Chapter Text
Daisy Johnson was a patchwork quilt of trauma and perseverance. Her scars proved how resilient she was, how powerful she was, and yet they were utterly terrifying for Sousa, who knew better than anyone that while scars were a measure of somebody's strength, they also came with a myriad of past horrors. The more time he spent in Daisy's company, the more he realised she had a lifetime of scars, meaning a lifetime of bad experiences.
The first time it struck him quite how many scrapes Daisy had found herself in was during a sparring match. He was adapting well to the pace of the 21st Century, and could appreciate that much of the progress had been for the better; dating, however, seemed to have deteriorated. He was insistent on taking their relationship slow, which he could tell was equal parts frustrating and sheer relief for Daisy.
This meant he had yet to see her without many clothes on. Her sports bra and form-fitting leggings were somewhat tame, though never ceased to make his mouth dry. He'd seen the other agents in the compound in cotton shirts, some even in jumpers, so he knew that she had curated her outfit with the soul purpose of making him sweat.
It was working.
Sousa, on the other hand, was just getting used to sweatpants.
As they warmed up on the mats, Daisy's flexibility making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on edge, Sousa tested his balance. His new prosthetic was nothing short of a miracle, and every day he was discovering new things he could accomplish with it - things his former two-legged self had taken for granted.
"Don't go kicking me through the wall now," Daisy smirked, nodding towards his leg. She was tying her hair up, her honeycomb coloured locks hypnotising.
Sousa bit back a grin. She acknowledged that he was different, but wasn't treating him with the tenderness and sympathy others would, which could be wholly patronising at times. Instead, she voiced concerns that he had one up on her, and he liked that they had reached a state of comfort where she could talk about his leg, even tease him for it.
"Easy now, Quake," he retorted, relishing the rise he always got out of her when he used her superhero moniker. "How do I know you're not gonna send me through a wall?"
She raised an eyebrow, as she shook her hands at him. They were encased in what looked like typical sparring gloves; knowing S.H.I.E.L.D., he knew they weren't. "These suckers keep my powers contained," she told him. "They omit the same inhibitors that my gauntlets do, times a thousand. Even if I did want to quake your ass, they'd make sure I'd shattered every bone in my arm too."
Sousa whistled, as Daisy scrambled to her feet. Much like plenty other things, he had yet to wrap his head around her powers. The idea that there had been some kind of alien gene laying dormant inside of her, activated only by extra-terrestrial crystals, was quite a pill to swallow. He'd struggled with Rogers and his bottled abilities.
They circled one another for a while, neither one breaking eye-contact. The sexual tension was sizzling, and Sousa decided that if she didn't knock him sideways in the next few seconds, he was going to take her there and then on the mats.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, she beckoned him forward, pleading for him to take the first punch. Complying, he swung his arm at her, which she batted away with ease, hurling an elbow towards his face. He ducked before it could connect, a smart choice as she went to hit him with her other arm too in a swift two-pronged attack.
Standing up, he bounced backwards and forwards on the balls of his feet, appreciating quite how much he could do with his updated prosthesis. Daisy flashed him a flirtatious grin, and he made a hasty mental note to remember that a) she really got a thrill out of this kind of adrenaline and b) whether it was the rush, or the intimacy, something about sparring with him was turning her on.
"Not too shabby for a hundred year old veteran," she said, deliberately trying to provoke him.
"Hundred-and-one year old, though technically I never aged," he pointed out. "Still only thirty-seven, thank you very much."
"Lucky for you I've always preferred an older man," she said, with a curl of lip. "Can teach me a thing or two."
His breath hitched in his throat and he would have remained frozen for a while if she hadn't aimed a very precise kick at his head. Narrowly dodging it, he flailed an arm at her, in very poor form, which she caught readily. Using her hold on him to balance herself, she kneed him in the stomach, inches above the crown jewels. They shared a sneaky look, his heart rate out of control.
"I mean about being an agent, get your mind out of the gutter," she muttered, though they both knew that was not what she had meant.
She then threw her arms around his neck, dragging him down. Sousa used her slight stature against her, twisting himself around in her grip and using momentum to throw her over his shoulders. Daisy was a remarkable fighter, however, and landed on her feet without much difficulty. Their hands were still intertwined, as she tucked herself into his chest and flipped him over. His own landing was not nearly as graceful as hers had been, his whole body slamming down onto the mats with some intensity.
Not one to go down simple, he jumped to his feet, and saw that while out of breath, Daisy was thoroughly enjoying their match. She wasn't going easy on him, wasn't holding back; in fact, he suspected that she was pushing herself more, striving to do better than her best. He respected that drive immensely, in fact her determination turning him on a little too.
He stepped forward, throwing a punch, which she caught of course. In retaliation she fired a couple of punches, one after the other, the last of which he managed to snag her wrist and pin it behind her back. She went for the elbow again, and this time he was prepared. Behind her, her wrist and elbow in his grasp, he had the upper hand. Yet, the way she was staring up at him, her gaze flickering between his eyes and his lips, sent blood rushing to certain parts of his body.
Daisy could feel it instantly, as she licked her lips, pressing her body tighter to his. "This making you hot under the collar, Danny-boy?" Before he could respond, though they both knew the answer, she used her proximity and his distraction to her advantage. Tangling his ankle in her legs, she tripped him up, sending him tumbling down to the mats, again.
This time he didn't mind. She had him pinned down, her hands on his upper arms, one leg tucked between his thighs.
"I was never going to win, was I?" he sighed.
She gave him a dazzling smile. "You put up a good fight, Agent," she muttered, through ragged breaths. "But I know your weakness."
"What's that?" Sousa was becoming increasingly aware that Daisy was lowering her face to meet his, their lips inches from one another's.
"Me."
With that, she planted a heavy, hungry kiss on his mouth, a kiss he was quick to reciprocate. He was somewhat grateful that she still had his arms pinned down, or else his hands would have been free to roam. She swiped her tongue across his bottom lip, a move that took him aback. It was something she hadn't done before, something that, in his day at least, was usually a prelude to more than just kissing.
Regretfully, there were too many factors weighted against them continuing to make out. For one, it was a common, shared space and anybody could walk in. Two, he knew how . . . persistent Daisy could be, and that she wouldn't be the one to stop anything. Three, he didn't want their first time together to be on the sweaty mat in a S.H.I.E.L.D. gym. Call him old-fashioned, but he had envisioned - many, many times - their first time to be more secluded, more romantic. At least in candlelight, not the blindingly fluorescent glare they were currently under.
He pulled back, slowly, and instead pressed a soft kiss to her cheek. "I'm not going to make any progress down here," he told her.
She pouted her lips, and sighed as she rolled off of him. Slouching on the ground, catching her breath, she took off her gloves, as he did the same, propping himself up. She began to fiddle with the curly hairs on his exposed strip of ankle. Her gentle, playful touch was not helping to put the fire out, but was welcome all the same. Mostly because it was a leg that all but a few months ago did not exist. Whilst it was still a prosthesis, it was remarkably realistic, oddly comfortable, and most wonderfully he could feel again.
Sousa took this moment of peace to unashamedly stare at his girlfriend. She never ceased to take his breath away, regardless of how she looked, whether it was in era-accurate bellbottoms or sweaty gymwear. Her face was flushed, her cheeks an endearing rosy colour. He couldn't help himself, as he reached out to brush a loose curl of hair behind her ear. She leaned into his touch, eyes fluttering shut. He trailed his hand down her neck and across her right shoulder, her skin soft and clammy and oh so inviting.
A deep indentation on the back of her shoulder caught his attention. Upon further inspection, he realised without a shadow of a doubt that it was a gunshot wound. It was small and messy, jagged around the edges. Clearly it hadn’t been handled properly, or had been very rushed.
She caught him carefully feeling his way around the notch of skin, so he quickly averted his gaze, dropping his hand. She let out a little laugh. "I'm here stroking your prosthetic leg, you can touch my scars if you want," she said, light-heartedly. She even turned around for him to get a better look.
He continued to examine it, sheepishly, though didn't touch it. "You were shot?"
She nodded. "Plenty of times," she admitted. This sent a pang of aching to his chest. Pointing to the one he'd spotted, Daisy gave him an explanation. "You know about the LMD's we faced a few years back?"
As part of his essential homework in catching up on everything he had missed, or skipped, over the last sixty something years, he'd been given access to hundreds of S.H.I.E.L.D. files. Eighty-five percent of the last dozen filed and reported cases included Daisy and her team, and made for pretty eye-opening, nail-biting bedtime reading. He hadn't gotten very far, as he'd been working his way through a list of films, television, music and books people had recommended, but he had learnt a thing of two about their encounters with Holden Radcliffe and his automatons.
"They had infiltrated The Playground, an underground S.H.I.E.L.D. base," she said, with a sudden sobriety. “Me and Simmons were being targeted. She was working on getting the survivors out whilst I took on LMD iterations of Mace, Mack and Coulson. I’d just put Mace out of commission - the real Mace had been our Director at the time - when the others took me by surprise. Robot Mack put one in my shoulder - “ she tapped the scar held first seen. “Then Robot Coulson put one here.” She then gestured to her lower calf on her left leg, rolling up the bottom of her leggings. There was another, equally botched knot of flesh. He noticed there were no exit wounds, which meant the billets would have had to have been fished out. Outside of a hospital setting, that would have been nasty.
“You’ve been shot twice, and yet you still keep going back in the field? I know men who’ve retired for a lot less.”
She squeezed his ankle in thanks for his compliment, though her modesty prevented her from agreeing with him. “Medicine has advanced leaps and bounds since your day, old man."
“Still, twice,” he reiterated, fascinated by his girlfriend’s strength.
“Shot twice on that day, but overall . . . five times. Maybe six?”
His brow furrowed, his mouth slipping open subconsciously. “Six?” he spluttered. His eyes raked over her body, in even more awe than he had been of it before. Just since he’d known her she’d beaten death twice, now he was discovering that she was borderline invincible.
He found another scar on her left upper arm, just as dishevelled and disfigured as the others. Another roadside job.
"This one's from May,” she said, all her bravado suddenly shrinking.
He narrowed his brow. "May? Melinda May?"
"One and the same," Daisy told him, then in a much quieter voice pressed on. "I wasn't the same, though. I . . . uh, it's a long story."
Sousa captured her hand in his, and squeezed ever so gently. "I'm not going anywhere." To further prove his point, he placed a soft butterfly kiss to her knuckles.
Smiling sweetly, she kept their fingers interlocked. "I don't know where to begin," she said, with a deep breath. "I'll let you read the reports some day, so you can get a better grasp on what happened. I still don't fully comprehend everything." She took her time, and he allowed her the seconds. It clearly wasn't easy for her to talk about. "You know the HYDRA symbol?"
Wherever he had expected her to take the conversation, that wasn't it. "The octopus?"
Daisy nodded. "It's not just a symbol. Sure the HYDRA we know today was a Nazi scientific branch, but the roots are deeper than that. They were a cult, hellbent on bringing an ancient Inhuman back to Earth."
There was a lot to unpack there, but Sousa homed in on one word that had been at the forefront of his mind the last few weeks. "An Inhuman? Like you?"
"Yes, but this Inhuman - Hive - was the first ever created by the Kree. He was intended to lead their Inhuman army on Earth, but his ambitions grew too high, and he became uncontrollable. They banished him to another planet. HYDRA had been sending people for centuries to try and rescue him."
"And they succeeded?" He silently remarked on how strange his life had become that he was having a serious, heartfelt conversation with his superpowered girlfriend about alien-worshipping cults and interplanetary travel.
"We were trying to get to the planet too, but had no clue what was on the other side," she continued. "Jemma had been stranded for months, and we were desperate to bring her back. We'd found a way, but it meant Hive was able to travel through too. Malick had sent his own team."
Sousa frowned. "Malick? The twisted psychopath who'd tortured you to get your powers?"
"His brother," Daisy said, with a shudder. She was still working through the events of that afternoon. "You met him, in the speakeasy."
Sousa felt nauseous. "The one that had been all over you?"
"Gideon, yeah. He brought Hive back, cared for him until he was at full strength. Hive was using someone else's body, someone who had, a very long time ago, meant a lot to me." There was another story there, but he could see it was already taking all of her energy to talk about Hive that he didn't want her to exhaust herself, mentally, by telling him about this other person. He could wait. "I was leading my team on a mission when I . . . when I came across Hive, and he . . . God, it's weird to say out loud but he . . . he somehow managed to hold me under his sway."
"Like mind control?"
Daisy swallowed thickly, as her grip on his hand loosened slightly. He wouldn't let go, however, brushing his thumb across her knuckles ever so delicately, encouraging her to continue. "This . . . wasn't that," she said, slowly. "The thing about Hive, worse than him wearing the skin of others, is that when he's making you hurt the people you care about, he makes you . . . love him for it." Her voice cracked, as her whole body closed off. Her jaw was tense, her breathing shallow.
Sousa kept quiet. This was about Daisy, about her experience. He gave her the space she needed, the time. She had a tendency to shut down on people, this much he had been warned, but she had had yet to do it with him. He took this a sign of good faith, that he was doing the right thing thus far. That she trusted him.
"Hive was a parasite, yes, but under his influence I wasn't weakened, I was stronger," she explained. "He filled this emptiness inside of me, made me happy, willing even, to sacrifice everything for him." She hadn't met his eyes in a while, her voice shaky. "I hurt . . . too many members of the team. Fitz, Mack, Lincoln." A name he had only heard mutterings about. Again, another topic for another time. "I was going to kill Mack. I was crushing his bones, his ribs caving in. He wouldn't . . . he wouldn't fight me back. Wouldn't hurt me. I knew what I was doing was wrong I just, I didn't care. It felt good, using my powers like that. I was killing him, my partner, and he was letting me."
At this revelation, she burst into tears, an uncontrollable sob overwhelming her. Sousa intervened now, pulling her into his chest. He held her close, arms enveloping her, protecting her. For somebody who could quite literally knock him off of his feet with such ease, she was incredibly slight. He liked that she fitted into his arms perfectly, as though they were made for one another. Some days, he truly believed they were.
"It was May who had to shoot me, and even then it was only in the arm. A bullet between the eyes would have . . . it would have saved so much suffering."
"Daisy, sweetheart," he finally said, stroking her hair. "I've seen the way Mack takes care of you, admires you even. It seems as though the only person still suffering is you."
She sniffled, her tears soaking through his thin S.H.I.E.L.D. branded shirt. "You weren't there."
"No, I wasn't, but I'm here now," he said, tenderly. "And I'll always be here, to remind you that you're loved. By the team, by Kora, by me."
It wasn't the first time he'd confessed to loving her, but it always elicited the same reaction from her. She lifted her head up to gaze at him with wide, halting eyes. She had yet to say it back, and that was alright, it just made waiting until she would say it all the better.
He caressed her cheek, affectionately. "And I'll keep telling you until you start to believe us."