, Steve. I'd lived with that for a year before I met you."
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