He really should have pulled away rather than letting their hands stay linked on the bar, but Steve stayed exactly as he was. The contact was nice, needed more than he wanted to admit to. The longer Steve was alone, the more he felt it, though he wouldn't admit it to himself much less to anyone else. Daisy would probably understand if he did, she'd seemed so much like him back during the war, still seemed so similar now, but to admit it would be to admit a weakness he couldn't afford.
"You knew Coulson?" That came as a surprise. The man had died a long time ago as far as Steve knew, he'd barely known him himself. But he'd managed to make a big impact on the direction of Steve's life despite that. At this point, after everything that had happened, he'd never expected to hear the name again, much less find someone who had known him.
He definitely hadn't expected it in someone he'd never thought he'd see again in the first place.
Daisy stares at him for a moment in confusion before the reason for his question clicks into place and she closes her eyes with a frustrated sigh. How had she forgotten? Yes, it's been a decade, but still.
"Shit, sorry," she murmurs, still holding on to his hand but rubbing at her eyes with her free one. The thought of letting go of his hand doesn't even cross her mind. "I forgot you never... It was one of Fury's secrets. They brought Coulson back after Loki killed him. He wanted to tell you all but Fury decided it was better you didn't know."
Dropping her hand to the countertop, it rests there only a moment before she's picking up her beer glass and taking a big drink of what's left. Even after all this time, it hurts to talk about this. "They used a discontinued experimental procedure involving alien biology. He didn't know the truth until over a year later."
"He's alive?" Steve couldn't even be surprised by the fact that SHIELD had done that and kept it a secret, not just from everyone who had cared but from the man they did it to himself. He couldn't be surprised that even after all this time, there were still secrets for him to find. He could be, and was, irritated about it. He wouldn't take it out on Daisy, it wasn't her fault SHIELD was the way it was and Fury was who he was.
"Jeeze..." he said under his breath, shaking his head, following it with a good sip of his own drink. "Trust Fury to leave something like that unsaid."
Steve would have liked to think he and Fury had gotten past all that, but he knew better. A spy was always a spy and someone who kept secrets didn't just share them all. It wasn't his way, but it was the people he'd surrounded himself with.
"Yeah...It's a really complicated story," she tells him, hating how often she can say that about her own life. Because she is part of that story, a part that leads to her own tale and they are definitely going to need more alcohol if their conversation gets that far. A whole lot more.
"Tl;dr version, though? Something happened and what they did was wiped clean from his system. He died right around when Thanos..." Daisy shakes her head, feeling tears start to sting at her eyes despite that loss being four years ago now. She refuses to cry, though, so she blinks heavily and soldiers on. "A year later, he was brought back as a Life Model Decoy — a very advanced robot with all of Coulson's memories, thoughts, feelings... He is Coulson."
Until her final dying breath, she will fight anyone who argues that the man standing today isn't Phil Coulson.
That sounded pretty damn complicated, and Steve wasn't sure they should even try to get into it. Things were complicated enough, just being who they were, in general and to each other. And more than that, it was a subject that clearly upset her, something Steve didn't ever want to do. The sadness in her eyes, the tears, were there because he asked.
Without thinking, he squeezed her hand.
"So he's alive." He wouldn't normally agree that a robot of any kind was a person, but there were exceptions to every rule. He'd known Vision, who was as human as any of them, so why wouldn't Coulson be back as a robot? "I'm glad. He's a good man."
He hadn't deserved to die for the sake of the team all those years ago. It was good to know he'd gotten better.
That squeeze to her hand is exactly what she needs. It's crazy that they're sitting like this, that she's telling him anything this personal, and yet it feels totally natural. Just like that night they shared almost a century ago, this connection between them is something completely undefinable and, for once, she doesn't feel the need to question it.
"He's the best man I know," she confesses quietly, glancing up to meet his gaze. "And the closest thing I've ever had to a father."
But really, the word doesn't even come close to describing what the man means to her. He has been her everything for so long, her solid ground in a crazy world that keeps changing. The year without him had threatened to break her and she can't imagine going through that again.
"I didn't lie about my parents that night," she tells Steve, that old sadness he'd seen before emerging again. "HYDRA really did destroy my family, and Coulson gave me a new one with SHIELD."
It was interesting, listening to her talk about a man he'd only met briefly, who he'd always remembered for no other reason than he'd died for them. Or because of them, depending on how self-deprecating Steve felt at any given time. It was clear as day that she loved and respected him without her even saying they were like family.
And having found something of a family of his own, Steve understood what that could mean to someone.
"They were the ones you were missing though, huh?" Her new family, the one she'd chosen for herself, probably the ones who really meant the most to her. When he'd found her alone in a noisy pub.
Daisy just stares at him for a moment, remembering the pain she'd been in that night when they'd first met, before finally nodding with a strained smile. Missing was putting it lightly — she hadn't been whole without them.
"I didn't know if I'd ever see them again," she admits, adjusting her hold on his hand to try to hide the slight tremble that went through her at the thought. "I wasn't supposed to be there, it was an accident that I'd been left behind. We didn't have control over where or when our ship ended up, so I didn't..."
It's been three years and the memory of those few weeks still haunts her. The helplessness she'd felt, the absolute loneliness, it all comes back in her nightmares along with every other horrible thing in her life.
"I couldn't risk doing or saying anything that might change the timeline enough to make a new branch where they'd never find me. I was just... waiting and hoping that I wouldn't be alone for the rest of my life."
That feeling, now, Steve knew exactly what that was like. The losing everything without any warning, the thinking he'd never see the people he loved again. The people he'd lost weren't coming back, though. Not this time. Not unless there was some way to rewrite history and that was far beyond anything he could come up with and these days he was too busy just trying to live, do what good he could do.
"You're here now, so they must have gotten back to you," he pointed out, not at all unkindly, just a fact and a bright spot to look at rather than just letting her sink into sadness again. She hadn't been left on her own any more than he had. And now that they'd bumped into each other again, maybe they were even less alone. There'd been a friendship brewing once.
"I'm glad you did." Steve was earnest about that. If he could get his family back, all of them, he'd jump at the chance. And Daisy deserved it more. "Hopefully you got a couple of happy years after that."
Hopefully she hadn't lost any of her people to the snap. Half at random left some with more loss than others. Steve wanted for her to be one of the lucky ones.
The nudge to pull her out of that black hole is appreciated and unfortunately necessary — she's had more than a few nightmares over the years of what might have happened if things had gone differently, all of them ending with her being isolated and alone. Those are the nights when she wakes up crying and inevitably texts whichever of her former teammates might happen to be in a timezone where they'd be awake at that ungodly hour, just to make sure they're still there and the dream was only a dream.
"I don't know that I could describe them as happy, exactly," she admits in an unexpected display of honesty. With anyone else, she would have brushed it aside and moved on to a different topic. "My team went their separate ways, everyone moving on to a new part of their lives. But we're all okay and still here — that's more than a lot of people can say."
There is one bright spot to all of it, though, and she doesn't even try to hold back the affectionate smile that suddenly springs into being. "I did have a chance to get to know my sister, though. Like everything else, it's really complicated, but I only met her a few years ago and we've become really close."
She was one of the lucky ones, then. If anyone should be, it was her. Steve knew next to nothing about Daisy but wanted the world for her.
"Sounds like everything wound up actually going your way. In the end." She'd definitely taken the hard way to not exactly what anyone would call a happy ending but happier than many. "All yours are okay, you've got your sister; not a whole lot more you could ask for, hey?"
He had to assume that among the people she had was someone special. Even as he sat there, holding her hand without even thinking about it, it just seemed natural that there was a very lucky man waiting for her. Probably had been the first time he'd met her as well. But Steve hadn't had any intentions then, didn't necessarily have them now. There was just a connection between the two of them.
Not a whole lot more you could ask for. Those words aren't meant to cause pain but they do, an ache deep inside her intensifying. No, there isn't more she could ask for. The people she loves are still here and everyone is happy in their new lives. This loneliness she feels is ridiculous; she has far more than she deserves already and it would be equally ridiculous to hope for more. So she smiles and nods, lifting her glass to drain the very last bit of her drink.
"You're right," she agrees, her smile not quite reaching her eyes but still doing a rather convincing job. "There isn't anything else I should want."
And because there's nothing else, there's no point in talking about it. Actually, she doesn't feel much like talking anymore in general. Digging into her pocket, she pulls out a few bills that she sets on the bar next to her now empty glass before sliding off her chair to stand.
"I should probably get going," she says, not actually having anywhere to be and certainly not in any state to get there, which she proves when she starts tilting to the side. Too much alcohol on an empty stomach can effect even the strongest constitution.
She'd gotten better at faking that smile, but Steve noticed it wasn't quite right all the same. He apparently still had a knack for hitting in just the wrong spot. He hadn't been great at talking to women the last time and he hadn't gotten much better over the years.
He'd have let her go were it not for the way she wobbles on her feet. But Daisy didn't look the least bit steady enough to be heading anywhere on her own and Steve leapt on the opportunity to make good. His hand shot out to catch her elbow, to steady her with a small smile.
"Why don't you let me walk you?" He knew better than to tease about not remembering her being such a lightweight, knew better than to imply that she shouldn't be on her own no matter how true it was. Steve bumbled a little sometimes, more often than he didn't, but he wasn't stupid.
With most people, Daisy is a pro at faking absolutely anything. She can wear whatever facade she pleases like a perfectly sculpted mask and the vast majority of people would never even question if it were true. But then there are certain individuals who see right through those masks to the broken woman underneath...
Some days, she doesn't know which is worse: having the mask fool everyone around her or having the people she loves see through it. Both tend to end with her feeling guilty and alone, regardless.
"I don't need—" she starts, the sentence breaking off as the room tilts around her again. Well, maybe she could use a little help. "Okay. Thank you."
She definitely needed whether she admitted it or not, but she'd accepted and that was enough. Under normal circumstances he'd be more comfortable letting her go wherever she wanted without an escort but unsteady was all the excuse he needed to grab himself a few extra minutes. It was exactly the reason he'd walked her home all those years ago.
Steve wasn't thinking about wanting anything, didn't have any ulterior motives. At least not consciously. He didn't think about why he wanted to spend more time with Daisy, didn't expect it to lead anywhere. He just found himself drawn to spending time with her in whatever way he could. If that meant just walking her home even if she didn't really want him there, he'd take what he got.
He left a few bills of his own on the bar as he stood, offered her his arm this time. She'd taken it naturally before, he assumed she wouldn't mind. "Just to get a bit of fresh air in you." If she wound up wanting to run after a couple of blocks, it wasn't meant to be. "Headed home?"
It wasn't subtle, just aimed at learning a bit more about her. Getting to know if there was a chance of seeing her again or if she was just passing through.
Accepting help isn't something Daisy Johnson is very good at. It comes from a childhood of having only herself to depend on and constantly worrying about how others perceived her, whether she admitted it or not. Needing help from others might result in her being too much of a burden to remain in any place that might finally accept her, so she'd gotten very good over the years at pretending everything was fine. Sometimes she even fools herself into believing it — until everything comes crashing down around her again.
She stares at Steve's arm for a few moments, not comprehending why he would be offering it to her like that, before the memory filters back through her alcohol-fogged thoughts. Oh. Right. It takes her another couple of seconds to hook her arm through his, though after a single step she uses it for actual support as her body reminds her of her precarious balance issue.
And then his question makes her laugh, a low dark thing that reveals far too much pain for her own liking. She shoves those feelings back down into the darkness where they belong, but forces out an explanation she feels he deserves. "I haven't had one of those in... a long time. Not here, anyway."
"No?" Again, she was so like him that if he didn't know better he'd think she'd been sent to worm her way into his life, get close to him. He knew better but it was exactly what was happening every second he talked to her. Without any effort she drew him in, made him want to be close and get to know her. Maybe if he'd gone for it back when they'd first met, if he even thought about it now, he'd be aiming for something more than a conversation.
"Where, then?" Any home was better than none but it was a hard thing to find; Steve knew that from experience. He'd never really managed to find his own, only some people that had made anywhere feel a bit more like home. He still had a few of those people, most were lost. A little family felt better than being alone.
Daisy would probably understand that if he said it but that was a side, a weakness, Steve didn't show to anyone.
If Daisy had any idea of the effect she was having on him, she'd run straight in the opposite direction and leave him behind. Sure, some part of her would ache and mourn the loss of... whatever this connection is between them, but better to suffer this small amount of pain than wait for something else down the line. Steve Rogers is too good a man to be tied to someone like her — a broken woman who can barely make it through a day without work to ground her.
No, she needs to keep her distance, not let herself drift ever closer with each second that passes. Even if that's so much easier said than done.
"Home was my team," she answers sadly, feeling as utterly lost as she sounds. It's the alcohol making her admit this, and the alcohol causing her words to slur slightly at the end. "But we're not together anymore."
Steve understood where her sadness was coming from, this time. His team had been his family, his home, and he knew what it was like to feel lost without those people. He'd spent a good while floundering in the aftermath of the snap, not even work had been able to ground him but at least he'd had the distraction of making sure the world didn't completely fall apart.
"You said everyone's gone their own ways," he said with a nod. "Makes sense you miss them." Same as anyone who had lost someone. Same as he did. Even having been on the outs with some, he missed them. He mourned what he'd lost as much as who.
"Probably wouldn't help too much to just go and see them either, huh?" It wouldn't be the same. He understood that too. Even seeing Natasha every now and then, walking around the same old halls, it didn't make it better. Just tolerable. And her sadness gave him something to focus on that wasn't his own, just the same as focusing on Daisy did. Steve had never been very good at dealing with things emotionally, but he could be supportive. That he'd gotten down.
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"You knew Coulson?" That came as a surprise. The man had died a long time ago as far as Steve knew, he'd barely known him himself. But he'd managed to make a big impact on the direction of Steve's life despite that. At this point, after everything that had happened, he'd never expected to hear the name again, much less find someone who had known him.
He definitely hadn't expected it in someone he'd never thought he'd see again in the first place.
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"Shit, sorry," she murmurs, still holding on to his hand but rubbing at her eyes with her free one. The thought of letting go of his hand doesn't even cross her mind. "I forgot you never... It was one of Fury's secrets. They brought Coulson back after Loki killed him. He wanted to tell you all but Fury decided it was better you didn't know."
Dropping her hand to the countertop, it rests there only a moment before she's picking up her beer glass and taking a big drink of what's left. Even after all this time, it hurts to talk about this. "They used a discontinued experimental procedure involving alien biology. He didn't know the truth until over a year later."
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"Jeeze..." he said under his breath, shaking his head, following it with a good sip of his own drink. "Trust Fury to leave something like that unsaid."
Steve would have liked to think he and Fury had gotten past all that, but he knew better. A spy was always a spy and someone who kept secrets didn't just share them all. It wasn't his way, but it was the people he'd surrounded himself with.
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"Tl;dr version, though? Something happened and what they did was wiped clean from his system. He died right around when Thanos..." Daisy shakes her head, feeling tears start to sting at her eyes despite that loss being four years ago now. She refuses to cry, though, so she blinks heavily and soldiers on. "A year later, he was brought back as a Life Model Decoy — a very advanced robot with all of Coulson's memories, thoughts, feelings... He is Coulson."
Until her final dying breath, she will fight anyone who argues that the man standing today isn't Phil Coulson.
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Without thinking, he squeezed her hand.
"So he's alive." He wouldn't normally agree that a robot of any kind was a person, but there were exceptions to every rule. He'd known Vision, who was as human as any of them, so why wouldn't Coulson be back as a robot? "I'm glad. He's a good man."
He hadn't deserved to die for the sake of the team all those years ago. It was good to know he'd gotten better.
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"He's the best man I know," she confesses quietly, glancing up to meet his gaze. "And the closest thing I've ever had to a father."
But really, the word doesn't even come close to describing what the man means to her. He has been her everything for so long, her solid ground in a crazy world that keeps changing. The year without him had threatened to break her and she can't imagine going through that again.
"I didn't lie about my parents that night," she tells Steve, that old sadness he'd seen before emerging again. "HYDRA really did destroy my family, and Coulson gave me a new one with SHIELD."
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And having found something of a family of his own, Steve understood what that could mean to someone.
"They were the ones you were missing though, huh?" Her new family, the one she'd chosen for herself, probably the ones who really meant the most to her. When he'd found her alone in a noisy pub.
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"I didn't know if I'd ever see them again," she admits, adjusting her hold on his hand to try to hide the slight tremble that went through her at the thought. "I wasn't supposed to be there, it was an accident that I'd been left behind. We didn't have control over where or when our ship ended up, so I didn't..."
It's been three years and the memory of those few weeks still haunts her. The helplessness she'd felt, the absolute loneliness, it all comes back in her nightmares along with every other horrible thing in her life.
"I couldn't risk doing or saying anything that might change the timeline enough to make a new branch where they'd never find me. I was just... waiting and hoping that I wouldn't be alone for the rest of my life."
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"You're here now, so they must have gotten back to you," he pointed out, not at all unkindly, just a fact and a bright spot to look at rather than just letting her sink into sadness again. She hadn't been left on her own any more than he had. And now that they'd bumped into each other again, maybe they were even less alone. There'd been a friendship brewing once.
"I'm glad you did." Steve was earnest about that. If he could get his family back, all of them, he'd jump at the chance. And Daisy deserved it more. "Hopefully you got a couple of happy years after that."
Hopefully she hadn't lost any of her people to the snap. Half at random left some with more loss than others. Steve wanted for her to be one of the lucky ones.
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"I don't know that I could describe them as happy, exactly," she admits in an unexpected display of honesty. With anyone else, she would have brushed it aside and moved on to a different topic. "My team went their separate ways, everyone moving on to a new part of their lives. But we're all okay and still here — that's more than a lot of people can say."
There is one bright spot to all of it, though, and she doesn't even try to hold back the affectionate smile that suddenly springs into being. "I did have a chance to get to know my sister, though. Like everything else, it's really complicated, but I only met her a few years ago and we've become really close."
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"Sounds like everything wound up actually going your way. In the end." She'd definitely taken the hard way to not exactly what anyone would call a happy ending but happier than many. "All yours are okay, you've got your sister; not a whole lot more you could ask for, hey?"
He had to assume that among the people she had was someone special. Even as he sat there, holding her hand without even thinking about it, it just seemed natural that there was a very lucky man waiting for her. Probably had been the first time he'd met her as well. But Steve hadn't had any intentions then, didn't necessarily have them now. There was just a connection between the two of them.
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"You're right," she agrees, her smile not quite reaching her eyes but still doing a rather convincing job. "There isn't anything else I should want."
And because there's nothing else, there's no point in talking about it. Actually, she doesn't feel much like talking anymore in general. Digging into her pocket, she pulls out a few bills that she sets on the bar next to her now empty glass before sliding off her chair to stand.
"I should probably get going," she says, not actually having anywhere to be and certainly not in any state to get there, which she proves when she starts tilting to the side. Too much alcohol on an empty stomach can effect even the strongest constitution.
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He'd have let her go were it not for the way she wobbles on her feet. But Daisy didn't look the least bit steady enough to be heading anywhere on her own and Steve leapt on the opportunity to make good. His hand shot out to catch her elbow, to steady her with a small smile.
"Why don't you let me walk you?" He knew better than to tease about not remembering her being such a lightweight, knew better than to imply that she shouldn't be on her own no matter how true it was. Steve bumbled a little sometimes, more often than he didn't, but he wasn't stupid.
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Some days, she doesn't know which is worse: having the mask fool everyone around her or having the people she loves see through it. Both tend to end with her feeling guilty and alone, regardless.
"I don't need—" she starts, the sentence breaking off as the room tilts around her again. Well, maybe she could use a little help. "Okay. Thank you."
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Steve wasn't thinking about wanting anything, didn't have any ulterior motives. At least not consciously. He didn't think about why he wanted to spend more time with Daisy, didn't expect it to lead anywhere. He just found himself drawn to spending time with her in whatever way he could. If that meant just walking her home even if she didn't really want him there, he'd take what he got.
He left a few bills of his own on the bar as he stood, offered her his arm this time. She'd taken it naturally before, he assumed she wouldn't mind. "Just to get a bit of fresh air in you." If she wound up wanting to run after a couple of blocks, it wasn't meant to be. "Headed home?"
It wasn't subtle, just aimed at learning a bit more about her. Getting to know if there was a chance of seeing her again or if she was just passing through.
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She stares at Steve's arm for a few moments, not comprehending why he would be offering it to her like that, before the memory filters back through her alcohol-fogged thoughts. Oh. Right. It takes her another couple of seconds to hook her arm through his, though after a single step she uses it for actual support as her body reminds her of her precarious balance issue.
And then his question makes her laugh, a low dark thing that reveals far too much pain for her own liking. She shoves those feelings back down into the darkness where they belong, but forces out an explanation she feels he deserves. "I haven't had one of those in... a long time. Not here, anyway."
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"Where, then?" Any home was better than none but it was a hard thing to find; Steve knew that from experience. He'd never really managed to find his own, only some people that had made anywhere feel a bit more like home. He still had a few of those people, most were lost. A little family felt better than being alone.
Daisy would probably understand that if he said it but that was a side, a weakness, Steve didn't show to anyone.
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No, she needs to keep her distance, not let herself drift ever closer with each second that passes. Even if that's so much easier said than done.
"Home was my team," she answers sadly, feeling as utterly lost as she sounds. It's the alcohol making her admit this, and the alcohol causing her words to slur slightly at the end. "But we're not together anymore."
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"You said everyone's gone their own ways," he said with a nod. "Makes sense you miss them." Same as anyone who had lost someone. Same as he did. Even having been on the outs with some, he missed them. He mourned what he'd lost as much as who.
"Probably wouldn't help too much to just go and see them either, huh?" It wouldn't be the same. He understood that too. Even seeing Natasha every now and then, walking around the same old halls, it didn't make it better. Just tolerable. And her sadness gave him something to focus on that wasn't his own, just the same as focusing on Daisy did. Steve had never been very good at dealing with things emotionally, but he could be supportive. That he'd gotten down.