#dousyweek

Daniel Sousa was in fact fazed by everything but to be fair he thought he was handling the transition to the 21st century as well as could be expected. Better even to some extent. It helps greatly that Daisy is more than happy to teach him all about it, especially if it involved laughing at him along the way. At some point, after he begins to recognize habits and behaviors that are considered normal for the time, he starts to notice odd things about Daisy herself. He doesn’t worry over most of them but sometimes he finds himself unable to not ask if it’s a time-thing or a Daisy-thing.

He has to have a cell phone and he has to know how to use it. This Daisy insists upon. In case of an emergency she wants to be able to reach him and wants him to be able to reach her or another member of the team. It will also help him blend in. Teaching him to use it actually hadn’t been that difficult. He likes to think that he picked up on the tech quickly enough. It was the smaller irrelevant things that confused him.

“Apps?”

“They’re mostly time wasters.”

Not his favorite. He didn’t care much for wasting his own time.

Books though? A library’s worth in his phone? Fantastic. He’ll admit he still likes the feel of old paperback books best, but the convenience was unbeatable.

On that same note, he also still preferred talking to people on the phone versus the short exchanges of text messages. The endless abbreviations, the lack of replies, the incessant beeping from group messages. He didn’t mind so much the ones from Daisy. They usually consisted of checking up on him when they were apart, links to articles she thought he might like and reminders. Specifically, those reminders were for him to remind her to show him some movie or book or tv show. Those were his favorite.

But it was at the end of many of her messages that he first noticed something odd and unique to her texts and one day he finally asks her about it.

“Daisy?”

“Hmm?”

“Why is this at the end of so many of your messages?”

“Why is what?” She leans over his shoulder and he points to the odd little colon and parentheses at the end of her most recent message. He hears her try to stifle a laugh and looks up at her. She’s grinning down at him, her shoulders shaking gently.

“What?”

“Okay, here,” she takes the phone and turns it in his hand so that it sideways. He thinks maybe the screen will rotate like it does when she shows him pictures, but it doesn’t. “Do you see it now?”

He does not.

“What am I supposed to be seeing?”

She doesn’t answer just continues to smile at him. He looks back at the screen and then back at her until it hits him. “It looks like a smile.”

“There you go.”

“But why?”

“Because I was smiling when I wrote the message and honestly you’re not ready for emojis.”

“Emojis?”

She taps a button on the screen and up pops hundreds of yellow circles with faces on them. Most of them are smiling but some he supposes looks angry or sad or even confused. “You’re right, I’m not ready.”

He mentally marks the symbol down as a time related oddity, even if its already a dated one.

He notices one day while holding her hand that she has her shirt sleeve tugged down over her palm. He writes it off as her hands being cold and doesn’t think much of it until it until it happens again on a warmer day. Out of curiosity he tugs her hand up to look at it and notices her shirt is actually made with a little hole to slide her thumb through.

“What’s up?” Daisy asks. He does this often, stopping dead in his tracks to inspect something that is new or unusual.

“Why, is this like a fashionable thing?” It must be if they make the shirts that way.

“I wouldn’t say that necessarily, I think it’s just comfortable for some people.”

“People with perpetually cold hands?”

“Maybe, among other reasons,” she looks down at the hand he doesn’t have grasped in his own, “I like how familiar it feels, it reminds me of my gauntlets.”

Well that made a lot of sense. Her gauntlets protected her arms so there was a level of safety and comfort in having her palms covered.

So not just a Daisy thing but with a very Daisy specific reason.

Daniel hears a frustrated shout from the other room and its not the first one. For at least the last half hour it sounded like Daisy was arguing with someone but as best he can tell its only a one-sided conversation. When he hears a loud thump he decides he better check on her. He pokes his head into their room just as she mutters another irritated sentence. “Why are you so useless?”

He knocks on the door frame.

“Hmm?” She answers without moving her eyes off the screen.

“Were you just talking to the computer?”

“Yes.”

“Are you on one of those video calls?”

“What?” Daisy finally looks up at him. “Oh no, I was, it was just being uncooperative.”

It? The computer? “So you yelled at it?”

“Yes.”

“It’s an inanimate object.”

“So?” She asks.

He almost doesn’t ask. “Does it understand you?”

The next thing he knows is a pillow is being hurled in his direction. “Don’t tease me, the damn thing is pissing me off, I’m supposed to have this done for Mack by the end of the day.”

He holds his hands up in defense. “I promise that was a genuine question.”

She sighs heavily and falls back against the remaining pillows on the bed. “No, it does not understand me, god help me if it does, I’ve called it some pretty awful things.”

“I heard.”

She sits up and looks at him as though something has just occurred to her. “Wait, have you never yelled at an inanimate object before?”

“Yelled at? Yes, but I’ve never had a whole conversation with one.”

He marks this one down as a normal behavior of the time and dodges another pillow that comes his way.

He thinks her most unusual habit may be the odd places she sits.

She sits on the floor a lot. Which he doesn’t think is all that odd, it’s just not something he’d voluntarily do himself. But sometimes he returns to their tiny, shared apartment and finds her comfortably situated anywhere but in a chair. She sits on the back of the couch, on the counter in the kitchen, on the stepstool she used to reach things.

When they’re on base she sits on desks or on crates and on the rare occasion he finds her in a chair its almost always sideways or backwards or with her legs and feet pulled up underneath her.

“Do you have something against chairs?” He asks when he finds her sitting on a crate instead of doing inventory on the zephyr.

She looks at him funny. “No, why?”

“You just never seem to use them?” He gestures to the boxes beneath her.

“I didn’t even realize.” She replied honestly. “Maybe its a subconscious rebellion, the nuns tried to instill us with good posture or maybe just habit, I didn’t exactly have proper seating in my van.” She pauses. “Is it weird? Now that you bring it up, I feel kind of like a child.”

“I don’t know if it’s weird,” he laughs and steps up to her, wrapping his arms around her waist as she drapes hers over his shoulders, “you’re the one who’s supposed to be teaching me what’s normal.”

She considers this. “Unclear.” She tells him.

Unclear.

There is one thing that he knows is distinctly Daisy even from the very first time it happens.

She’s been gone for nearly two weeks. Sent with Elena’s team on a mission involving a whole family of inhumans who were being threatened. Definitely their area of expertise. He spent a much quieter week at the academy, assisting Coulson as he prepared to take on a semester of SHIELD history classes. The pair had joined May for lunch when the text messages started coming in.

We’ve landed!!!!

Are you still at the academy?? I’ll meet you there

Where are you both the classrooms are empty

He considers calling her but she’s taken to answering the phone in mocking tones when he does that instead of just writing back to her. Stopped for lunch, we’re on our way back to May’s classroom

:) :) :)

He rolls his eyes and stuffs the phone back in his pocket. They’re only just around the corner from the classroom. May has a lecture in a few minutes and the halls are filled with cadets moving around in a rush to get to where they need to be.

“Finally!” Daisy jumps up from her spot of the floor and starts to sprint towards them, dodging the students who didn’t get out of the way fast enough. She slams into him and they stumble backwards a couple of steps.

“Hey I missed y – “

She cuts him off, dragging his lips down to meet hers. He knows she’s had a long couple of weeks so he tries to pour as much love and comfort into the kiss as possible, pulling her as close to him as he can.

A shudder runs through them and they break apart. Daisy looks up at him wide eyed and cheeks reddening. People have stopped and are staring at them startled and he realizes that it wasn’t a shudder than separated them but a quake.

“I’m sorry, I just really missed you too.”