#agentfitzx

Talking about feelings and emotions and all that super-intense inner-self stuff never came naturally to Daisy. It wasn’t easy. It wasn’t something she was taught to do, at least not in a healthy way. She grew up in a world that taught her to survive by any means necessary, and that meant keeping yourself closed off and keeping your guard up. Because attachments lead to disappointment and heartbreak. And that was a recipe for disaster.

Her SHIELD family came along and flipped all that upside down, though. Suddenly she had people that cared about her and actually looked out for her and her wellbeing-- weird, right? All this time, Daisy had wandered about trying to find just that, and she was terrified at actually finding it. The irony was almost too much to handle.

Being faced with a reality in which she never met those people, however, was the most terrifying thing she had ever been faced with. How had she survived on Battleworld? After days upon days of going over as much as she could remember, Daisy still couldn’t fathom that her life had continued forward without them. It made no sense at all. And now that she had them all back, she was just about bursting at the seams with everything on her mind-- all those feelings and emotions and super-intense inner-self stuff.

That’s why finally, one random day soon after reality had shifted them back, Daisy burst into the lab where she knew Fitz would be tinkering away and skidded to a stop once she caught sight of him. There was no thinking involved. There was only the draw and need to spill her thoughts, because keeping everything to herself for almost 30 years was way too much.

Daisy woke up that day with a gasp, tears immediately spilling down her cheeks as she sat up and held herself there with shaking limbs. It took time and effort for her to calm down, to get her breathing under control and take a look around her to ground herself.

‘That was the first time I said I love you--’

“Lincoln..” Daisy whispered under her breath as the words echoed inside her skull. It was like losing him all over again. She got him back only to not really have him back. In this reality he probably didn’t even exist. Or he was dead, just like he had been back then. Just like Tripp. And her mother. But unlike her loose-canon father that apparently couldn’t keep himself together no matter what reality he existed in. 

But Daisy was supposed to have a family. Not people connected to her by blood ( everyone that fell under that category of family had never been destined to stay, anyway ) but people who she was supposed to meet, supposed to grow with and fight with and love more than anything else. And here, she had never met any of them. How the hell was that possible?

More words echoed around in her head, rushing through all at once, overwhelming her to the point where she had to clamp her eyes shut and cover her ears in a futile attempt to shut it all up. But it didn’t work. Daisy just kept on crying and sat there as she felt the sharp ache in her chest grow stronger and stronger. There was too much. Too much she had forgotten, too much she had missed for eight years and needed back.

‘You’re just different now, and there’s nothing wrong with that--’

‘She’s the closest thing I have to a daughter--’

‘I can’t lose you too!’

‘And now, sky’s the limit.’

Daisy basically threw herself out of bed. Lincoln might be gone but the rest of them had to be out there. Coulson, Fitz, Jemma, May, Mack--- they had to be out there. For a while she just paced anxiously, wracking her brain for anything she knew about them in this reality. That version of herself recognized the names but couldn’t put a face to them, but it hit her: if they were anywhere, they were going to be at The SHIELD.

It was a big risk leaving. A huge one, a life-threatening one, probably a stupid one. But there was no way Daisy was going to sit back and ignore them. Maybe she could even convince them to come back with her. Get their memories back. Live to fight another day and get back to the reality where they belonged. It was worth a shot. She had to try. And besides, Daisy had never been very good at following the rules.

Daisy knew she didn’t blend in. There were too many protocols and security measures for her to learn so she didn’t bother with any of them, and instead she hacked her way in and started wandering the halls, hoping against hope that somehow she would run into them. A stupid plan, really. One not very well thought out and acted upon with pure instinct, but it was the only one she had. 

Leo Fitz didn’t have powers. He didn’t have super strength, he couldn’t fly, he couldn’t cause earthquakes. But he was no ordinary person. And Daisy meant that in a good way.

When she first met him, Daisy thought he was weird. Honestly, she still does, but she had her own quirks. She had no place to judge. He was brilliantly smart and had a soft heart and a horrible sense of humor, and it was those little quirks of his that really drew her in right from the beginning-- right when she was dragged kicking and screaming into the world of SHIELD.

After the conference meeting with the Fitz-Skrull staring her down from the front of the room, Daisy spent the entire night going over every single interaction they had from the past few weeks. They hadn’t been seeing much of each other, but that was no excuse-- there had to have been something that gave it away. But she couldn’t think of a single damn thing, and that hurt like hell.

Her mind eventually drifted to those early days in SHIELD, after she officially was given an S.O. and started training. Fitz’s hair was so curly back then, he was so young-- fondly she remembered the time he walked out after a nap with a scowl covered in splattered whipped cream (no one figured out who the culprit was, but Daisy always suspected May even though no one would believe her). 

He and Jemma were the young kids of the team along side her. Her best friends. And Fitz was there for her in the moments when life didn’t seem worth it anymore, when everything seemed literally turned inside out. He survived being dropped to the bottom of the ocean, almost suffocating death and learning to deal with the outcomes. Neither of them were the same. And nothing between them was ever perfect, but he was her best friend and the feeling of not knowing if he was alive was killing her.

Daisy had really wanted Coulson to go with her. For a while she paced around the front of his office while he sat at his desk, digging for details and swiping through documents that he wasn’t willing to discuss with her. She would have asked him to go with her, really she would have, but he was too busy. No doubt he was just as angry as she was, but Phil Coulson’s anger came with bouts of silence and endless searches for answers. Best just to leave him be, check up on him so he wasn’t alone when he finally snapped. 

The questions she found herself wanting answers to were.. strange. She was angry for the wrong reasons, and she knew it: this wasn’t Fitz, but that’s where her anger was being directed. Maybe it was because things weren’t exactly on level ground with them, and they hadn’t talked much since they both broke down in his room, battling with themselves more than each other. Daisy had so much she wanted to say, so much she wanted to know--- and this replacement of Fitz was all she had left of him at the moment.

Once she arrived down to the holding cells, Daisy forcefully swung the door open and made no hesitation to get where she needed to be. There he was-- the alien who looked exactly like her best friend. As she gazed through the glass to the Skrull, memories of visiting Ward down in his holding cell flashed through her mind. She was angry then, too. Angry that someone she cared for had lied to her face, pretended to be something they weren’t. History repeats itself, it seems.

Fitz and Daisy had never had real routine to see each other everyday. They saw each other when they saw each other, but there always came a point where a certain stretch of time seemed too long between those times.

That point, for Daisy, had been reached.

She knew that the shift had been hard on him. It was hard on the whole team, herself included, but it seemed like everyone was starting to adjust. She had finally managed to squeeze in a lunch with Coulson yesterday, which made things that much better, but after it ended it really hit her how little of Fitz she had seen as of late.

Fingers crossed that he would be in his room, Daisy finished her tasks for the day and headed down the hall. Upon reaching the doorway she hesitated, thinking about simply turning around and leaving like she had never been there, but eventually knocked a few times.