#safekeeping verse

“We think he’s about two weeks old, but he weighs in, like, the ninetieth percentile,” Daisy said. “We had plenty of time to look it up, as this little guy didn’t want anybody sleeping last night, did he?”

He truly hadn’t. Jemma had always felt that every human being could be rationed with, but that belief had nothing in the face of a baby ripped from his reality and put in a strange place with new people. Tony had cried whenever put in the bassinet. Holding him had reduced the tears to fussing. Walking with and singing to him had seemed to be the only thing that comforted him. And since neither she nor Daisy knew any lullabies—“They weren’t exactly that loving at St. Agnes, it was more ‘go to sleep or you won’t get supper tomorrow.’”—this had led to Jemma dozing while Daisy paced back and forth, singing Queen songs she’d probably learned from the cassette Coulson always kept in Lola.

Jemma had fallen asleep sometime during Fat-Bottomed Girls, which wasn’t exactly lullaby-appropriate.

Jemma shook her head at that now and began to sort the miscellaneous items Bobbi had brought with her, steadfastly ignoring the slightly crumpled sketch drawn in a childish hand. Daisy had examined it and set it down for her to study, but Jemma wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to think about her having a baby with Daisy being some kind of prophecy. Not just yet. In the meantime, she sorted through the rest of the offerings.

“How’d you find us?” Daisy asked.

“Lance set up a proximity alert at the base,” Bobbi said. “We had a vague idea when you’d be back, but, you know, life goes on. And it’s not exactly a quick hop from Mozambique to get back here in time.”

“And it’s okay that you’re here with us?” Jemma asked. After all, Bobbi and Lance had been forced from the team under some dire circumstances.

Bobbi cooed at the baby, who regarded her like some kind of strange alien. “No smile for your Auntie Bobbi? That’s fine, we’ll work on it. And yeah, it’s completely fine. Those orders against us being SHIELD agents have been lifted.”

“How?” Daisy asked.

“You were gone eighteen months. A lot’s happened.” Bobbi let Tony wrap his hand around one of her fingers, grinning with delight. “He’s so cute. He looks so serious.”

“He hasn’t smiled yet,” Daisy said.

“If he did, it would be gas,” Jemma told her.

“I think that’s a myth.”

“You two are cute, too,” Bobbi said. Both Jemma and Daisy wrinkled their noses at her, and Bobbi seemed to jolt, obviously remembering something. “Oh, right, and we cleared your name, Daisy. Talbot’s fine and everybody knows it was an LMD that shot him.”

‘What?”

“You were gone eighteen months,” Bobbi repeated. “Did you think we would really sit around and let the entire world drag your names through the mud?”

“No?” Daisy asked, warily. “But you did have Lance with you, so…”

Bobbi grimaced, as though to say that was a fair point. “It didn’t go perfectly. There might still be a warrant out for your arrest, but if you stay out of Georgia, you should be fine.”

“Gotcha,” Daisy said as Jemma asked, “Do you mean the state or the country?”

Bobbi thought about it. “Both?”

“Good old Hunter,” Daisy said with a laugh. “I have missed you two.”

“So you knew we would be coming back?” Jemma asked.

Bobbi nodded over at the drawing, which finally made Jemma pick it up and look it over. The dark-haired stick figure with the brown eyes and the smile, that was clearly Daisy. And her own stick figure held Daisy’s hand. Between the two of them, on the ground, was a little baby with a black hair. But what she had assumed was just a blur of color in the corner behind them, she realized, was a childish rendition of the sign for their hotel. “Ah,” she said.

She couldn’t wait until science had advanced sufficiently as to explain Robin’s gift, she decided.

“Ideally, we would’ve been at the base waiting for you,” Bobbi said. “But then you wouldn’t have been at the hotel at all, so I should’ve known. And ooh. I’m going to pass him back to his mommies, as honorary auntieship means I don’t change diapers unless I have to.”

“I’ll handle it,” Jemma said. She picked out a onesie that said ‘I Am A Jedi Like My Aunt Before Me,’ and took care of the soiled diaper, listening with one ear as Bobbi caught Daisy up on everything that had happened while they’d been in the future. It appeared they hadn’t had much more fun in the current timeline than the SHIELD team had in 90 years in the future.

“What about you?” Bobbi asked, taking the baby again as Jemma moved over to the sink to start heating up a bottle of formula. “What the hell happened to all of you, that you come back with a baby? Who knocked up whom? And how?”

“Nothing like that, gutter-brain,” Daisy said, looking oddly pink. “They engineer babies in the future.”

“So all the responsibility and none of the fun?” Bobbi asked, wiggling her eyebrows at Daisy.

Had the hotel room always been this warm? Jemma focused on measuring out the proper amount of powder into the bottle.

“Enough of that line of questioning, Agent Morse,” Daisy said. “Tony wasn’t something either of us did. You know Caligula?”

“The Roman emperor?”

“Turns out even in crazy future times, history repeats itself. Ours was a Kree named Kasius and he ran a little base on what was left of earth. Think feudal oppression levels of awful meets the Hunger Games. Even worse, he liked keeping the prettiest people on the base as silent and deaf slaves.”

Jemma focused carefully on the water temperature, listening to the way the water hit the sink. Her breathing remained steady—and perfectly, comfortingly loud—in her ears.

“And there was also the inhuman slave trade going on, too,” Daisy said. “So that was a party.”

“No,” Bobbi said, her eyes wide.

“He liked to put us through gladiator death matches.”

“Seriously? Are you okay?”

“Simmons took a bigger hit than I did,” Daisy said, looking over. “But she insists she’s fine.”

“I am,” Jemma said. The scar from her right shoulder to the center of her chest was still an angry red—she’d checked in the shower—but it only ached a little. The tech Fitz had used to heal her had done its job, more or less.

Daisy gave her a dubious look now, as though she didn’t believe her.

“I’m hardly going to disrobe to prove it to you, so you’ll have to take my word for it.” She finished making up the bottle and handed it to Bobbi, taking a seat on the bed next to her friend. “We came so close to losing Daisy to slave traders. We would have, if Fitz hadn’t showed up.”

“Anyway, things went to hell in a handbasket the way they always do,” Daisy said. “We had to fight our way out of there and Fitz and Simmons magicked—”

“Scienced,” Jemma said before she realized that didn’t sound any better.

“—something to get us back here. On the way out, we went through their baby-making lab, and we spotted him.” Daisy nodded at Tony, who was suckling at the bottle, his little hands waving in the air. “And it was kind of obvious.”

“He looks a lot like you,” Bobbi said, nodding.

Daisy shook her head at herself. “Jemma ran the DNA results back at the base. What is it—fifty-three percent me, forty-seven percent you?” she asked.

“Thereabouts,” Jemma said. “We’ve already established that he has my nose.”

“You two are taking this rather well, all considering,” Bobbi said.

Daisy and Jemma exchanged a look. “Ever been in a room with like twenty copies of yourself?” Daisy asked.

“I—can’t say I’ve had the pleasure.”

“All our friends were robots, and then we went into a computer simulation where Ward was still alive—”

“—and Fitz was evil—”

“—and upon escaping from that, we had to fight Dr. Radcliffe’s assistant who was now inhuman,” Jemma said, as Fitz’s journey was a long and thorny subject for her. “She set up an LMD of Daisy to kill Talbot, which mercifully appears to have failed.”

“And while we’re reeling from all of that noise and we just want a slice of pie,” Daisy said, “we get sucked into the future. This is not even getting into the story of our friend Robbie, whose head turns into a flaming skull. So, like, on a scale of one to ten for weirdness? Tony is like a three.”

“You guys really need a nap,” Bobbi said.

“No kidding,” Daisy said.

“Well, I can help with that bit. Pack your things. We set up temporary housing for all of you while you get back on your feet. I imagine Lance is finished telling the others. We even got a car seat for the munchkin.”

Bobbi, of course, was all too happy to hold—and burp—Tony while Daisy and Jemma re-packed all the baby supplies (“We’re going to need diaper bags.”) into the shopping bags, slotting their own meager possessions in among Tony’s things. That surely must be a metaphor for how their lives had changed in the past twenty-four hours, Jemma thought as she followed Bobbi to the lobby, where the others waited.

Lance immediately brightened up, making grabby hand motions until Bobbi passed the baby over. “We’ll get you in Liverpool duds soon, mate,” he said, chucking Tony under the chin.

Of course, the baby began to wail (“Serves you right. Liverpool,” Fitz scoffed) and had to be rescued from “Uncle Lance.” Things settled somewhat after they were loaded in the SUVs Lance and Bobbi had brought, driving all the way to the other side of town.

Daisy and Jemma, seated on either side of Tony’s car seat, didn’t speak a word until Bobbi pulled up into the driveway of an unassuming single-story brick home that she reassured them had all of the amenities they—and Tony—would need. Jemma let Daisy unhook the car seat as she climbed out to study the house.

Bobbi collected their bags, leading the way to the front door, which she unlocked with a key that she passed to Jemma, as Daisy had her hands full with Tony’s car seat.

“I don’t think we have a choice here, Jem,” Daisy said. “I don’t think we can sneak out. There are too many of them. If I attack first, we might have the upper hand. It might be enough to let you and him get away.”

“And let you sacrifice yourself?” Jemma drew herself up to her full height, her chin going firm. “Absolutely not.”

“I’ve been in sticky situations before. I can handle myself. It’s you two I’m worried about—”

“No. We do this together.”

“Jemma—”

“I mean it, Daisy.” One arm bracing Tony, Jemma began unstrapping the sling from around her torso. The infant began to kick and move his arms, clearly displeased about being awake. “Shh, shh, it’s okay. Mummy’s still here, you’re fine.”

“What are you doing?” Daisy said.

“Giving him to you so I know you won’t do something stupid like give yourself up to let us get away. It’s clearly inhumans they’re after.” Jemma finished unwrapping the sling and held Tony out. The baby blinked sleepily at her, his little nose wrinkled.

“You can’t—I’m a target!” But Daisy took the baby, shushing him when he began to make a gurgling noise they’d learned preceded bouts of tears. “If they get me, they’ll get both of us.”

“Then you have incentive not to let that happen, don’t you?” Jemma helped her with the wrap. Daisy could feel her hands shaking as she double-checked the fastenings, but her friend’s face remained resolute. She picked up a sock that Tony had kicked off, and wiggled it back onto his foot. “Give me your gun.”

Her own hands shook as she pulled it from the holster at the small of her back, passing it over.

“I really think you should take Tony and go,” Daisy said, as the back of her mind had gone blindingly white with panic. All of May’s training about remaining calm in the face of danger didn’t seem to stand a chance against the fact that it wasn’t just her she’d be protecting but the baby strapped to her as well. It jellified her knees and her spine. “Seriously, Jemma. This is not a good idea.”

Jemma calmly checked the chamber and the magazine before holstering the gun. “I know. But it’s our best shot. And if there’s one thing I know about you, it’s that you will do anything to protect the ones you love. I’m not worried.”

“That makes one of us,” Daisy said, “because I’m currently scared out of my mind.”

Jemma gave her a bolstering smile and touched her cheek. Without thinking about it, Daisy covered Jemma’s hand with her own, pressing it to her cheek. They stayed like that for a few seconds, just long enough for Tony to protest and let out a little wail.

“Shh, shh, it’s okay,” Jemma said, dropping her hand rub Tony’s back. She didn’t look away from Daisy, though. “We’re going to be just fine.”

“Yeah,” Daisy said, swallowing hard. Her cheek felt impossibly warm, even though the rest of her body had been plunged into icy terror. “We’re going to be fine.”

And with Jemma leading the way, gun out, they burst out of the store.

There was no way for SHIELD to suppress all of the footage, of course, not with so many of the hostages in the mall having cell phones. Which was why the news cycle that night showed loops of Quake, the superhero, blasting ninjas at a local mall away with her fists with—“Is that a baby? Does Quake have a baby? When did our favorite superhero get knocked up?”—Tony strapped to her chest in a sling. One by one, the attacking fighters rushed Quake, only to be blasted into walls, into giant potted ferns, into the escalator, Forever 21, and the food court. Daisy Johnson walked confidently on to the exit, throwing tremoring blasts left and right until she strode right out of the mall, baby strapped to her chest.

It was only outside that the unobtrusive woman some of the footage had caught, and subsequently ignored, hugged her, both of them nearly crying from relief.

“That’s it,” Daisy said, laughing out of sheer relief as Tony let his displeasure be known loud and clear. “No more buying baby clothes at the mall, we’ll just order them online.”

Daisy chanced a peek at Jemma’s face while the other woman was distracted, no doubt lost in her own thoughts as she held the baby.

In truth, Daisy had braced herself for this day, the one where she would sit beside her friend and watch her smile at a baby. Just like so many other days she’d silently and mentally prepared for. She’d already resolved to smile through a series of them: Fitz and Jemma’s engagement announcement, their wedding, their first child. She’d set aside that little bit of strength, knowing she would need it.

And now things were happening completely out of order—and wrong.

She shook her head to clear those dangerous thoughts. Maybe her mind had drifted because suppressed pining was way thorny than unexpected parenthood.

God, what even was her life?

“He’ll need stuff,” she said.

“Hmm?” Jemma lifted her head.

“Stuff. Baby things, beyond the formula and the clothes we bought.”

“I think what he needs above all is a bath, but you’re talking more long-term, I suppose.” Jemma bit her bottom lip as she gave the matter some thought. “We can’t keep him at the base.”

“With the way that this place gets attacked by everybody and everything? Yeah, no.” Daisy shook her head. “I also don’t think the back of my van is a good option for him.”

“Absolutely not.”

“What about your place?” Daisy asked.

“I have no idea what’s happened to that apartment, between the framework, and however long we were in the future. If it’s been over a year, I imagine the lease has lapsed and my credit score is frightfully low.”

Daisy had checked during her trip with May to fetch supplies for the team and for Tony. She cleared her throat. “I’m afraid that might be the case. It’s been eighteen months.”

Jemma drew a quick breath, her fingers flexing a little on her free hand. She sat back, her eyes closed. Since Daisy had reacted with prolonged and vociferous swearing herself, she was impressed by the restraint.

“But don’t worry about your credit score,” she said. “I can fix it.”

“I appreciate that,” Jemma said.

“There’s always a hotel,” Daisy said, shrugging.

“Hotels are never as clean as you think they are.”

“We’ll buy, like, Clorox wipes.” When Jemma opened her mouth to protest, Daisy gave her a sarcastic head-tilt. “A clean-able hotel room or staying in a base where we’re pretty much guaranteed to be attacked in the middle of the night, Simmons. It’s not exactly a ‘six of one, half a dozen of the other’ situation here.”

“You have a point,” Jemma said, apparently tired enough not to protest ‘clean-able’ as a phrase. “We’ll need to inform the others.”

“I mean, everybody already suspected half of it,” Daisy said. Mack, Elena, and Coulson had spent the Quinjet ride from Lake Ontario to the base sneaking looks from the baby to her. May probably had, too, but since she was May, Daisy hadn’t caught her. “It was just the other half of the equation they were missing, in this case.”

“And so much more than that. We’ll have to tell them that we’ve essentially committed to raising a child together.”

That familiar, painful-and-yet-hopeful feeling hit Daisy in the chest once again. Committed to raising a child together. That was—that went way beyond simple friendship. That entered murky territory Daisy had meticulously been skirting for well over two years, ever since it had become obvious that Jemma was beginning to return Fitz’s pining looks. She cleared her throat. “Given that my chosen way of wearing my issues is on my sleeve for the entire world to see, I don’t think anybody will be entirely shocked by this decision, either,” she said. “Again, you’re the unexpected piece.”

For all of us, Daisy thought.

“Coulson already knows,” Jemma said. “He was with me when the results came in. So we’ll just need to tell the others. And Fitz.”

“You know, you don’t have to tell him,” Daisy said, as Jemma’s voice had gone flat. “Coulson would keep it to himself, if we asked. I could do this myself, if it would make things difficult with Fitz for you to have—you know, him.” She nodded at Tony.

Jemma shifted protectively, pulling Tony closer to her in a move that spoke volumes. “I won’t let you do this alone.”

Unexpected guilt prickled uncomfortably at the back of Daisy’s neck for having even offered in the first place. Of course Jemma would grow attached as quickly as she had. “Okay. I just—it’s a lot, you know, I just wanted you to be absolutely sure. With how things are with Fitz…”

“I’m sure.” Warily, Jemma rose off of the barstool, holding still until it was obvious that Tony wouldn’t wake. Daisy followed her to the couch, which smelled faintly of dust. Jemma cuddled the infant closer to her. Her sigh could be over the state of the base, Daisy knew, or it could be more. “You’re correct that introducing a child to my relationship with Fitz will complicate things, but they weren’t exactly simple to begin with. We haven’t had a chance to properly discuss the Framework or Aida.”

“It’s been a busy few weeks,” Daisy said. She was sure she’d made bigger understatements before, but none came to mind right away.

“He needs some time to himself. He’s so convinced that our relationship is cursed, did you know that?”

Daisy grimaced. She didn’t want to argue, as that would mean lying, but telling the truth would also break a fundamental rule she’d set up, one that involved resolutely sticking to the positives of her friends’ relationship, so as not to arouse suspicion. “It hasn’t exactly been brimming with good luck, but then, that’s kind of our lives these days.”

“I know. Gosh, he’s just so apple-cheeked,” Jemma said, and it took Daisy a full second to realize she was talking about Tony and not Fitz. “Look at his little cheeks, he’s so cute.”

“As hot as we both are, it makes sense that our lab-grown baby would be the cutest one ever,” Daisy said, grinning when she was rewarded with a genuine smile from Jemma. “But we’re gonna have to be careful. Your brains, my general awesomeness, and both of our looks? This kid is going to rule the world if we’re not careful. We should teach him to be a benevolent leader.”

“Mm, it would be the responsible thing, I suppose.”

“Well, that’s us. Responsible parents.” Daisy realized she was playing with her beanie, and pulled it back on her head. “Do you think that’s what we’ll be? Because I feel like I might be a disaster.”

“I think,” and Jemma had her head tilted, her eyes focused on something in the distance the way she always did when giving a matter serious consideration, “that there’s a learning curve for everyone. And as I said earlier, you’re one of the smartest people I know, Daisy. You’ll be fine. We’ll be fine.”

Warmth flooded through Daisy from her chest to her toes.

“Though, returning to our earlier subject, we’ll definitely need to inform the team. It will mean changes for them as well.”

Daisy chewed on her lower lip. “Given how many times we’ve saved their lives lately, we’ll probably never run out of free babysitting offers, at least.”

* * *

The team took it better than predicted. Elena had already guessed, it turned out, and had shared her suspicions with Mack, who simply wished them an exhausted “good luck” as he held baby Tony between his palms with a look that broke Daisy’s heart. He would need time to himself to grieve over the facsimile of Hope. Time. Something they’d had ironically very little of, despite officially being time travelers. But he smiled as he passed the baby on to May. She cradled Tony, rocking him gently, and raised an eyebrow at Daisy in particular, eyes flitting to Jemma.

She knew, Daisy realized. But then, she figured she hadn’t had secrets from May in forever, so it wasn’t that much of a surprise.

Coulson, when his turn came, groused about the name. “You realize Stark was already a pain in my ass and if he finds out two of my agents named a baby Tony, we’ll never hear the end of it?”

“Don’t say ass in front of the baby,” Jemma said.

Coulson reluctantly handed Tony back, though he did so with a warning that they would be inundated with Iron Man baby clothes and baby armor if Stark ever found out.

Fitz was the reaction Daisy watched (and pretended not to). To her surprise, he took the baby when Jemma held him out. There wasn’t any awkwardness or fumbling about from him, though he stared hard at Tony’s face. Everybody in the room pretended nonchalance, though Daisy imagined they were all straining to pick up every nuance, just like her.

“He’s got your nose,” he told Jemma. To Daisy, he said, “Congratulations. You two make a very cute baby.”

“Thank you,” Daisy said.  

Fitz and Jemma shared a quiet look that broke Daisy’s heart a little. Not envy, she realized, but genuine sorrow for both of them and the troubles they faced.

She tried to keep her tone light as she stepped forward and collected Tony from Fitz. “Simmons and I were thinking that it would probably be a little more sanitary to go find a hotel. Just until we can figure out logistics with—you know, him. And while we figure out what’s happened since we’ve been gone.”

* * *

The lure of soft beds and sheets they wouldn’t have to wash first seemed to appeal to everybody else, too. She remembered those days on the run from Hydra the first time, that little roadside motel where the sheets had smelled funky and she’d crawled into bed with Jemma to avoid sharing with May. They picked a much nicer venue this time, with everybody getting their own rooms, all paid for by one of Coulson’s cards. The minute she got her hands on a secure computer, Daisy thought, she had so much work to do, checking their alibis, seeing how many warrants they had outstanding.

Though she half-expected Jemma to follow Fitz to his room, she stayed with Daisy and Tony. They had only the clothes on their backs and things they found in the gift shop, sweatpants with the hotel name and oversized sweatshirts, toiletries and the like. Daisy was sure they’d drawn some looks, but she was too tired to care. So tired. Bone-deep, intense exhaustion radiated through her entire body.

Jemma set the gift shop bag down on the other bed and began to pick through it. “We should probably bathe him before either of us showers. I don’t know how much hot water this place has, but I intend to use up a great deal of it.”

“So shower before you, got it,” Daisy said, earning a tired smile from Jemma.

Tony Johnson-Simmons’ first bath, they agreed later, was something of a disaster. For one, there was a surprisingly vehement argument as to location, the bathtub losing to the sink even though said sink wasn’t quite big enough for the baby to fit comfortably. For as natural as feeding him had felt, bathing Tony was an entirely different story, especially for the two of them attempting to work together. Daisy imagined that truly good parents had soft music, the very best shampoo and soap, and calm, happy babies for a peaceful, harmonious bath time.

They, on the other hand, were a scientist and a field agent belonging to a fallen clandestine government agency, who’d been unceremoniously handed guardianship of a test tube baby. Not much harmony to be found there, but a lot of muttering of “hold still—not him, Daisy, you. You hold still” and Tony crying when they accidentally splashed shampoo in his eyes.

“So the ‘no tears’ claim appears to be a blatant lie,” Daisy said while Jemma gave her a peevish look and Tony screamed directly in her ear. “Wow. Okay. So I don’t think we have to worry about his lungs at all. Wow.”

Jemma, who had a glob of baby shampoo on her chin, sighed at the both of them.

But the trauma finally ended and Tony, freshly diapered—another adventure for both of them, and only not a disaster because Daisy’s time in the future had honed her already lightning fast reflexes—had been swaddled in the softest towel they could find, nestled in Jemma’s arms.

“Let’s never speak of this to anybody on the team,” Jemma said.

“Agreed.” Daisy grabbed her bag and hurried off to take a shower. It should have been a glorious escape, the first real hot shower she’d had in months, a chance to soak her battered muscles and take stock of all the injuries. But she found herself hurrying through it, scrubbing quickly. What if something happened to Tony while she was in the shower?

Realistically, she knew that he had Jemma, that he would be completely fine. But she still hurried, nonetheless. When she emerged, toweling her hair dry, she found him asleep in the little bassinet the hotel had provided. Jemma lay face down on the bed with her arm dangling over the side so that her hand was inches away from Tony.

She wheezed softly in her sleep.

Daisy stood in the bathroom doorway and regarded the two of them, quickly dropping her gaze to avoid being caught staring when Jemma stirred. “My turn?” Jemma asked, her voice rusty.

“I left a little hot water for you.”

“My hero.” Eyes not quite all the way open, Jemma gave Tony one last lingering look and slipped past Daisy into the bathroom. In the doorway, she paused. “You’ll keep an eye on him?”

“Well, I was thinking about going down to the lobby for a smoke and—obviously I’m kidding.” Daisy grinned at the indignant scoff. “Yes, Simmons. I’ve got him. Go on. Shower in peace.”

She climbed into bed and dimmed the lamp so that Jemma wouldn’t have to make her way to bed in pitch blackness. After weeks on a pallet in the inhuman quarters, the hotel bed felt almost too soft. Like sinking into a cloud. She rolled over in the dark, staring at Jemma’s empty bed and the bassinet she’d placed between them.

Tony was a tether, she knew, one like she’d never been allowed to have until Coulson had found her and dragged her onto that bus. And the bonds she’d formed then had been by choice, in blood, sweat, and tears, and could break so heartbreakingly easily. But Tony was a tether of a different kind, a small, helpless person depending on her. Just like he needed Jemma.

Just like he tied the two of them together. Whatever their feelings, they were now in this, side-by-side.

And it was only going to get harder from here, Daisy knew, to keep her feelings to herself. She rolled back over and stared at the ceiling, wishing sleep would come and give her a break. But no, she was still awake when she heard the shower shut off, and the sounds of Jemma brushing her teeth and going through her nightly regimen. The door opened and Jemma tiptoed to bed with an almost inaudible “Good night, Daisy.”

“Good night,” Daisy whispered back, finally feeling her eyelids begin to droop. She felt sleep tug her away at last, a sweet release from the sheer suckitude of the longest day ever. Happy to escape into dreamland, she closed her eyes fully.

Which was precisely when Tony began to wail.

Jemma kept her eyes closed. In the processing lab, when they’d made their daring escape, it had seemed obvious. Kasius was desperately looking to sell something valuable, Daisy was the most precious thing he’d owned. So the baby with the dark hair and Daisy’s eyes on the table, that could only mean one thing, really.

“It was bad enough when it was just Daisy,” he said. “No, not just bad. Awful. He bred her. Like cattle.”  

“Not just her,” Coulson said. He tilted his head and studied the baby. “Is it too soon to tell you that he has your nose?”

“Coulson,” Jemma said, torn between absurd laughter and tears. But that was all she could say.

“Yeah, I figured it was too soon. Come here.” He pulled her into a hug, murmuring something that sounded suspiciously like ‘there, there.’ Jemma hated that it worked. And she hated that his offer of tea worked just as well.

The minute he stepped out of the lab, the baby began to wriggle about in place. His little arms waved as he mewled pitifully. “Oh, no.” Jemma dashed away her tears and hurried over to the table. She knew frightfully little about babies, outside of what she’d learned in her biology texts. And she’d outright ignored any childhood psychology lessons because surely she’d have some warning when she was about to have kids, plenty of time to study up. How absolutely foolish she’d been.

The baby opened his mouth and began to wail. “No, no, no,” Jemma said.  “Shh. It’s okay. You’re okay. You’re—you’re fine. Look, you’re in the jacket and it’s nice and warm and it smells like Coulson and he smells nice, doesn’t he? Like wintergreen and—oh dear.”

Maybe he just wanted to be held. Maybe that was it. Even though she had no idea what she was doing, she awkwardly levered a hand underneath him and scooped him up, careful to hold his head the way Coulson had.

The baby only wailed louder.

“Think, Jemma, think,” Jemma said, since she was alone and anybody who judged her for talking to herself would receive a severe reprimand. “He can’t need changing, Coulson’s just seen to that. He’s probably tired? Or unused to this place? Or…”

“He sounds hungry.” Daisy strolled in, a plastic shopping bag dangling from two fingers. “We’re back, and we have formula. Once again, Daisy Johnson, saver of the day, at your service.”

“Oh, thank heavens,” Jemma said, turning desperately toward her, and then it hit her: this was genetically their baby. They had a child together.

She had a son with her best friend.

Daisy faltered a little, pulling up short as Jemma continued to stare at her. “Simmons? Is everything okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I—yes, everything’s fine,” Jemma said, even though it clearly wasn’t. She had no idea how to even begin telling Daisy what she’d found, so she focused on more important matters. “You said you have the formula? You made sure to get the best kind?”

“I checked reviews. God, mommy-bloggers are terrifying.” Daisy began to unload the contents of the plastic bag. “May went to scope out the place and see if anything’s still livable. We might be able to set him in my old quarters until we can see to something more permanent.”

“They need to be absolutely clean and dust-free,” Jemma said. “Do we have any hypoallergenic bedding? We’ll need to acquire some—”

“He came from a future where I’m pretty sure people ate actual kibble. He’s probably got more antibodies in his bloodstream than we do.” Daisy finished unloading the bag and held up the carton of formula for Jemma to read the ingredients. She bit down an impressed comment about Daisy’s correct use of antibodies for once, though it of course sent her thoughts racing. The baby was from the future. Did he have the correct antibodies? At least the formula ingredients checked out.

“Make sure it’s the right temperature,” she told Daisy. “Not too hot, or he’ll—”

“You know what? Let’s trade.” Daisy took the wailing infant from her easily, like she’d been around babies all her life, cuddling him close to her and murmuring. He immediately settled. Probably, Jemma knew, because she’d been stiff and ramrod straight holding him. It must have been like being held by a plank.

Daisy followed her to the kitchen. Mysteriously, Coulson wasn’t anywhere to be found even though he’d promised to fetch Jemma a cuppa.

“So,” Daisy said, holding the baby in one arm so that he could wrap his impossibly tiny fingers around her thumb, “how bad is it, Doc?”

“I—I beg your pardon?” Jemma asked, pausing in her preparation of the formula.

Daisy gave her a strange look. “I was only asking if it’s true. If I’m genetically his—well, his you-know-what.”

“His biological mother? Yes, the DNA confirmed that you are.”

It was only because she’d known Daisy for years that Jemma saw the way her jawline tensed, and the quick breath of shock. But it was only confirmation of what they’d all suspected. Kasius had been so insistent on protecting this child in particular.

He would only take such care with the genetic offspring of Quake, Destroyer of Worlds.

Jemma hated that title.

Now Daisy relaxed her jaw. “Well, we all knew it was coming,” she said with a crooked smile that felt absolutely humorless. “Any clue who the, ah, the father is? He’s clearly someone handsome. This kid is destined to grow up and break hearts.”

“Yes. About that.” It was amazing that her hands didn’t shake as she finished heating the formula. “There’s—well, there’s not exactly a father.”

“You don’t have DNA records of who it could be? Or it’s just some weird future tech? He’s already part alien from me, so if he’s even more alien than I thought, just give it to me straight.”

“No, we’ve accounted for all of the baby’s DNA. The other donor just isn’t male.” Get it over with, her brain shouted at her, but Jemma still had to take a deep breath. “It’s me.”

“Huh?” Daisy asked, raising her head. “What’s you?”

“The other parent. Kasius used a sample from me and one from you and created—well, him. Sinara told me once that he found me pretty and I guess that was enough for him to…” Jemma trailed off and interlocked her fingers in front of her, realized exactly what that looked like, and flushed to her hairline. “Though I didn’t think it would be enough for—well, enough to inspire him to breed me.”

“Simmons, don’t take this the wrong way,” Daisy said, a funny look on her face. “You’re very pretty. Gorgeous, in fact, but I think he may have…wanted your brain? Because let’s face it, the kid’s not getting the smarts from me.”

Jemma set the bottle down with a little too much force so that a squirt of formula splattered over her hand. “That’s ridiculous, you’re one of the smartest people I know.”

“Thanks,” Daisy said, and then finally she seemed to get it, for she went pale and sat down. Hard. The baby in her arms let out a protest, and she looked at him. “Uh.”

“Yes,” Jemma said.

“This is—he’s—”

“He is.”

“Ours.” Daisy’s eyes were a little glassy as she looked up and met Jemma’s gaze. “We have a kid together. You and me. Not you and Fi—” She broke off mid-word, wincing.

Fitz. Jemma hadn’t given him a single thought since the DNA results had rolled across her screen. Right. In the life plan, babies had been a future thing. Something to be shared with…Fitz. Scribbled into the life journal right behind weddings and finding a perfect house. Not after an impromptu jaunt to the future, and not with her best friend.

“This does appear to be our baby,” she said, her voice sounding a little strange to her ears.

“What the hell do we do with a baby?” Daisy asked.

“The usual, I expect.” For some reason, seeing Daisy’s uncertainty gave her a clarity. Jemma moved over to sit next to her and held out the bottle of formula. “There are a lot of studies that go back and forth on the importance of breastmilk, but since neither of us are lactating, we haven’t much of a choice.”

“Sure. Yeah. Right. Lactating. No, definitely not doing that.” Daisy shifted, taking the bottle and holding it so the baby could eat.

“You’re good at that,” Jemma said.

“At what?”

“With him. You’re a natural. He calmed right down when you picked him up.”

“There were babies in St. Agnes all the time. They’re pretty simple. Figure out why they’re crying, and they stop. For the most part.” Daisy squeezed her eyes shut. “I’m a mom. This is so weird. You’re a mom. Somehow that’s even weirder, even though we’re moms to literally the same baby.”

“It…is unexpected, yes,” Jemma said. She reached out and touched the crown of his head, gently, marveling at the soft tufts of hair. Dark, like Daisy’s. She herself had been bald in all of her baby pictures. Also jaundiced and colicky and clearly unhappy, none of which seemed to apply to this child.

Oh, dear. She would have to inform her parents. Technically, they were grandparents now. Surely they deserved to know that.

But she didn’t want to think about that, so she studied the baby instead. Coulson had been right: that was definitely her nose, but a miniature version on somebody else’s face. The shape of the eyebrows and his eyes, though, that came entirely from Daisy.

“How much are you freaking out right now?” Daisy asked.

Jemma decided to tell the truth. “I don’t know.”

“I’m not giving him up for adoption,” Daisy said. Her voice was quiet, but Jemma knew that tone. “I lived that life. I don’t want the same life for—for my child.”

That meant keeping the baby in their lives. Raising a child in the face of what they did every day, not knowing if they would return from the framework, from the future, from the everyday grind of SHIELD operations. Even without that aspect, raising a child was a major responsibility, and an even bigger life change. He was an inhuman, Jemma realized. Someday he would have powers.

He would need Daisy.

“But that’s on me,” Daisy said, her voice shaking a little. “That’s my choice. I understand if you don’t want to be a part of it, you don’t owe him or me anything because some creepy dude from the future wanted to mad science a kid out of our genetic soup. You don’t have to take this on.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Jemma said before she knew what she was thinking. “If you’re raising this child, of course I’ll be here with you. We may not have had a choice about how this all started, but we’re in this together. All three of us, apparently.”

The baby pushed away the bottle, stretching his face away and grimacing. It really was remarkable to see her best friend in his expressions, Jemma thought. She’d seen Daisy make precisely that face whenever Coulson cooked spinach.

Daisy laid the baby against her shoulder and patted him gently on the back. “Do you ever stop and think about how messed up our lives are?” she asked.

“Every day.”

“Glad it’s not just me. Here, you take him, he just burped. I think he’s ready to sleep.”

“Are—are you sure? Every time I’ve held him, he’s cried.”

“You’ve got this.”

Passing the baby over felt a little like handling an armed bomb to Jemma. It was only after Daisy laughed and told her to relax that she unclenched her jaw. Mercifully, the baby closed his eyes and fell asleep as Daisy predicted, letting out tiny wheezing noises. “See? It’s not so bad,” Daisy said, still looking a little pale.

“He’ll need a name,” Jemma said. “And there’s so much reading to be done. I don’t know the first thing about babies and I don’t think you do, either. We’re not even equipped to take care of him at the moment. We don’t even have a sanitary place to live, or a pediatrician for him. He’ll need immunizations, and a birth certificate, and we’ll have to decide which one of us is officially considered the birth mother.”

Daisy pulled off her beanie and twisted it between her hands. “Let’s just—let’s start with a name. We can figure all of that stuff out later. God, this is hard. I’ve never named anything before. I never even had a pet rock.”

“I had a cat named Hubble, after the telescope,” Jemma offered. “I don’t think that’s a good name for him, though. We could name him after one of our fathers?”

“Cal or Craig?” Daisy frowned, as Jemma blinked in surprise that she knew her father’s name. “I definitely don’t want to name him after my father. There’s—well, there’s a lot of history there that I don’t want to pin on a kid. I want something hopeful, you know?”

“Something that says ‘look to the future?’”

“Maybe not exactly that,” Daisy said, “as technically we did pull him out of the future and it was kind of a nightmare.”

Jemma watched the infant in her arms, marveling as his little chest rose and fell. There seemed to be some kind of feeling—affection, maybe, or protective instincts people felt around small things because they were cute—building in her, but she didn’t want to think about that.

“Antoine,” Daisy said, suddenly.

“Hm?” Jemma raised her head. “Antoine? You want to name him after Trip?”

“We could call him Tony so it’s his own thing. Tony Simmons-Johnson.”

“Johnson-Simmons, it’s alphabetical.” It felt right, Jemma realized. Trip would be tickled pink to find out he had a namesake, and they’d both loved him very dearly. She touched the baby’s cheek, wonderingly. He wrinkled his nose. “Tony.”

“He needs a middle name. How else will he know he’s in trouble?” Daisy’s grin flashed. “You pick. I came up with the first name.”

“Bellis,” Jemma said after a moment of thought.

Daisy blinked at that. “Is that a name?”

“Yes.” A genus, precisely, but Jemma had no interest in confiding that. In her first days after Maveth, learning that Skye had become Daisy, she’d spent hours staring at the cheerful flowers Daisy had brought for her. Bellis perennis. The English daisy. If they’d been mashed together to form this child, it made sense that he should carry something from both of them, and a scientific name of a daisy suited that perfect.

“If you say so,” Daisy said. She stroked the baby’s head. “Antoine Bellis Johnson-Simmons. What a mouthful. Poor Antoine. I’m going to have to teach him to fight off bullies someday, I can already tell you that.”

“Tony,” Jemma said firmly. “His name is Tony.”

In her arms, Tony slept on.

* * *

Daisy checked over her shoulder, just to make sure attackers hadn’t used Jemma’s terror to sneak in and grab him. One problem at a time. Jemma’s terror took priority now. She shook her friend’s shoulder. “Hey. It’s me. Jemma, it’s me. Come on, you’re all right. Just a bad dream. Snap out of it.”

Jemma stopped screaming, but only because she began to hyperventilate. She still had her hands close to her ears, fingers spread, like she’d been overwhelmed by a loud noise.

No, Daisy realized. The opposite of that.

She hadn’t done her reading on what to do with sleep paralysis or terror or whatever. Was she supposed to just let this pass? Step back? Try to snap her out of it? She seemed legitimately frightened beyond the point of all cognizance, and it hurt Daisy’s heart to even think about letting her remain in that state.

Biting her lip, she took a chance and clapped her hands close to Jemma’s ear, as loudly as she could.

Jemma jolted, flinching away from her like a cornered animal. But she blinked and the thousand yard stare disappeared. Two gasping breaths later, she lowered her trembling hands. “Daisy?”

“You’re back,” Daisy said, insides going shaky with relief. “You scared the crap out of me.”

“I…” Jemma looked about her muzzily, no doubt drinking in the fact that she was in the generic little bedroom in the generic little house Bobbi had secured for them while they sorted out their business and got their feet back under them. When Tony let out a particularly loud wail, Jemma’s eyes went sharp. She started to push the covers back. “Tony—”

“No, stay here. I’ve got him. You just—I don’t know, breathe or whatever.” Daisy squeeze Jemma’s shoulder before padding off to collect their kid.

He’d gone from upset cries to outright screaming by the time Daisy retrieved him from the bassinet. The wet diaper would’ve woken him up before long, she noticed immediately. She made shh-shh-shh noises as she carted him to the little diaper-changing station they’d tucked into an alcove in the hallway. Peeling him out of the onesie took some doing, as Tony wanted to broadcast his distress to the world at the loudest volume possible, his tiny arms and legs waving stiffly.

“If he’s too loud, I can take him downstairs,” Daisy said to the open doorway to her left. “You could go back to sleep.”

“No, no,” Jemma said. She still sat up in bed, but she’d wrapped her arms around her legs and she had her forehead resting on her knees. Her bedside lamp illuminated her neck and shoulders, which were still moving with the labored breathing. “Please don’t. It helps—it helps to hear him. I like hearing him.”

“Good thing he’s got an amazing set of lungs, then,” Daisy said. Tony’s face turned a little purple as he screamed his displeasure at that. “Don’t you, big man? Are you gonna grow up to be a rock star? Is this just you practicing? You’re a little out of tune, but we can work with that. And just think, someday I’ll be able to help you out with your eyeliner game. Aren’t you lucky? Yes, you are.”

She thought the tremor in Jemma’s shoulders might have been a suppressed laugh.

Tony had no interest in being placated. He wailed when Daisy tucked him back into his rubber ducky pajamas. He keened as she held him in one arm while she heated the bottle Jemma had left for him in the fridge. He alternated sobbing and eating from the bottle as Daisy paced around the hallway and their bedrooms. And he cried after pushing the bottle away, right up until he fell asleep.

Daisy nudged the bassinet over to Jemma’s bedroom with her foot, mindful of the now sleeping Tony. She’d been less gentle with armed warheads than she was now, easing him into the bassinet. Warily, she crept back, wincing nervously.

Tony slept on.

“Thank god,” Daisy whispered, finally turning to look at her friend. She’d remained still, still hugging her legs with her forehead on her knee. If not for the tension evident in her shoulders, Daisy would have suspected she’d fallen asleep like that.

“I had a nightmare,” Jemma whispered. “I was back on the station. And Kasius was there and—and I woke up, and I couldn’t hear and…”

She hiccupped and wiped away a tear.

“It was so quiet,” she said. “I’m fine now, but I woke up and I thought the silence was back, and I panicked. And I woke you and Tony, and I’ve ruined your night. I’m so sorry.”

“Waking up to screaming in the middle of the night and not having to immediately fight ninjas is a luxury,” Daisy said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. She rubbed Jemma’s shoulder. “Do you realize how rare that is? If anything, you’ve given me a gift.”

It was a stupid and corny thing to say, but it coaxed a smile out of Jemma. Daisy could push all the uncharitable longing to go back to sleep aside for that.

“I’ll take the rest of the night,” Jemma whispered, finally looking up so that she could peer at the bassinet. “You could get some uninterrupted sleep, at least. I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep again.”

“Maybe you should use a white noise app?” Daisy asked. “Just so you don’t wake up to absolute quiet again.” Bobbi had found them homes in a peaceful suburb, which was a nice thing, but it was a marked change from living among the hum of generators and oxygen filters for weeks.

“I don’t think I should.” Jemma finger combed her hair back. “There was a sort of white noise, sometimes, when Kasius had the link active but he wasn’t speaking. I could hear it in the pauses. I think it might make things worse.”

Daisy wished, not for the first time that week, that she could go back and kill Kasius all over again. Make it hurt more this time.

She considered her options. “Budge over,” she said.

“What?” Jemma obeyed automatically, scooting to the other side of the bed. “What are you doing?”

“Shh.” Daisy tiptoed around the bassinet and collected her pillow and phone from her room. She climbed in beside Jemma, shrugging at the incredulous look her friend slanted her way. “You’re always telling me I snore. Well, you’re welcome.”

“It’s more of a wheeze, if anything, and I think it’s cute.”

“Cute wheeze, at your service,” Daisy said, deciding to ignore how that filled her with warmth. She settled in, pulling the covers up to her chin. “Lay down and get some sleep before Mr. Antoine Bellis Johnson-Simmons figures out we’re still up and the gig is up, will you?”

They’d bunked together whenever roommates were required on missions, so much that sharing a bed didn’t fill Daisy with the dread it might have otherwise. She didn’t feel the need to sidle as close to the edge of the bed as possible; neither of them sleep-cuddled and they’d never woken up to awkward spooning. If anything, she was more likely to wake up with Jemma’s knee pressing uncomfortably into her back, as Daisy sprawled in her sleep and Jemma stubbornly did not cede territory, even when not awake. All she cared about now was that she felt Jemma finally relax.

“Of all the possibilities Kasius had for mixing my DNA with somebody,” Jemma whispered, “I’m glad he picked you.”

“I bet you say that to all the girls willing to snore in your ear,” Daisy said, not opening her eyes.

“And I mean it every time,” Jemma said, and by the end of her sentence, Daisy could tell she’d fallen asleep.

  2. #NoFilter

A long day of meetings and bureaucracy dragged at Jemma’s limbs as she let herself into her temporary home. Typically, she loved bureaucracy, as at its core it was all about organization and sorting and Jemma’s ordered soul loved both of those things immensely, but today had been a trial in far too many ways to count. She would have to find an excuse to drive to the office on her own tomorrow, she determined, to avoid the long and charged silence of commuting with Fitz. And she needed to find at least a small tree or two to spruce up the office she’d been given in SHIELD’s temporary new setup.

Spruce. Her inadvertent pun made her smile despite herself.

She didn’t call out to Daisy when she stepped inside, for fear that Tony was down for a nap. Since they weren’t sure they would be staying in the area—the Playground was now defunct—they’d elected not to seek out childcare options and were instead splitting their time. Jemma had taken the morning shift so Daisy could meet May for some much needed sparring, leaving Daisy to care for Tony all afternoon while Jemma worked at sorting out the remnants of SHIELD’s R&D and science divisions.

Given the mess that everything had found itself in, she’d have preferred to stay with Tony. At least he was cute, unlike the stone-faced agent she’d been talking to on the video link all day.

She checked upstairs, frowning at the empty bassinet and Daisy’s equally empty bedroom. Not that Daisy actually slept there much these days. If they stayed in the area much longer, they should probably look into converting the space into a nursery. Though she wasn’t sure either was ready for him to have his own room quite yet.

She checked her text messages as she trotted back downstairs, frowning when there was nothing from Daisy. If she’d gone out, surely she should have let Jemma know?

Jemma pulled up short at the sight of the couch. Oh. She hadn’t gone out.

And oh, wasn’t that darling?

Daisy had apparently decided to get a little work done from the recliner, for she had her laptop open. The fingers of one hand even still rested on the keys. The other hand, though, was wrapped around Tony’s bottom, holding the infant to her chest.

Both were deeply asleep. Their wheezing matched.

Jemma carefully set her purse on the couch, covering her mouth to keep an awed and happy noise from escaping. Her chest almost physically ached from the sheer adorability of the scene before her.

Unashamed, she snapped a picture and sent it to most of the team. She crept closer to get a better shot.

“I know what you’re doing,” Daisy said without opening her eyes. Her voice had gone gravelly with sleep. “If you use those shots for blackmail, understand that turnabout is fair play.”

“Why would I blackmail you? This is adorable.” Jemma obligingly held out her phone.

Daisy cracked one eye open to look at the screen, then closed it with a drowsy smile. “Okay, that’s pretty cute.”

“Go back to your nap.”

“Need to cook dinner,” Daisy said.

“I can do that. I think it’s more important for you to remain a mattress at the moment. Though—how long has he been asleep? He might be up all night.”

“He sleeps as long as he sleeps, Simmons. We are but servants to his whims at this point. Bow before the tiny king.”

Jemma, about to argue that it was never too early to begin establishing schedules, decided to maybe let that one go. “If you say so. What do you want for dinner?”

“Carbs. All the carbs. My entire body hurts. May was a little light on the mercy today and I walked like five miles getting his highness to settle down.”

“Pasta it is,” Jemma said, finally rising to her feet.

On the way to the kitchen, she set the picture to her phone background. It had been of her and Fitz before, but the pain of their separation—break, break-up, she had no idea—had inspired her to reset the background to factory settings, a move that had felt more final than anything else in her life. This change, though, felt almost hopeful.

Humming to herself, she went to make dinner.

  3. Nursery Crimes

“What language is this? This isn’t Spanish. I speak some Spanish and this is not that.” Daisy held up the instructions to the light from the window as though more illumination would literally allow the words to change. When it did not, she growled under her breath.

“It’s Czech,” Elena said.

“You speak that, right?”

Elena snorted. “No.”

Mack, standing in the doorway, scratched the back of his head as he studied the piles on the floor. Daisy had spent an hour trying to sort things out logically, but she feared her attempts at logic probably befuddled mechanics like Mack. “The good thing is we shouldn’t need instructions,” he said, setting his toolbox on the floor. “We’re three very smart people. I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

Elena muttered something under her breath that Daisy didn’t even need her limited Spanish to understand.

“Okay, but we have to be quiet about it,” Daisy said, glancing toward the doorway. She’d foisted Tony off on May for a couple of hours, but: “Simmons is taking a nap and I want this to be a surprise for her.”

Both Daisy and Mack turned to look at Elena hopefully.

She held up both hands. “Nope,” she said. “I’m not doing all the work here while you slowpokes stand around flapping your jaws all day.”

“It was worth a shot,” Daisy said as she crouched to sort through the pieces of the crib. Or what she hoped would be the crib. What she’d anticipated to be a simple afternoon’s DIY project—the website had promised that this was the Maserati of cribs, and Daisy was beginning to suspect that was a lie, as Maseratis tended to come preassembled—had rapidly spiraled out of control, to the point where she’d broken down and called the best mechanic she knew.

He probably would’ve had an easier time with the Maserati.

“This is one of the slats, right?” she asked, holding up a piece.

Elena eyed it. “It could be a leg.”

“It’s a crib,” Mack said twenty minutes later when they’d connected precisely two pieces, and Daisy suspected they’d done that incorrectly. “It shouldn’t be this complicated.”

“That’s why I called you,” Daisy said. “I figured you put one together for Hope in the Framework. You’d have experience.”

“I did, and it wasn’t anything like this,” Mack said. “Are you sure this is a crib and not a logic puzzle designed by sadists?”

“At this point, I’m not sure.”

“Why don’t we call somebody who knows Czech to come read the instructions?” Elena asked, sipping the Corona she’d yo-yo’d down to the kitchen to grab while Daisy’s back had been turned. “May speaks Czech.”

“No,” Daisy and Mack said together. They locked eyes, obviously in agreement.

Melinda May would never let them live it down if they were defeated by a child’s crib.

“Fine. Then what about Coulson? Does he speak Czech?”

The answer to that turned out to be no, but Coulson was all too happy to come over and lend a hand. And when that proved useless (“Are we sure this is a crib and not a spaceship?”), they called Fitz. Who also did not speak Czech.

“You should have called the engineer in from the start,” he told Daisy with a scoff, gamely rolling up his sleeves. “I’ll have this fixed up right quick. Maybe you should fetch us some celebratory beers.”

Half an hour later, the beers had gathered condensation that soaked their labels, but they remained unopened as five adults stared in frustration at the mass of wood and metal that Fitz had constructed. It was actually kind of pretty. Like some post-modernist sculpture, Daisy could admit.

Unfortunately, said sculpture did not resemble a crib in any way.

“As far as I see it,” Coulson said, looking traitorously close to laughter, “we have two options. We ask May to come read us the instructions, or Fitz, Mack, and I go to the hardware store and fetch supplies to build a crib from scratch.”

Daisy immediately passed over her Amex. “I don’t know much about hardwood and babies, but pick something as hypoallergenic as possible? Or we’ll never hear the end of it from Simmons.”

“Never hear the end of what from Simmons?” said a voice behind her, and everybody in the room went absolutely still. As one, five guilty adults turned away from the not-crib to face a baffled Jemma Simmons, who was finger combing away bedhead from her nap. She gave them all a puzzled look before her eyes fell on the…thing in the center of the room. “What is that?”

“Um.” Daisy made a feeble attempt at jazz hands. “It’s a crib. Surprise?”

Jemma’s look turned abruptly aghast. “We’re never putting Tony in that,” she said, drawing back in horror.

“Not even for the holiday cards? Just think of the existential nightmares we could create and—okay, okay, not that funny, I get it.”

“Where is Tony? And what’s going on?”

“May has him,” Daisy said as Elena chimed in, “They’re cowards who refuse to ask May for help deciphering the Czech instructions.”

She toasted them with a margarita this time. Daisy was pretty sure it had been a mai tai a second ago.

“I notice you haven’t exactly been volunteering either,” Fitz said.

“Want me to go get her? Because I will,” Elena said.

“No!” This came from everybody in the room, even Jemma.

As one, they all turned to look at Jemma in surprise. “I’m sure we can figure this out,” she said. “We’re all smart and competent people. Let me see if I can puzzle anything out. I once spent three weeks in Prague, that might help.”

She took the instructions from Coulson and frowned in concentration. The pajamas and the studious expression made this peak adorable Jemma. Daisy looked down quickly in case anybody could decipher her thoughts.

“I can’t understand much of this, but I think I’ve got the gist,” Jemma said. She looked around at the mess of tools and spare parts on the floor, obviously mentally calculating. “Where’s the second box?”

“Second box?” Daisy asked.

Mack abruptly sat down in the little recliner they’d found at a yard sale, laughing so hard he doubled over. “I think I figured out what our problem is,” he said.

In short order, the second box was located in the back of Daisy’s car. She spent the rest of the process, which Fitz and Jemma directed with ease, taking the ribbing good-naturedly. It was deserved.

Before long, a very solid, adorable crib stood in the middle of Daisy’s old bedroom. As the six of them clinked their warm beer bottles together, they all agreed: May must never know what had transpired in that nursery.

  4. Panic! At the Disco(very That Motherhood is for Life)

“Simmons. Simmons.” Somebody—somebody that smelled like the jasmine lotion Daisy used after every post-workout shower, so no mystery as to who that could be—shook Jemma’s shoulder.

Jemma grumbled and tried to move away. “Five more minutes.”

“Simmons. I need you to listen to me.”

Why on earth Daisy used her last name when they’d literally been sharing a bed for over two months, Jemma had no earthly idea. Just like she hadn’t the first clue why Daisy would be shaking her awake. “S’Tony okay?” she asked, mumbling it into her pillow.

“He’s fine. He’s sleeping.”

“Is anything on fire?” Jemma pushed her face into the pillow. Her alarm felt like it was going off earlier and earlier these days, and sheer weariness dragged at her limbs.

“Nothing’s on fire. I just—” Daisy made a noise that sounded a bit like she was trying and failing to find words. They came out in a rush: “I-have-no-idea-what-I’m-doing.”

The tone finally cut through the fog of sleepiness. Jemma groaned and turned on her bedside lamp. It was worse than she feared, she discovered when she rolled over. Daisy was sitting up on her side of the bed, cross-legged. Her eyes had grown to the size of dessert plates. Sweat gathered on her forehead, and her breathing remained shallow.

“What’s going on?”

“I’m not cut out to be a mom!” Daisy’s eyes had gone absolutely glassy with terror. “I never had a mom! And then when I did, she tried to kill me. What if I try to kill Tony? What if that’s the only maternal thing about me?”

Jemma bit her tongue before she could say “Don’t be ridiculous.” After Maveth, she could recognize a panic attack at a thousand paces, and Daisy was a lot closer than that. Literally and emotionally. “What brought this on?” she said instead.

Daisy gave her an incredulous look and wordlessly gestured in the direction of Tony’s nursery. “We have a baby!”

“Yes, that’s something that’s been evident for two months now.”

“We’re SHIELD agents. The only consistent thing about our lives is that they’re inconsistent and we’re in danger every Tuesday. And now there is—there’s a small child and he’s literally the most helpless creature I’ve ever seen, and he’s depending on us.” The words tumbled on top of one another. Daisy’s hands beat a frantic, staccato tempo against her pajama pants. “And he’s going to grow up and be less dependent and what if I look at him when he’s fully grown and think, ‘I could kill this kid.’ What if I’m just like Jiaying?”

“Jiaying was tortured. She went mad,” Jemma said, keeping her tone matter-of-fact.

“And what if that happens to me? My powers are way more destructive than hers, I could—”

“Come here.” Jemma grabbed Daisy’s wrists and tugged.

“What are you doing? A hug is not going to fix this. I’m incredibly dangerous, Jemma. You were afraid of me once. It wasn’t that long ago.”

“You were afraid of yourself, too,” Jemma said, resolutely pulling until Daisy moved close to the edge of the bed. “Feet on the floor. Both feet. Like that. That’s good.”

“You’re not listening to me,” Daisy said. “I’m telling you—”

“I know how powerful you are. Who do you think has studied your abilities the most? Lean forward.” Jemma applied pressure against Daisy’s shoulder blade until Daisy obeyed. She pushed her head between her knees, and rubbed her back. “Breathe. Breathe in. Count to seven and hold it.”

Daisy’s back shook as her breath hitched, but she obeyed.

“Again,” Jemma said when Daisy began trembling in earnest. “Count in your head.”

Daisy’s back jerked, like she considered fighting Jemma and the order at the same time. Jemma dug in with her fingertips at a spot where she knew Daisy always carried a lot of tension. Her friend whimpered, and Jemma’s heart broke a little.

She’d wondered when Daisy would have her breakdown. With everything that had happened to him since searching for the Darkhold, it wasn’t any shock that their team had turned into a walking emotional minefield. Suburbia was a much needed change of pace, but it couldn’t disguise the fact that every single one of them had been wound so tightly they might squeeze themselves to death at any second.

Fitz had reached his limits first, and then Mack. May had been the one to surprise them all because they’d expected hers last.

Jemma had broken down in a grocery store, staring at the mangos and sobbing, such an incoherent mess than they’d nearly called the paramedics. A kindly stranger had understood enough to call Coulson, who’d collected her and Tony had taken them to an ice cream parlor until she’d felt brave enough to come home and face Daisy. To this day, she still wasn’t sure if it had been sleep deprivation from trying to keep up with a full time job and Tony’s schedule, or everything they’d been through.

One certainly hadn’t helped the other.

Through it all, Daisy had been there, cheerful and sarcastic. A natural with Tony. Bowling with Coulson, sparring with May. Helping Mack restore an old Thunderbird. Arguing about trivial things with Fitz simply to raise his ire so she could tease him and they would both laugh over it later. Movie nights with Elena and Mack. Tony had even begun to smile—a real smile—when she came to collect him in the mornings.

She probably told herself Jemma never noticed the moments where she stared at nothing, clearly disassociating. Or the nervous tic of worrying at scrapes on her hands. Or that she sometimes forgot what she was talking about in the middle of a sentence and switched topics entirely.

More and more pressure added to the unstable powder keg.

“Keep breathing,” she said now, as Daisy shuddered.

“Breathing isn’t going to make me any less dangerous.” But Daisy sounded a lot more lucid. And definitely peevish. But she kept breathing.

When she could feel Daisy truly relax after nearly twenty minutes of silence, Jemma stopped rubbing her back and scooted away, folding her legs into a half-lotus so she could rest her chin on her fists.

Slowly, Daisy sat up. She stared at the wall, jaw working.

You surprise me, Jemma wanted to tell her. She’d expected a breakdown over the way they’d become moms, rudely and unexpectedly and in a way they’d have to lie about to every stranger. Possibly flavored with the dawning realization that this was a permanent commitment. Or even something in response to knowing that in another timeline, she’d destroyed the world. Not this.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Jemma asked.

Daisy closed her eyes and shook her head. She paused. Then she nodded. “I had a nightmare.”

That was the least surprising news Jemma had heard in weeks.

“An old one. I hadn’t had in a while. I really didn’t miss it.” Daisy rubbed the side of her nose, tilting her head first one way and then another.

“It was about Jiaying?” Jemma said.

“That obvious, huh? Yeah, it’s the one where I’m back on the flight deck. I can’t get away and she’s trying to drain me. She turns into an actual vampire, like mwa-ha-ha spooky cape and everything. And whenever I wake up, I always feel a little dumb because why was that even scary to me? She looks like she belongs on a cereal box. But I just—” Daisy formed a fist and looks at it for a second before pushing it into her collarbone, near her heart. Like she could literally force the tension from her body that way. “In the moment it feels so real and so terrifying. I can usually pull myself out of nightmares, but not that one.”

Jemma picked up the glass of water from her own nightstand, holding it out. Daisy frowned at it, but balanced the glass on her knee without drinking.

“I woke up, and I saw the, you know.” She gestured vaguely at her own nightstand, where they’d set the baby monitor. Her voice sounded leagues older than the rest of her. “My first thought was, ‘thank god he’ll never have to see that his grandmother is a goddamn vampire.’ And then it occurred to me that Jiaying—she—” The words seemed to get stuck in her throat. She took a long drink, her movements jerky.

Jemma waited.

“What if I’m like her?” Daisy finally said.

“You’re not,” Jemma said. “You’ve got the biggest heart of anybody I’ve ever met, Daisy. You’re not like her at all.”

“She was, I don’t know, kind and stuff, though. Before they took her. My dad loved her. When he talked about her…” Daisy finished the water and shook her head fiercely. “Like it wasn’t bad enough that I’m a foster case who’s never had a stable family. When I do find my parents, they’re the actual worst. Thanks for putting every single roadblock ever in my path, universe. You’re lucky, you know. You got to experience the idyllic childhood and all of that with two parents. And a sibling.”

“It wasn’t perfect for me, either. I was a child prodigy who was reading at my parents’ level when I was four, Daisy,” Jemma said. “It wasn’t anywhere approaching what you went through, but I still had challenges. I was out of the house at fourteen, you know.”

Daisy blinked. “That’s way too young,” she said.

“It likely was.” And it probably had everything to do with the fact that she didn’t have the closest relationship to her parents. Hell, they had no idea Tony even existed yet.

She’d have to tell them soon. The thought twisted in her stomach.

“How worried are you that you’ll hurt Tony?” she asked.

Daisy made a listless gesture with one hand. “Willingly? I’d never. But what if—what if something happens and I snap?”

“I’d stop you,” Jemma said.

Daisy leaned back. “You’re serious.”

“I understand your powers better than anybody else on the planet. If I thought you were a genuine threat to Tony, I’d remove the threat.”

She meant it to be reassuring—or as reassuring as it was possible for a death threat to be—but instead Daisy’s face went dark. “My dad had to stop my mom.”

Jemma reached out and took her hand. “History won’t repeat itself like that.”

“You can’t know that.”

“No? I’m pretty smart. A genius, even.” She forced a smile.

Daisy set the water glass on the floor—Jemma decided to let it go this once—and rubbed her face again. “Knowing my luck, the kid’s going to be even smarter than you and I’ll be outnumbered.”

“Oh, it’s likely.” Daisy’s statement was the feeblest attempt at humor Jemma had heard from her in a while, and it still made relief pour through her. “But I’ll be outnumbered in other ways. I think it’s just part of the laws of the universe.”

Daisy smiled tiredly. This was a side of her few got to see. The hair mussed from sleep, no makeup, in a soft tee and sleep shorts. Just as gorgeous as she was in her tactical suit or her civvies, but much, much softer.

Jemma pushed those thoughts away, deciding not to focus on how frequently they’d been happening lately. Proximity and a lack of satisfying her libido would do that. For now, she tightened her grip until Daisy looked over and met her eyes. “You should know that those things you think of as roadblocks,” she said, “made you who you are, and I happen to like that person very much.”

“Thanks.” Daisy’s throat worked. “Y-you know, you should probably get back to sleep. You’ve gotta be up at the headquarters in like three hours.”

“It’s fine.” Though Jemma knew tomorrow would require extra tea to survive. Tony had kept her up until well after midnight.

“I shouldn’t have even woken you up.” Daisy let out a little self-deprecating laugh.

Jemma decided it was kinder not to mention that even if Daisy hadn’t woken her up, the inevitable panic attack would have. She more than understood the embarrassment that followed any episode like that. She’d been through it a hundred times herself. Fitz, Daisy, Coulson, even May—especially May—had always given her don’t be silly looks. Those proved less helpful than her friends thought, so Jemma didn’t bother to follow their example. Instead she tugged on the hand she still held.

“What?” Daisy asked, allowing herself to be pulled closer. “What’s going on?”

“You’re making it up to me for interrupting my sleep. The bed’s cold.”

“We’re…cuddling? Okay, we’re cuddling.” Daisy sounded absolutely baffled as she settled in. They’d talked about getting twin beds so they wouldn’t have to share—“Anything but bunk beds, that’ll just give me flashbacks to so many foster homes.”—but the house wasn’t permanent, so it didn’t seem worth it. Their sleep habits led to them usually waking up pressed together due to Daisy’s bed hog tendencies, but Jemma didn’t mind. Daisy’s presence, breathing loudly beside her, saved her from the terrible silence she feared.

But this was something altogether different. They normally stuck to their own sides of the bed when they retired for the night. Jemma had never scooted across the middle, nudging close to the crazy amount of body heat Daisy emitted. She wrapped an anchoring arm around Daisy’s stomach like she was some kind of stuffed animal. “Go back to sleep. No vampire dreams this time.”

“I’ll do my best.” Daisy’s voice seemed a little hoarse, but she sounded sincere. And she was no doubt wiped out from the panic attack, for her breathing slowed almost right away, replaced by the familiar wheezing that Jemma had grown to adore.

Jemma followed her into sleep not long after.

  5. Meet the Grandparents

A beep from her computer woke her, making Daisy lift her head, groggily. Annoyance flicked through—she hadn’t wanted to fall asleep—but a glance at the clock on the nightstand told her that a “much needed” conversation had taken longer than Jemma had anticipated. No wonder she’d passed out.

Daisy rolled over and accepted the video call. Jemma’s face filled the screen, partially blocked by the tea mug she was sipping from.

She’d definitely been crying.

“Did I wake you?” she asked. “I waited until at least seven, I thought I did.”

“We relocated to Brisbane. It’s six here. And I’m kind of dealing with jet-lag, so May put off Tai Chi until eight.” Daisy yawned and cracked her neck, sitting up. As she stretched, Jemma looked away quickly and Daisy remembered that she hadn’t worn a shirt to bed. Jemma had seen her in her sports bra before. Strange. “How’d it go?”

“It’s hard to tell.” Jemma’s thumb traced around the rim of her mug. “Sheffield’s still standing, so there’s that.”

“Yay? How’s Tony?” Daisy asked. “Is he with you? Can I see him?”

“My mum’s looking after him for a couple minutes while I talk to you. All things considered, they took their daughter showing up on their doorstep with a three-month-old pretty well.”

Daisy grimaced. “I’m sorry I couldn’t go with you.”

“Don’t apologize for that. Our work is important.”

Jemma had been granted a couple weeks to take Tony to her parents’ in order to fill them in on everything, and for them to meet Tony. Daisy had been supposed to go along—she hadn’t been away from Tony for more than a night since they’d brought him back from the future—but a string of inhumans had popped up in Australia. So she’d headed off with May, and Jemma had flown across the Atlantic with a baby. By herself. She’d been texting Daisy pictures of Tony, but it just wasn’t the same.

“I told my parents as much as I was authorized to tell them,” Jemma said, going on when Daisy didn’t reply. “I’m not sure how much they believe.”

“Our lives are pretty out there.”

“Unfortunately, that’s very true. At least Tony seems to be a hit. He smiled for Jack.”

“And to think you insist it’s just reflex.”

“It was reflex. You read those baby developmental books, you know just as well as I do that—”

“Simmons, I’m teasing,” Daisy said. Tony had been smiling at them for nearly a month.

Jemma’s grimace spoke volumes. “I told them the whole truth about Tony. All of it. Kasius, the lab, how they mixed our DNA to engineer him rather than either of us giving birth to him.”

“And how’d they take that?” Daisy asked, as she wasn’t sure she would believe it herself if she hadn’t lived it.

“There’s a strong chance they think it’s all bollocks, and that some random boyfriend got me pregnant and I don’t want to come clean. Mercifully, Tony definitely looks of Asian descent, or they’d be sure Fitz is the father. When I told them that, no, the other parent is named Daisy, I could actually see them wondering if Daisy is somehow a male name in America.”

“The manliest name,” Daisy said, feeling traitorously amused.

“If you’d managed to come along, they would definitely be able to see that Tony is your son, so there’s that, at least.”

“I shouldn’t brag about that so much, but he’s so damn cute, I feel like it’s necessary.” Daisy set the laptop on the nightstand so that she could stretch properly and begin getting ready for her day. She slanted a look at the computer. “Though the cuteness is only half my fault.”

Jemma, who had her chin propped up on her fist and a faraway look in her eye, didn’t reply.

“Earth to Simmons,” Daisy said. “I’m trying to compliment you here. Pay attention.”

“Sorry. I told my family that Fitz and I are through.”

That was a new development. When pressed before, Jemma had always responded that they were ‘taking a break’ or ‘working things out.’ This sounded way too final. Daisy’s stomach pitched. She chose not to comment for fear that she might give something away.

“How’d they take it?” she asked instead.

“To be honest, I think they’re a little relieved. You and I know what a sweetheart Fitz can be, but when people make him nervous, he can get…”

“A little bite-your-head-off-y?” Daisy asked.

“I was going to say ‘abrupt.’ He’s never meshed well with the Simmons family.” Jemma shook her head. “Mum and Dad both hugged me and said that it sounded like I had a much better thing with ‘Daisy.’” She made air quotes.

“I’m assuming you said it that way because they think I’m a dude.”

“That’s my parents for you.” Jemma rolled her eyes. “But that’s enough about me. Tell me about what’s going on with the inhuman candidates. Have there been any issues?”

Daisy filled her in on everything that had happened since they’d landed in Australia, down to Fitz and Hunter sneaking off to catch a soccer match together. Like they thought May wouldn’t know. The terrigenesis crystals had somehow gotten into a local brand of soft drinks, and they anticipated far more people going through the chrysalis in the upcoming days. Their team only planned to be on the ground for a few days, working with the Australian government to make sure facilities were in place to properly care for a new batch of inhumans. Daisy had been viewed as some sort of inhuman expert from the first meeting, which was seriously beginning to wig her out.

But she didn’t bring this up to Jemma. Instead, she asked how the flight with Tony had gone, and laughed at Jemma’s exasperated stories as she brushed her teeth. Even though half the world separated them, it felt like any other morning where they went about their routines, catching each other up on news as they prepared for the day.

It felt right.

When that thought sank in, Daisy had to pause as she pulled on her boots. Her throat felt suspiciously tight.

“What is it?” Jemma asked.

“Nothing.” I just miss you. She didn’t say it aloud.

Apparently, she didn’t need to, for Jemma’s expression turned fond. “Tony and I both miss you,” she said. “I wish you could be here. And I’m not saying that because I have an almost juvenile need to prove to my parents that you’re not some random guy I slept with that resulted in Tony.”

“Your loss. I am, despite my non-dudely status, quite the lay.”

Jemma, who’d been taking a sip of tea, abruptly choked and started coughing, her face turning bright red.

“Um, Simmons? Jemma?” Daisy leaned in worriedly.

“I’m f—I’m fine. Sorry. It just went…” Jemma gestured weakly at her throat as she continued to cough. “It just went down the wrong pipe. You caught me off-guard.”

“I can see that.” Daisy raised both eyebrows. “Doing okay?”

“Y-yes. I’m well.” But Jemma’s face remained bright red, all the way to the tips of her ears. “But I’ve left Mum with Tony long enough. I’ll send you some pictures, yes? And keep us in the loop. Have fun at Tai Chi!”

She logged off, leaving Daisy with a black screen. Daisy leaned back, frowning as she studied the laptop as though it would give her answers. That had been rather sudden, and all because of a rather dumb joke. It wasn’t even the first time Daisy had made such a quip. Jemma had always laughed or rolled her eyes in good humor. She’d never reacted with shock.

Unless…

Nah, it couldn’t be. Daisy shook her head. Jemma didn’t feel that way, and definitely not so soon after breaking things off with Fitz. She’d probably just swallowed wrong. That was all it was. Nothing worth reading into it.

  +1. Tony-us Interruptus

Though they’d assumed SHIELD would settle in Washington DC, coordinates for yet another secret base—which had apparently been the British SSR headquarters once upon a time—were retrieved from Fury’s toolbox. And the location proved far too ideal to ignore.

So at thirty-three weeks, Tony Johnson-Simmons found himself bundled up on the back of a quinjet, held in his mum’s arms while they crossed the Atlantic. He cried at the unfamiliarity of the hotel room, at teething pains, and at an ear infection, keeping both of his mothers awake all night. Because of this, and the medicine, he slept quite soundly the first time he was carried over the threshold of his new home in London.

They whispered as they took him back to the nursery, which already contained his crib (“It’s the Maserati of cribs, we’re not leaving it behind, Simmons.”) and all of his toys. Tony remained out cold until bath time, after which he was patiently wrestled into new pajamas, fed, and returned to his crib, lacking all curiosity about his new home. Being less than eight months old, he did not understand the concept of time zones. All he knew when he woke up the next morning was that his schedule had been disrupted, and he was not overly fond of that nonsense.

“You know what?” his mother said to his mum while Tony crawled around and cried on the nursery floor. Neither had moved to pick him up, which only frustrated him more. “It just occurred to me that he’s going to sound like you when he gets older. A posh little accent.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m from the midlands. He’ll have some type of London accent, for sure. If we stay here.”

Tony crawled a few feet more, planted himself at Mum’s feet, and sobbed pitifully until he was finally collected and cuddled.

“Softie,” Mom said.

“He’s had a hard day. Haven’t you, little one? Your ear hurts and your schedule’s disrupted. Life is so unfair.”

Tony, fascinated by the silly face his mum made, stopped crying and tried to reach for her earring.

“Best not,” Mum said. When Tony kept reaching for it, she firmly pushed his hand away from her ear. “No, Tony. You musn’t grab people’s ears.”

Thwarted, Tony let out a wail.

“He’s a bit like a niffler,” Mum said. “Once he sees something shiny—”

“Yeah, he zooms straight for it. Like Mack in an axe store.”

None of this meant anything to Tony beyond the comforting cadence of his mothers’ voices. They let him explore their new bedroom as they unpacked, though they retrieved one of Mum’s shoes before he could gum on it properly. He took great pleasure in pulling out shirts and socks from a bag Mom set in front of him, flinging them everywhere with abandon.

It took some time—a concept was wholly beyond his grasp—but Tony grew used to the house. He liked his new nanny, who took him to the park and taught him the SHIELD regulations all Koenigs learned when they were his age. Tony didn’t know what those words meant, singularly or together, but he stared in fascination whenever his nanny explained this to him in a bright, happy voice. He loved when Mom came home from work and dangled him in the air without touching him, which always rumbled through him and made him squeal. Mum scolded, but Mom laughed and caught him and presented him for inspection while he laughed like a little loon.

“Incorrigible, the both of you,” Mum said, and Tony liked the way Mom laughed.

Mom came home first every evening, scooping Tony up to blow raspberries on his belly and toss him about. Tonight, she wrinkled her nose, which inspired Tony to make the same face back at her. “Someone here stinks, big man, and it’s not me.”

Tony tried to gnaw on his own foot when she set him on the changing table. “Is that foot tasty?” Mom asked him, keeping one hand on his belly while she collected supplies with her other hand. “Do you like toe jam? Is that what it is?”

Tony blew a raspberry at her and drooled all over himself.

“You little heartbreaker,” Mom said. “You’re so lucky, you know. You’re the luckiest boy on the planet. Probably unlucky, too. Fifty-three percent of you came from me, and boy, that’s gonna cause you problems down the road, I just know it.”

She changed his diaper with practiced efficiency while she talked.

“But that other forty-seven percent came from the most amazing woman on the planet, and for that, my dude, you are the luckiest baby ever. Because you are half a Simmons, and she’s just so smart. And pretty, too, but you’ve got eyes. You can see that.”

She ringed her fingers around her eyes and made a face at him, and Tony giggled.

“And you’re going to grow up smart, just like her, and you’ll both make me feel like a dumb-dumb, but you know what? I don’t even care. That’s right. Don’t care.” She picked him up and held him overhead, tossing him. He kicked his feet happily. “Though let me give you some advice. If you get a crush on a girl, ask her out before your friend does. Make your move first. And then maybe you won’t be stuck in some horrible limbo, in love with your best friend. I mean, it might blow up spectacularly in your face, but that’s a risk we all have to take in life, isn’t it? Gosh, I hope you’re braver than me. Promise me you’ll do that, won’t you? Huh, big man? Huh?”

Tony giggled and shrieked, waving over Mom’s shoulder.

“Good enough for me. No point in getting you dressed again, not when you’re just gonna turn your dinner into a Jackson Pollock painting. Mwah.” With a smacking kiss, she set him on the floor next to his ring-tower. Then she turned and went absolutely still.

Tony gurgled and crawled over to Mum. She didn’t look down at him until he tugged on her slacks. She also didn’t say a word as she picked him up. Nor did she toss him. Tony tugged at her jacket.

Mom asked, “When did you get home?”

“Just now.” Mum brushed some of Tony’s hair back. “I—you—the baby monitor in the kitchen. It was on. I heard it as I came in.”

“Oh.”

Tony craned to look from one to the other. Why weren’t they smiling? Why wasn’t Mum playing with him? He’d had just enough of that, he decided, and let out a bellow.

“Tony, stop that. No. Don’t throw a tantrum just because you’re not getting your way for ten seconds.” Mum’s voice turned cross, and Tony glared at her. But she wasn’t looking at him. She was staring instead at Mom. “Is it true? What you said?”

Tony let out another bellow.

* * *

Jemma automatically leaned away as Tony shrieked in her ear, falling back on a hiccupping breath that told her angry tears were imminent. She opened her mouth to scold him, only for Daisy to pluck him out of her arms.

“We’re upsetting him,” Daisy said, not meeting Jemma’s eyes. “He needs dinner. Frankie said he only took half his bottle this afternoon. I’ll deal with it. You should go relax or something.”

But Jemma continued to stand in the doorway. Her head felt like it might disconnect itself from her body and float away. The words from the monitor kept playing back on a loop in her mind. And then you’ll have made your move and you won’t be stuck in some horrible limbo, in love with your best friend.

Had she—did she—she couldn’t possibly be talking about—

But Daisy refused to meet her gaze, carting Tony toward the dining room with a quickness she usually used to get out of washing the dishes. Jemma stared after her in complete bafflement.

Then she ran after her.

Part of this, or all of this, was her fault entirely. She’d felt guilty about not turning the baby monitor off, but it was always so adorable to listen to Daisy talk to Tony like he was just a small adult. She’d expected to hear a breakdown of Daisy’s day. Not anything like what she’d actually overheard. Certainly not a confession of love.

“Did you mean it?” she blurted out as Daisy reached into the cabinet where they kept all of Tony’s solid foods. “The bit about being stuck in limbo? Did you mean that?”

“Look, Simmons, it doesn’t have to change anything. Just forget about it.” Daisy slapped a jar of peaches on the counter. Tony jumped and swiveled to look at Jemma with wide eyes. At any other point in time, his startled face would be downright endearing.

Right now, she was too busy staring at the side of Daisy’s head. “Did you mean it?” She wanted to ask about everything she’d overheard, but for some reason, her mind focused only on that one question. She took a step closer. “Daisy. Did you mean it?”

“What if I did?” Daisy still refused to look at her, focusing instead on loading Tony into his high chair by the kitchen table. She buckled him in and carefully put on the tray, reminding him to watch his fingers as she clipped it into place. “What difference does it make, anyway? Yes, I meant it, but do your best to forget it. What we’ve got now is enough for me. Please.”

“What if I don’t want to forget it?” Jemma asked. The breathless cold that swept over her felt a little like an oncoming panic attack, but much nicer. She’d caught Daisy completely off-guard, for she leaned back slightly, tilting her head at Jemma in utter confusion.

Both of them flinched when Tony squealed and smashed his rattle down onto the tray.

Daisy recovered first. “Goddammit,” she said, and crossed the kitchen in two strides. She backed Jemma into the door jamb, crowding right into her space, and kissed her.

It was far gentler than Jemma anticipated. She could feel Daisy actually trembling under her hands, shaking like a leaf. In response, Jemma clutched her hips and pulled her closer, angling her head to deepen the kiss. She felt the hitch in Daisy’s breath before Daisy surged forward, kissing her so enthusiastically that Jemma felt her heart might actually burst. She broke the kiss off with a gasp.

Daisy didn’t move, anxiety written on every line of her face as she gazed at Jemma. Waiting for Jemma to shove her away, Jemma realized. It made her chest feel impossibly tight.

Instead, she bunched her hands in Daisy’s shirt and kissed her again, quickly. “No swearing in front of the baby,” she said.

Daisy laughed, a happy, bright sound that made Jemma’s heart sing. “I feel like what we’re doing right now is way more traumatic for him than some piddly little curse words,” she said.

As one, they turned to look at him. Tony’s head sat back on his neck at a comical angle as he gazed up at them, suspicion evident. When he noticed that he had their attention, the mistrust dropped away into a happy grin and a shriek. He pointed at them.

“Or maybe not that traumatic,” Daisy said.

“He’s too young to remember this. Unless he’s a child prodigy, and if so: we have bigger problems,” Jemma said, and pulled her close again.

* * *

A patch of sunlight filtered through the curtains and crept its way across the mattress, slowly moving over tiny feet—only one still bearing its sock—to pudgy legs and arms encased in a soccer onesie. Tony blinked awake when the light fell over his eyes. For a second, he considered crying. But he found rolling over to be much more interest, so he did that, flopping over onto his belly and letting out a pleased little noise. He scooted over on his belly to the edge of the playpen, peering through the mesh out into the living room beyond.

He could see his mothers on the couch. For a second, he stayed on his belly, entranced by the color and the fact that neither of them moved. His mother was propped up on the pillows, head back at an angle. Mum lay on top of her, tangled up so much that they looked like one person. She had one hand dangling to the floor.

Mom wheezed in her sleep so loud that it made Tony jump. Instead of crying, he began to giggle. Mum began to stir, craning her neck to look over her shoulder at Tony. He waved, and she smiled back at him.

“Daisy,” she said, poking Mom when she kept snoring.

“What? Huh?” Mom yawned. “I’m guessing the little dude’s awake.”

“That he is.”

Tony babbled a happy string of syllables as Mum detangled herself and came over to pick him up. She swung him around and put him on her hip so they could both study Mom together. Mum poked her and she groaned, pulling a pillow over her head. Tony began cackling with glee when he was deposited unceremoniously on her stomach and she made an oof noise. He crawled up to tug the pillow free while Mum laughed.

“Okay, okay,” Mom said, laughing and hugging Tony to her chest. “I get it. You win. Naptime’s over. Help me up, would you?”

Tony had no idea what she was saying, but that didn’t matter to him: he gurgled his approval as Mum laughed and helped them both off of the couch, one more naptime behind them.

fin

“I’m sure that’s not the case.” Jemma’s voice had gone absent in a telling way.

“Simmons,” Daisy said. “Look down.”

Baffled, Jemma finally pocketed her phone and did as ordered. She then glanced at Daisy’s outfit and sighed. “You may have a point,” she said, for they were the only women in the Target baby department dressed head to toe in black and gray.

“It’s been literal years since I’ve seen you willingly wear colors,” Daisy said.

“That’s absolutely not true. I had that lovely red sweater that Fi—that was a Christmas present.”

“Dark red,” Daisy said. “I’m not sure that counts.”

Jemma wrinkled her nose and wiggled her head in a poor mimicry of Daisy’s statement. “Do you even own any jackets that aren’t leather?”

“It protects me from getting scraped up,” Daisy said. “And I look badass.”

They winced when a woman with a toddler in the child seat of her shopping cart turned and glared. ‘Sorry,’ Daisy mouthed. She waited until the woman had turned down another aisle before she dared to meet Jemma’s eye, and they dissolved into giggles.

“Maybe we both need to wear more color,” Jemma said.

“Tony, for sure, does.”

“Oh, isn’t this darling?” Jemma stepped around Daisy to hold up a little sailor outfit.

“Okay, but before we buy that, we need to agree that there has to be an age cap on how long we’re allowed to dress him up like a sailor.” Daisy leaned over to rest her elbows on the cart, grinning at the unimpressed look Jemma shot her direction. “Hey, don’t look at me, I’m not the one the bullies will corner in the schoolyard.”

“He’s less than a month old, I think we have some time before we reach this arbitrary age cap of yours.” Jemma held up pack of socks questioningly.

“Toss ’em in. This trip’s on me.”

“You can’t pay for everything.”

“Can, and will.” Daisy continued to lean on the cart, pushing it along as she followed Jemma. “Between living on the Bus and at the Playground, I’ve barely spent any of my salary for the past few years. Plus that government payout because they wanted to buy me off for having falsely accused me of Talbot’s attempted murderation. Let’s face it, we’re rich.”

“You’re rich,” Jemma said.

Daisy shrugged. For somebody who’d lived in a van for years, she reflected, money meant very little to her. “Mine, yours, ours, it doesn’t really matter to me.”

“You should be saving some for yourself. I can handle my share—”

“Simmons, c’mon. We’re roommates. We’ve got a kid together. We work together.” That last part was theoretical at the moment, as SHIELD had been dismantled and it would take Coulson time to gather lost assets. “It’s not that big of a leap to consider that payout ‘our’ money for Tony, is it?”

Jemma gave her a pinched look. “At least set a little aside for you.”

“I will. If nothing else, this shopping excursion has provided proof that I need to buy something a little lighter than dark gray.” Daisy picked up a onesie with the little dipper constellation on the front and tossed that into the cart. She was willing to bet she could find a shirt with a big dipper constellation on it for Jemma. “We should consider a joint checking account for Tony expenses.”

“As long as you maintain your own account, too. What if I decide to become a complete shrew and clean you out?”

Daisy had to laugh at the very thought. “Well, we’re not married or even dating, so I doubt we’re getting divorced. But if it means that much to you, yes, fine, I’ll keep part of my paycheck in a separate account where you can’t get your shrewish hands on it.”

“That’s all I ask,” Jemma said serenely.

She waited until after they’d collected diapers—which took forever, as Jemma insisted on comparing reviews on her phone and only made a choice because Daisy reminded her that Coulson might decide to keep Tony permanently if they didn’t return soon—before she brought up a point that had been stuck to the back of her mind. The appointment with Tony’s new pediatrician had been an eye-opening experience. Daisy had grown so used to SHIELD doctors that she’d simply assumed that would continue to be the case. But SHIELD, even before its untimely demise, hadn’t kept pediatricians on staff. Which meant they’d had to see a civilian.

And boy, had there been some uncomfortable questions.

“So, uh, Dr. Clements,” she said as Jemma double-checked the formula reviews she’d already read three times.

“What about him?” Jemma asked.

“He definitely thought we’re together. Like, together-together.”

“It’s to be expected. I’m not exactly pleased with the nutrient balance in this brand, but it seems to be the best choice among our options.” Jemma set two containers in the cart. “I suppose I could cook something up in the lab with a better balance.”

“When did you become an expert on infant nutrition?” Daisy asked.

“Last night,” Jemma said, surprise echoing through her voice that Daisy would ever doubt her. “I read a number of proper peer-reviewed studies and texts about the subject.”

“Yes, yes, because you’re a wicked smart science genius, we know.” But Daisy grinned and elbowed her friend to take a little sting out of the words. “It doesn’t bother you that Dr. Clements thinks we’re girlfriends?”

They’d given Tony’s doctor the agreed-upon cover story. Two friends, unlucky in love—definitely true on Daisy’s part and unfortunately looking-truer-by-the-day on Jemma’s—and aware of ticking biological clocks, deciding to forgo men and raise a kid together. While remaining friends. Baby-sharing, Daisy had joked, like Uber for motherhood. They’d decided that she should be the birth mother, as Jemma had a brother who could have donated genetic material that would explain why Tony favored both of his mothers. Said brother remained pleasantly unaware he had a nephew as Jemma needed a few days to process before she informed her family, but for all intents and purposes, that was what the world would think had happened.

But Dr. Clements had looked at them, knowingly. And it had set Daisy’s back up.

“I admit,” Jemma said, still sounding blithe and unbothered, “it does make some things convenient. Let people think what they will.”

But it’s wrong, Daisy wanted to tell her. Jemma was supposed to be with Fitz. Part of Fitz-Simmons. People were supposed to look at them and see the epic love story written into the cores of their personalities. They were supposed to look at Daisy and Jemma and see good friends.

“If it bothers you, I’ll start correcting misconceptions,” Jemma said, setting a pack of BPA-free bottles in the cart. “After all, it might make things difficult for you when you find a paramour.”

Daisy leaned over to grab the bottles, swapping them out for a different set. When Jemma gave her a baffled look, she said, “I hate orange. And I don’t think the ‘paramour’ thing is something we’ll have to worry about for a long time. I’m swearing off men for a while. It never ends well for me.”

“You may have the right of it,” Jemma said, surprising Daisy. She’d expected a supportive but ultimately hopeful platitude, though she knew for a fact that Jemma was probably been relieved. She’d never liked a single one of Daisy’s romantic prospects. To this day, she still scoffed whenever Miles was brought up. Daisy was pretty sure Jemma thought Luke had genuinely been an idiot. She was nice enough not to say so, on account of that time he’d sacrificed himself for all of them.

Daisy pushed all of that aside. “I take it your talk with Fitz last night didn’t go well.”

“Mm, no. It did not.”

“Want to go get a drink and talk about it? I bet if we text Coulson, he’ll be willing to take Tony for a couple more hours.” They’d simply have to risk coming home to find their baby dressed up as Captain America. Or worse: as Captain America’s shield.

Jemma, though, shook her head. “We shouldn’t have alcohol so soon after the stress time traveling put on our bodies.”

That killed Daisy’s evening plans of kicking back with Yo-yo, Mack, and some beers for a much-needed Kevin Costner movie marathon. Nah, she decided. One beer couldn’t hurt. For now, she leaned over the cart and considered her options. “All right, so no alcohol. However, we are at Target.”

“What do you mean?”

Twenty minutes later, all of their new groceries and supplies had been bagged, waiting in the cart as the two of them sat in the little café and shared a plate of cheap, overly-salty popcorn. Jemma’s lips and tongues were bright red from her cherry Icee. “This is your alternative to a bar?” she asked, but there was an unseen smile in her voice.

“We’re parents now. We have to adapt.” Daisy caught a piece of popcorn in her mouth. “Soon we’ll be dealing with other parents and play dates and birthday parties. Might as well get the acclimatization process started already. Baby steps.”

“Baby steps for our baby. How appropriate.” Jemma twirled her straw. “Your tongue is blue. Well, purple.”

“The price for deliciousness. C’mon, Simmons, spill. It’s obvious you want to talk about this, whatever it is.”

Jemma continued to twirl her straw for another good ten seconds before she apparently gave in with a sigh. “He doesn’t like himself very much right now. Fitz, I mean. That’s the core of the problem. He blames himself for everything that happened to us in the Framework, and for killing Agnes.”

Daisy could understand not liking yourself that much. Those months, knowing she would cave immediately and go under Hive’s sway without looking back, the self-loathing had been so unbearable that she hadn’t slept for days at a time. She set the Icee aside, her stomach churning. She never wanted any of her friends to go through that.

“I feel awful for him, I really do,” Jemma went on. “I saw him shoot Agnes, did I tell you that?”

They hadn’t really had much time for catching up, inside the Framework or out of it. Daisy shook her head.

“I couldn’t believe it was him. That place, it did things to his mind. But Fitz remains convinced that the darkness was inside him all along and—I don’t know anymore. The Framework was a terrible idea. As a training tool, it was marvelous, you could spar without actual physical pain. But we made it too real.” Jemma fiddled with the plastic rim of her lid. “I assisted with that, so I bear some responsibility, as well, I suppose.”

“For assholes bogarting your science and using it for evil?” Daisy asked. “Simmons, no. That’s not on you. We blew up the Framework, that’s over.”

“Cold comfort, I suppose.”

“Sometimes the only comfort we get,” Daisy said.

“Am I a bad person?”

“No,” Daisy said automatically, blinking. Jemma had her flaws—they all did—and she could be bloodthirsty and mercenary and dark, just like everybody else. “You’re not some pure shining beacon of innocence or anything, which: thank god. If you were, it’d be very intimidating sharing a kid with you. But you’re also not a bad person. Where is this coming from? If it’s about the Framework, we destroyed it, remember? And as soon as I can figure out how, we’re going to destroy it even more so shitgibbons like Deke can never recreate it in the future.”

Jemma shook her head, waving that off. “It’s not about that. Not entirely. I just—I feel guilty over Fitz. He hates himself. I should be there to show him why he shouldn’t hate himself, shouldn’t I? And yet…”

Years of watching Jemma’s mind work made Daisy sit back and simply wait for her train of thought to reach its intended station. But when a full minute stretched out, Daisy cleared her throat. “That’s a lot to take on for anyone, doesn’t matter how much you love them,” she said, keeping her tone neutral.

If anything, Jemma simply looked more frustrated. “I feel like I should want to, though. If I were at all a proper girlfriend.”

“I can give you a lot of sayings about ‘should,’” Daisy said. She’d heard a million of them growing up. “They’re all complete and total crap.”

For a second, a smile teased at the corner of Jemma’s lips, but her face fell again. “I don’t know what to do for him.”

“I don’t think he knows, either,” Daisy said. For one sharp, horrible moment she missed Andrew. He would know what to say. To Jemma, to Fitz, to Daisy. A lifetime of mistrust in psychiatry made her want to hunch and automatically reject the next thought that flitted through her mind. For Andrew’s sake, she pushed that reaction to the side. “But maybe he should talk to someone. Someone that’s not you.” She added the last bit when Jemma’s eyes cut to her. “A professional.”

Jemma’s eyebrows went up.

“Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m the last person to suggest somebody else get therapy,” Daisy said. She kicked her heel against her chair, deliberately stretching out her shoulders. “But they kept him in solitary for months and he was still reeling from the Framework. A few weeks cross-country with Hunter isn’t nearly enough psychological healing. And that’s assuming Hunter didn’t somehow make it worse.”

“Oh, Fitz,” Jemma said, resting her chin on her palm.

“Hunter probably didn’t make it worse,” Daisy said. He might be the personification of ‘you tried,’ but he had a good heart. And he genuinely loved Fitz. “Please stop beating yourself up over this.”

“You can’t possibly know that that’s what I’m doing!”

“Please, lady, I practically invented the beating yourself up world tour.” Daisy snorted and stole a handful of popcorn off of Jemma’s plate. This was, she reflected, quite a heavy conversation to hold over junk food in a department store café.

“It’s just—it’s Tony,” Jemma said, blurting it out.

Daisy, mid-reach for another handful, went still. “What about him? I told you—”

“Don’t you dare offer to raise him alone again,” Jemma said. “I want to be there. Not that you wouldn’t do a job as a single parent, but we’ve been over this.”

“Okay,” Daisy said. “I won’t.”

Jemma closed her eyes. “And now I’m snapping at you. Great. Just, bloody, great.”

“The prim and proper Jemma Simmons, cursing? It’s serious territory now,” Daisy said.

Jemma kicked her under the table, very lightly. “Oh, shut it.”

“Someday I’ll get you to call somebody something like ‘fuckface,’ and it will be amazing.” As an apology, Daisy reached across the table and wrapped her fingers around Jemma’s wrist, rubbing her friend’s sleeve with her thumb. “What about Tony, Jemma?”

“He needs me. He needs me, and Fitz needs me, and I need…” Jemma waved her free hand vaguely in the air, closing her eyes again. “I don’t know.”

The answer to that was probably also therapy, Daisy figured. Jemma had been just as gutted by Andrew’s loss as she had been. She tightened her grip fractionally. “I think what you need is time,” she said.

Jemma didn’t open her eyes, but she nodded.

“And you told Fitz that, didn’t you?”

“He took it surprisingly well. I think I said some nonsense about how the baby would keep me too busy for a while, that I wouldn’t even notice, that he wouldn’t notice, but we both know better.”

“I think he needs time, too,” Daisy said. “I think we all do. You don’t have to have answers for him right now, but—don’t feel guilty about it. And don’t beat yourself up.”

“It’s not beating myself up. Or at least not too much,” Jemma said, for she caught the skeptical look perfectly well. She finally caved enough to nibble at a piece of popcorn, though she pulled a face and immediately set the popcorn back down on the plate. “It had an element of truth to it, at the very least. Let’s face it, Tony needs me and Fitz—well…”

Fitz’s actions had led them all into a world of pure torture, Daisy thought. She blew out a breath. That was a lot to unpack.

“So: time,” Jemma said, nodding resolutely. “We’ll take time, and focus on the important things like Tony and rebuilding SHIELD.”

“And naps,” Daisy said, as Tony had been up half the night and only walking around with him would settle him down.

Jemma’s smile turned unexpectedly soft, throwing Daisy completely off-balance. “That too,” she said, and Daisy was glad she didn’t seem to need a response, as Daisy had completely lost the ability to verbalize for a second. Jemma didn’t appear to notice, for she briskly collected the popcorn and their depleted drinks. “But speaking of time, we’ve left Tony with Coulson long enough, and I want to get all of these new toys properly cleaned before he touches them. We should go.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Daisy said, not sure if she was laughing at Jemma or at herself. Gamely, she followed her friend out.

To their relief, Coulson had not dressed their son up in Captain America onesie. Daisy wasn’t sure if Jemma saw the little red and blue rattle with the white star that he slipped into their bags, but she decided not to mention it. Fitz, Coulson’s temporary roommate, was nowhere to be seen when they collected the baby, and his door remained shut. Like the little rattle, Daisy pretended not to notice.