Chapter Text
After everything, Daisy avoided Fitz like the plague. She always felt dizzy and had the urge to vomit when she saw his face, but Jemma was like a sister to her, so Daisy dealt with interacting with her best friend's husband. She visited Jemma in the labs as much as she could, bringing popcorn or burritos from the small mom-and-pop food market next to the lighthouse. When she saw Fitz she was always cordial, but never outright friendly. Not after he twisted a knife into her skull when she screamed and begged for him to stop.
One day, on her visit to the labs, she found Jemma and Fitz huddled over a watch. “What’s that?” she asked, curious.
“An 084. It was found on an ex hydra operative who used it to appear out of nowhere.” Jemma explained.
“Ah.” Daisy leaned over Jemma’s shoulder to inspect it. “Looks like a regular old rich white dude watch. I used to pilfer those off of snotty shoppers downtown,” she said.
Fitz turned the watch over in his hands. “I just— I don’t understand how it works. There are brand-new batteries inside, but the hands of the clock aren't moving.”
Jemma poked at it. “Looks the same, and has the same rudimentary mechanism inside.”
Daisy shrugged. “Maybe I can find something,” she offered, reaching for the watch just as Fitz said, “Wait, I found some-”
Daisy opened her eyes under her covers, with a headache. “Wait— what?” she muttered groggily, pulling herself up out of her sheets. Last thing she remembered, she was with Fitz and Simmons messing with a watch… Just then, Daisy recognized the stiff mattress on the small bed, and looked around the room. Her hula doll; her old posters; her rusty old laptop that she’d put in storage... Her eyes widened.
I’m in my bunk, on the Bus, which was destroyed two years ago. This is impossible.
She panicked, reaching out with her powers to see if anyone was around, then faltered when she didn’t feel the familiar tingle under her skin.
“Uh-” she gasped, taking in deep breaths. “My powers are gone. I’ve gotta be dreaming," she said aloud as she swung her legs over the bed and sat up, feeling achingly empty. She numbly opened her door and walked slowly through the hallway.
“Skye?” she heard from behind her. She whirled around to see May… but not her May. This May had a completely closed off and guarded expression; one that she’d completely lost around Daisy over the years.
“Skye?” she echoed, her throat dry.
“You heard me. What are you doing waking up so late?” She arched an eyebrow. It was unnerving. May looked… cold. Concerned, but cold. "Are you okay?"
Before she could say anything, a hand on her arm startled her. Without her powers, she had to turn around to see who it was.
Simmons. Baby faced Simmons in a sweater. Daisy hadn’t seen her in a sweater in years.
“Uh,” she gaped at Jemma, who pleasantly said, “Sorry, Agent May, I need her for a moment.”
Daisy allowed herself to be dragged along the achingly familiar plane corridors and into the garage- wait no, the lab.
“Daisy,” Simmons whispered. “Is it you? You you? I’m guessing, since you look exactly like Fitz did. Deer in headlights, both of you.”
Daisy swallowed. “You know me? Know about… everything?”
Simmons nodded. “Coulson dying? Fitz and I getting married? May and Coulson going to Tahiti?”
Daisy breathed a sigh of relief. “Jemma, what's going on? Why are we on an un-destroyed Bus, and everyone is young, and-”
“The watch was a time machine.” Fitz said grimly as he entered the lab.
Daisy gaped at him. He was so innocent, and his voice was more than a couple of pitches higher than normal. His hair was all curly as well. “No way,” she scoffed.
“It makes sense! We’re back in our old bodies and scenarios, but only the three of us remember… everything! And the three of us touched the watch.” Jemma said, waving her arms around.
Daisy sat heavily onto a stool. “I don’t have my powers, because this body hasn’t gone through terrigenesis yet,” she said quietly.
“The other running theory is that we're in the framework,” Fitz muttered, laying his head on one of the lab tables.
"What?"
"It's unlikely," Fitz said with a shrug.
"That doesn't make me feel much better," Daisy hissed.
“What do we do?” Jemma said weakly, turning to her.
Daisy sighed, putting a hand to her head and rubbing it. She could feel a headache building up pressure in her skull. “Blend in, for now. Until we know what the situation is. So remember, I’m Skye. And, uh-” she pulled up her shirt to reveal two, fairly fresh bullet scars. “I’ve gotten shot already, thankfully, wouldn’t want to relive that again.”
Jemma yelped. “What if- what if Ward’s on the plane still? We aren’t in Koenig's base yet, so he hasn’t revealed himself as Hydra, nor anybody, really. SHIELD is likely still standing.”
Daisy groaned. “It’ll be hard, but— for now— we need to pretend like we don’t know about him. If we are really back in time, we don’t want to fuck up the future.”
“Right.” Fitz sighed.
Daisy ran her hand through her long brown hair, which was startling, before noticing her arms. “Uh, guys? If I have my old body, why do I have muscles?”
Jemma cocked her head in confusion. “That’s strange. You know, I did notice that your face looks similar to you you, not your past self. Fitz and I are completely like our past selves, but you seem to have carried some of your qualities back in time with you.”
“Maybe it was the terrigenesis,” Fitz mused. “It made her body more connected with her consciousness through her powers, so maybe she took some of her future body functions to the past.”
Daisy grinned. “Good. At least I can still kick ass.”
“Hey, guys,” said a friendly voice behind her, one that she thought she’d never hear again. Daisy slowly turned around to look into the still-semi-innocent face of one Phillip J. Coulson. Alive.
Coulson entered the lab in a suit- a suit- and his hands in his pockets. The three of them stared at him in silence. He raised an eyebrow. “You three okay?”
“Never better, sir!” Jemma said with a forced cheerfulness.
Daisy couldn’t take it anymore. She leapt off of her seat and hugged him, startling him. He reciprocated hesitantly. “Skye? You okay?” he said as he patted her back softly.
It just wasn’t the same. Her Coulson wrapped his arms around her like a father, warm and safe. This hug felt uncomfortable.
Daisy released and turned around to wipe her eyes. “Fine. Sir,” she added.
He shot her a confused look. “Uh, Simmons, lower her pain medication, please.”
Jemma nodded, exchanging a look with Daisy. Daisy realized that she hadn’t taken any meds since waking up, yet her gunshot wounds felt superficial. She wanted to laugh at how much her pain tolerance had grown.
He studied them all again, then left.
Daisy let out a whoosh of breath. “Sorry, guys.” she said. “I couldn’t resist.”
“Quite understandable,” Fitz responded. Daisy blinked at him before she chose to ignore his words and looked away. She sighed. “I’m going to go see if something’s odd, or missing, like a discrepancy. That could lead us to a way home.”
Simmons nodded. “Fitz and I will do some research. Another reason this may have happened is our minds switched with ourselves from an alternate universe. That would mean this world would be a tad different from ours. But the most likely option is time travel.”
“Great. Even more confusing. We can’t get a fucking break,” she muttered as she stepped outside of the lab and ran straight into Ward’s beady little eyes.
“Sorry. But I’m being hard on you to make you a better agent,” he said with a smile, but it was all teeth.
Daisy was gonna lose it, swear to god. She put on a bright but annoyed smile and forced out, “Yeah, yeah. Excuse me,” and ducked under his arm to rush to the cockpit to visit May. She needed something normal, like sitting quietly in the passenger seat while she looked at the sky; something she did almost every time a mission involved her and May. She quickly opened the door to the cockpit and flopped down onto the passenger seat, taking deep, gasping breaths, staring up into the sky. This was all so surreal. Everyone was small, and hadn’t been betrayed, or shot, or had had limbs sliced off.
Daisy avoided crying, knowing she was in the company of May, who seemed to not notice she was there. Daisy knew, now, that May was 100 percent aware of her presence, but was too uncomfortable and bad with words to say anything. Before, she’d always just felt ignored.
Eventually, the familiarity calmed her down. “Sorry. It’s just so quiet in here,” she said quietly. “I’ll go, if you want to be alone.”
She didn’t get a response, which usually meant yes. Daisy sighed and left. Same old May, then.
She wandered through the hall, both really wanting to see Coulson just to talk to him and also really wanting to never ever see this young, alive, version of himself again. One who didn’t fully yet see her as a daughter; who hadn’t gone to hell and back with her. One who’d never been with May.
OmigodMaysleptwithWardwhatthefuckthatmemoryfeelslikeafeverdream-
An alarm sounded abruptly on the plane. Daisy stopped in place for a second, trying to figure out what to do, when Ward brushed past her to go to the main mission control.
“Skye? Let’s go,” he told her impatiently.
Oh yeah. It was the mission alarm. She numbly followed him into the main room as they all circled around the table, Coulson at the head.
“We put a tracker on one of the centipede soldiers that we freed, and sent him back in the field recently. He just popped up in a lab in London. We’re going to find him, and if there are more centipede soldiers or formula there, we’ll take care of it. Understood?”
They all nodded. Daisy’s eyes widened a little. She remembered this one. It had been a trap, and they’d all narrowly avoided dying. What harm would avoiding this one mission do?
“Wait.” she blurted. Everyone turned to look at her; Fitz and Jemma’s eyes were shooting daggers. She took a deep breath. “How do you know it isn’t a trap? Why would his tracker pop up here and now? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Maybe not,” Coulson admitted, “But Hand wants us to carry out this mission. We’ll go in with half tactical gear, don’t worry. And you won’t be going, Skye.”
Great. If Hand assigned it there was no way she could prevent them from going.
“Okay.” she agreed reluctantly, studying the little blip on the screen.
“Okay? Last time you were forced to stay back on base you pouted for an hour,” Ward frowned, moving closer to her.
“Well, I'm not pouting this time.” she snapped, recoiling from the proximity to him.
Everyone shot her confused looks.
“Dai— Skye hasn’t been feeling well,” Jemma interjected. “She should go lie down, right?”
Daisy rolled her eyes, then smiled sweetly at Ward. “Right,” she said through her teeth, trying to keep up false pretenses. This was fucking hard.
Everyone stared at her, then slowly dispersed. Coulson walked up to her once everyone was gone. “You okay?” he asked gently. “Is it the gunshot wound?”
“Sure.” she muttered, absently running her hands over it and pressing on it to feel more of the dull pain.
He looked at her for a moment, then left, saying, “If you need anything, just come ask.”
She nodded to his retreating back, then got on the display and started searching for things in the SHIELD database that might be different from what she remembered; to prove or disprove Jemma’s alternate universe theory.
Lincoln Campbell: Broken out of juvie, whereabouts unknown.
Bobbi Morse: Ex Wife to Lance Hunter, a mercenary. Stationed on the Illiad.
Audrey Nathan: Cellist, in Wisconsin. Ex-partners to REDACTED.
“What are you doing?” Daisy heard from behind her. She whirled around to see May at the doorway.
May nodded her chin towards the screen. “Why are you researching Audrey Nathan? Do you know who that is?”
Daisy nodded, confused. “Coulson’s ex-girlfriend, right?”
May’s eyes widened almost imperceptibly before she narrowed them. “How do you know that?”
“How do I- Oh,” she realized. They hadn’t yet gone on the mission to save Audrey yet. That had happened after Ward had betrayed them and broken into the Fridge. “I don’t- I guessed-” she stammered, trying to figure her way out of this predicament.
May walked up to her slowly. “Why were you searching up agent Morse?”
Daisy just stared at the older woman warily.
“Answer the question, Skye.”
She blanked, then blurted, “Ward was talking about them, okay? He was telling me stories about y'all at the academy. He mentioned Ms. Nathan, the cellist, who used to date Coulson. And Ms. Morse. And an old friend named Lincoln. I was just curious if he was telling the truth,” she lied.
May studied her for a moment, then nodded and left to go to the cockpit. That was a weak ass excuse. May definitely knew something was up, but evidently decided not to push it.
Daisy sighed and rubbed her face with her hand, wishing she would just wake up from this nightmare.