Welcome to my blog! I'll be using this to post all my writing (mostly fanfiction with some original stories) so I don't clog up my main blog. I always welcome prompts! Main blog: one-armed-sad-trash-hobo Current OTP: Skimmons
Prompted by @whistlingwindtree for the Quakerider Autumn Collection: “You have a leaf in your hair”
“Wooo!!!!!”
“Gabe!” Robbie cried with a exasperated sigh, “What’s the point of doing all this work if you’re just gonna mess up the pile a hundred times?”
Gabe jammed down the brake on the right wheel, causing his chair to swing around in a loop to face Robbie. Two parallel tire tracks cut through the mound of leaves that Robbie and Gabe had been raking all morning and Robbie frowned at them.
“Where’s the fun in having a giant pile of leaves if you can’t play in it?” Gabe reasoned.
Robbie just rolled his eyes and went back to raking.
A rattling, clunking sound pulled Robbie’s attention as a rusted out old van groaned down the street and into his next door neighbor’s driveway. The driver hopped out, a woman with short, dark hair, dark makeup and an all-black outfit. She tugged open the back doors, hoisted out a large box, and hauled it into her house. Robbie couldn’t tell exactly what was in the box, but it appeared to be something black. Shocking, given the sulky, goth-y appearance of their new neighbor.
Robbie had only spoken to her once, when he and Gabe greeted her when she first moved in at the beginning of the month. Gabe had baked a plate of cookies for her and passed them over with an exuberant “Welcome to the neighborhood!” She didn’t really respond, other than to look a bit startled. To be fair, she looked exhausted; moving took a lot out of a person. Robbie was the less sociable brother, but he still had manners. He stuck out a hand and introduced himself.
The woman eyed him up and down and said, “Daisy.” Gabe was the kind to invite strangers in for a chat when first meeting someone, which ‘Daisy’ did not seem to inclined to do. Robbie chanced a quick glance over her shoulder and saw every surface that wasn’t covered in boxes was covered in black or skeletons and he realized he probably didn’t want her to anyway.
Beyond that, neither neighbor made an effort to interact with the other. The front of Daisy’s house gradually started to resemble what Robbie had seen of the inside. Angry-looking skulls hung around the front door, with more complete skeletons and tombstones strewn about the yard. Giant, fake spiders dangled from the tree and roof and wispy cobwebs covered the shrubs.
“I think she’s a witch,” Gabe had said, when more spooky decorations appeared in the yard.
“She’s not a witch,” Robbie had replied, “It’s October. She’s just really into Halloween.”
“Then why does she only wear black?”
Robbie just rolled his eyes.
~~~~~~
Robbie realized there were a number of other boxes in the back of the van and wondered if he should offer to help Daisy take them inside. She didn’t seem like the type to accept help from a stranger, though, so he thought better of it. The door clicked behind Daisy and Robbie turned his attention back to the leaves.
Only to find Gabe’s eyes boring into him.
“…What?”
“I saw that,” Gabe said with a smug smirk.
“Saw what?”
“You checking out the neighbor. She’s cute. Didn’t know you were into goth chicks, though.”
Robbie sputtered. “She’s not a ‘goth chick’—and I’m not into h—“
Daisy’s door swung open again and she came out for another box. Robbie determinedly stabbed at the leaves with the rake, but he couldn’t fight the urge to glance towards Daisy.
And it turned out she was already looking at him. Well, something behind him anyway. He caught a twinkle of something in her eyes before they swiveled and met his. Robbie knew he was caught and couldn’t just look away, so he offered an awkward smile and wave. Daisy tipped him a mock salute and turned her attention back to her boxes.
“What was that?” Gabe asked.
“What was what?”
“That was the most awkward way to pick up a girl I’ve ever seen.”
“Well, I wasn’t trying to pick her up,” Robbie defended.
Gabe snorted and went back to helping rake the leaves.
A few moments later, a voice echoed down the street. “Hey, Gabe!”
A group of boys Robbie recognized from Gabe’s class ran down the street towards them.
“Mr. Barton’s gonna put a pumpkin in a catapult and he said we could watch! Wanna come?” one of them said.
“Hell yeah I do!” Gabe replied. He turned to Robbie, who waved him off.
“Just stay behind the catapult, okay?” Robbie teased.
Without another word, Gabe was wheeling towards Mr. Barton’s house with his friends.
Finally, the leaves were piled up nicely enough to get bagged up, so Robbie went to go fetch a bag. He dug through the crates in the garage, but they weren’t there. After a few minutes, he decided to go check in the house. He finally dug them out from underneath the sink (why the yard waste bags were under the sink, Robbie had no clue) and headed back outside.
He passed by the front window and noticed someone in his yard. He stepped up to the window to get a better look.
It was Daisy. The door of her van was still hanging open and there were still boxes in the back, but she casually strolled through his yard like she was just sight-seeing. She glanced around surreptitiously and Robbie ducked behind the wall. A mischievous grin split Daisy’s face and she took a running leap into the massive leaf pile.
Robbie just blinked. He had never even seen her smile before.
He grabbed his trash bags and headed back outside. He peered around the edge of the garage at the leaf pile, which was now wiggling. A low giggle drifted out of the center of the pile. Robbie smirked and headed over to the pile. When he was a few feet away, a head popped out of the leaves.
Daisy sighed with a satisfied smirk on her lips and pushed herself back to her feet. She dusted herself off and tried to push the leaves back into their pile, but froze when she noticed Robbie standing there.
Neither spoke for several moments. Then,
“Uh…..hey,” Daisy said, casually.
“Hey.”
“How long have you been there?”
“Not long.”
“Okay, ‘cause I, uh…fell,” Daisy lied. Poorly.
“Right. How did you fall all the way over here from your car?” Robbie teased.
Daisy flushed. “Well, you see, I dropped my receipt and then the wind blew it over here and my shoe was untied…”
Robbie blinked slowly and leveled her with the same look he gave Gabe when Gabe claimed the girl who drove him home from school was just a friend: the I’m Not Buying It.
“Okay, the truth is that this is the first fall I actually have a yard and I don’t have a big tree in it like you do, but fall is my favorite season and my favorite thing to do in fall is jump in giant leaf piles,” Daisy confessed.
“If you want to jump in a leaf pile you’re free to come rake it yourself.”
Daisy’s eyes widened. “Oh god, you’re right. I’m sorry, you busted your butt on that and I just—“
“I was kidding,” Robbie replied.
Daisy’s blinked for a moment, then her face relaxed and she smirked at him. “Well, your ‘kidding’ face is no different from your ‘I’m tired of raking leaves face, so it’s hard to tell.”
“Spend a little more time with me and you’ll figure out the difference,” Robbie countered. Daisy’s eyebrows quirked up. “I mean— not that you have to, but like—if you want sometime—Gabe and I do homemade cider and—it’s not that great—but…”
Daisy smiled. “I’ll keep it in mind. I should probably finish unloading my car.”
She turned to start walking back to her van.
“Wait!” Robbie called. Daisy spun to face him again looking expectant. “You have a leaf in your hair.”
Robbie reached out and plucked the crumpled orange leaf from Daisy’s dark hair. He couldn’t decide if she looked embarrassed or disappointed, but she flashed him a smirk.
“Thanks. Let me know about the cider thing.”
Robbie watched her go until she was back in her house and then turned his attention back to the leaf pile with a smile on his face. A few minutes into shoving leaves in a bag he froze. Wait…did he just invite Daisy over for a date? And did Daisy say yes?
Dios mio, he was never going to hear the end of it from Gabe.
Ch 13. Excuse me? You are without a doubt the most disrespectful person I've ever had the displeasure of knowing. That's just rude. But also I'm glad to hear you made it out of that alive and you're back to doing what you love! I appreciate the time and effort you put into this!
I know I’m the worst! I second guessed myself for a moment like “do I really want to end this hiatus with an angsty cliffhanger? ....Hell yeah I do” *evil laughter*
But thank you so much! I appreciate you reading and sending me nice comments! <3
Thank you! Good to be back! I’m just glad people are still reading the story after a 7ish month hiatus But yeah, everything’s going well. I was just back in school and my dissertation nearly killed me but I made it through! Now that I’ve gotten to recover a bit, I’m realizing how much I missed writing!
Daisy laid still for a few moments after waking up, enjoying the last dredges of sleep while she could. It felt like she had slept through the night, but it still seemed to be dark outside. She considered nuzzling back into the grass and going back to sleep. Her loudly growling stomach seemed to have other plans, though, and she stretched out.
And immediately regretted it.
Every muscle in her body screamed. She was usually sore after a shift but this was another level. This was Crossfit-mixed-with-P90X-mixed-with-Terry-Crews-sitting-on-her-chest-pulling-her-limbs-into-extreme-yoga-positions-for-eight-hours level of pain.
A pitiful squeak slipped out of her throat and she contracted into the fetal position.
“Shh, don’t move. I’ll be right back,” a familiar voice whispered.
Daisy’s eyes shot open and then she remembered she didn’t shift last night.
The reason it was so dark was because she was in Jemma’s bedroom with the blackout curtains drawn. Jemma slipped off the opposite side of the bed that Daisy as curled up on and tiptoed out of the room. Daisy caught a glimpse of Jemma’s backside in short shorts as she closed the door behind herself and the memories of last night flooded back.
Daisy fucked her best friend.
Like…a lot.
Daisy’s memory of last night was foggy, but she still initiated it. Suddenly, Lincoln’s assumption that she was dating Jemma and the seemingly random feelings Daisy had after Jemma bit her made a lot more sense. They weren’t caused by the bite at all.
Daisy had a crush on her best friend.
But they skipped right over the dating part and went straight into sex. Sure, they definitely both enjoyed it at the time, but, well…
What now?
Before Daisy had a chance to properly contemplate that question, Jemma returned. She passed a glass of water and a handful of painkillers to Daisy. Daisy gingerly stretched out a sore arm and took them, grimacing the whole way. Once Daisy had gulped down both, Jemma took the glass from her and set it on the nightstand.
“Alright, roll over.”
“‘Scuse me?” Daisy whined.
“On your stomach,” Jemma clarified and started rearranging pillows on the bed. “It’ll help. I promise.”
Daisy eyed Jemma skeptically, but delicately tried to stretch her limbs out so she could flop onto her stomach. Jemma tucked pillows under Daisy’s chest and hips once she managed to reposition and shuffled onto the bed on her knees.
At this point, Daisy realized she was still 100% naked.
And Jemma was straddling her hips and popping the cap off something.
“Uuuhh, what—“
“Every study I’ve read says that a thorough massage is the best treatment for a werewolf who resisted shifting,” Jemma explained.
Ah. Jemma brushed the hair off the back of Daisy’s neck, started moving her thumbs in slow circles on the sides of her spine, gradually adding more pressure. Her hands were slick with a warm oil that sunk deep into Daisy’s skin and soothed her aching muscles. Daisy sighed in relief and sunk into the plush pillows.
Jemma continued, “Because of the strain of resisting, your muscles are extremely damaged. Luckily, you managed to avoid any major injuries— there have been reports of people breaking tendons or even bones due to the force. Your naturally faster rate of healing and the extra healing component added to this oil should have you feeling right as rain by dinnertime. Maybe a bit longer than your usual recovery time, but still more quickly than the average person—”
She was rambling. Daisy could tell. The rare occasions when Jemma was nervous or uncomfortable, she did anything to fill the silence and find a way to get out of the situation. Daisy noticed Jemma do it a few times when Daisy was hanging out with Lincoln.
Which reminded her…
“—really fortunate, actually. Most attempts to resist result in some level of shifting and an extreme loss of control. Hopefully, Elena and Joey were able to be as sufficiently distracted as you were and there were no injuries last night—“
Daisy flushed. She doubted that they used the same method of ‘distraction’ that Jemma and herself had.
“Jemma,” Daisy interrupted.
“Hm?” Jemma’s hands had trailed down between Daisy’s shoulder blades. Her thumbs continued to work a circular motion along Daisy’s spine, but her fingertips ghosted the edges of Daisy’s breasts and Daisy tried not to squirm.
“In the woods the other night. Before Lincoln…” Daisy trailed off, knowing Jemma would fill in the blank. “What was it you wanted to tell me?”
Jemma’s hands stilled for a moment.
“It-It’s not important.
Daisy frowned. “It didn’t sound not important at the time. In fact, it was important enough that you didn’t want me to interrupt you.”
Jemma snorted a laugh. “That was a bit dramatic, wasn’t it? It can wait. There’s too many things happening right now to worry about it.”
“Or, you know, life is short and we should probably say what we want now.”
“Now who’s being dramatic?” Jemma teased, but her voice was tight.
Daisy gritted her teeth and bucked Jemma off her hips and flipped over. Her muscles screamed in agony, but Daisy ignored the pain and planted herself in front of Jemma.
“Jemma.”
She stared into Jemma’s startled eyes, somewhat wishing she had Jemma’s weird suggestion powers. Jemma’s eyes darted between Daisy’s, looking for a way out of this situation, but Daisy wasn’t giving her one.
“Okay, fine,” Jemma relented. She pushed herself into a sitting position and finally broke eye contact. “I wanted to tell you….that I had feelings for you. Romantic feelings.”
“Oh. I—“
“—But it doesn’t matter. Like I said, there’s too much happening right now to worry about feelings,” Jemma interrupted.
“So…last night…?”
“Last night was a fluke. Just a trick of the moon.”
Daisy had to check to make sure Jemma hadn’t physically stabbed her in the chest, because it felt like she had. Daisy barely sorted out her feelings, only to have them immediately shut down.
Jemma continued to ramble. “I mean…I didn’t want to— well, obviously, I did want to…but with you and Lincoln— and now he’s dead— I shouldn’t—“
“Wait, what does Lincoln—“
An insistent knocked rapped on Jemma’s door, ending all conversation. Daisy was half-inclined to ignore it, but then the knock became an endless pounding.
“Daisy?! Are you in there?” Elena’s voice echoed through the door between thuds.
“I’ll get it,” Jemma muttered, sliding off the bed before Daisy could stop her. Daisy jumped off to follow, but realized she was still naked. Not like Elena hadn’t seen her naked before, but she should probably get dressed anyway. Daisy wobbled to her feet, stretching out her tight muscles as slipped into the living room to find her clothes.
“—Daisy in there?” Elena asked.
“Yes, she just woke up—“
“Oh, thank God. We checked her apartment and she hadn’t come back yet. We were worried something happened last night.”
“Nothing happened. Last night was fine.”
Daisy tugged on her pants and struggled to untangle her shirt as she heard the door creak open further and footsteps coming towards her.
“It’s hard enough dealing with changing when you’re new, much less resisting changing, but—“
Daisy barely managed to tug her shirt over herself before Elena stepped into the living room and surveyed the scene. Burnt out candles on every surface, the couch cushioned askew, Daisy’s bra (that she hadn’t managed to find in time) under the coffee table. Elena cocked an eyebrow while Daisy coughed out an awkward greeting.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Elena smirked. “Whenever you’re done, we need to talk. It’s important.”
“You’re not interrupting anything,” Jemma insisted. “In fact, I was just about to head out and pick up some things.”
Daisy snatched up the last of her things and turned to Jemma, but she had already disappeared into the kitchen. She huffed and followed Elena into the hallway.
“Didn’t picture Jemma to be one for post-coital pillow talk anyway, but that seemed a bit…frigid,” Elena remarked, once the door closed behind Daisy. Joey was waiting in the hall and leaned up against the wall. He pushed off to join them, as they headed down the hall and Daisy noticed he was limping slightly and quirked an eyebrow at him.
“Pulled a muscle last night…or twelve,” he said with a wince.
Daisy grimaced sympathetically. “Last night was…a bit unexpected for me. And I think there’s been some sort of misunderstanding between Jemma and I about what my relationship with Lincoln was.”
“Ah,” Elena said understandingly.
“Anyway.” Daisy shrugged off the still-fresh stabbing sensation in her chest. “What was so urgent that you had to track me down?”
“The Watchdogs are having a rally later this afternoon,” Joey replied, “We figured we could start working on our plan and then scope out some intel on them later.”
“Then let’s get to work.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After many frustrating hours of everyone throwing out ideas to take down the Watchdogs (all of which ending in “and then they shoot us”), the pack gave up and headed down to the rally. They pulled on hats and sunglasses to keep the Watchdogs from potentially recognizing them later and lurked near the back.
The crowds had grown. Why, Daisy didn’t know. She even recognized a few normal humans in the crowd that she had seen hanging out with Erebus students and it broke her heart. Maybe everyone was intrigued because the Watchdogs’ greasy spokesman kept loudly bragging about killing a werewolf. Daisy felt her hackles rise and she had to restrain Elena who lunged forward snarling. Daisy had to remind her (and herself) that publicly eviscerating one of the Watchdogs would probably not be good for their cause.
After awhile, Daisy had to block out the crap the man with the megaphone was spewing and focused on surveying the crowd and the gathered Watchdogs on the platform. Most of the cowards were wearing masks, had silver bullets hanging around their necks, and were dressed in some level of camouflage. They smartly left their weapons at home for this. Even the main campus wasn’t dumb enough to allow those on campus.
It took awhile of listening to the response from the crowd for Daisy to notice something:
The crowd was jeering. They weren’t there in support.
Most stayed quiet until the speaker was confident that everyone was on his side. Around the fifth time time the speaker gloated about ‘ridding the world of one of the foul beasts’ a man screamed out.
“Where’s the proof?”
A ripple went through the crowd, but they silently waited for a reply.
The Watchdogs in masks glanced at each other while the one with the megaphone floundered.
“The…the proof was stolen! Hidden from us by the administration. They don’t want us to show you—it would ruin their illusion of— we performed a great service and have not had any thanks—“
The crowd called out in response to his ramblings.
“Liar!”
“Delusional!”
The man tried to speak again, but was drowned out by the crowd, either calling them crazy or intolerant. The ones Daisy recognized were angrily defending their friends.
Daisy smirked and she felt a flutter of happiness in her chest. People were on their side.
Another one of the Watchdog leaders jogged up the steps of the platform and whispered in the speaker’s ear. Even from the very back of the crowd, Daisy could see he was beaten to shit. A trickle of blood ran down his face from his temple and he had a black eye and a series of scratches down his face. Even his heavy Kevlar-and-camo outfit had tears in it. Daisy wanted to give a high-five to whoever managed to do that to him.
The speaker’s face shifted from fear to glee at whatever the other man was saying to him and Daisy knew it couldn’t be good.
The second man stepped to the back of the stage and the speaker set off the siren on the megaphone. The crowd winced and groaned, but mostly fell quiet.
“Non-believers! Fools!” He shouted, “You want proof, we will show you proof! Tomorrow at high noon, come witness the execution by sunlight of a vampire!”
Daisy’s stomach dropped and she glanced in horror towards Elena and Joey.
“They can’t…right?” She asked, nearly begging for validation.
Joey and Elena look equally stunned and said nothing.
Daisy took off running.
She sprinted across campus towards the dorms, not even feeling the residual soreness of her muscles from that morning. She tore through the quad and darted through the shortcuts between buildings they had found on their winter full moon excursions. Students strolling to and from class leapt out of her way as she darted past. Daisy reached the dorm and crashed through the door, barely remembering to pull out her access card and wave it at the sensor.
The wait for the elevator was agonizing and Daisy nearly considered running up the stairs, but Jemma’s apartment was near the top floor and the elevator was probably faster anyway.
Daisy forced herself through the elevator doors as soon as they opened a crack and sprinted down the hall. She told herself she was being ridiculous. The Watchdogs were obviously lying; Jemma was going to open the door and scoff at Daisy for being so gullible.
Daisy pounded on the door. No response.
She waited a moment and knocked again.
“Jemma?” she called out.
No response.
She pressed her ear into the door, listening for any small sound that Jemma was inside. She could ignore Daisy all day; Daisy didn’t care, as long as she was safe.
A few seconds of holding her breath and listening yielded nothing.
It’s fine, Daisy told herself. She just went out. She’ll be back.
Daisy dug out her phone and dialed Jemma’s number. Despite being nearly 400 years old, Jemma loved the modern convenience of having a computer in her pocket and kept it on her at all times.
It rang. It went to voicemail.
Daisy was starting to panic. She called again. Same result.
Elena and Joey spilled out of the elevator and met Daisy in the hall.
“Well?” Elena demanded.
Daisy took a deep breath. “She’s not home and her phone keeps going to voicemail. I’m sure it’s fine, though. She’s just gone out and forgot to charge her phone.”
She was trying to convince herself more than anyone else.
Elena and Joey shared a glance.
“What?” Daisy snapped.
“About that…” Joey cautiously stepped forward, as if afraid that Daisy might bite him, and held something out.
It was Jemma’s phone. It was easily recognizable by the tacky sticker on the phone case with bright red lips with fangs that said ‘Bite Me’. Daisy had bought Jemma as a joke and Jemma had defiantly stuck it on the back of her otherwise plain phone case.
The phone’s screen was shattered in a jagged spiderweb pattern that indicated the phone had been dropped.
“Where did you find this?” Daisy demanded.
“Just outside of the dorm,” Joey replied. “Maybe they were staking out the dorm and waiting for someone to come out alone. Or…maybe she just dropped it.”
Daisy stared down at the broken phone as the cold realization crept up her spine.
Daisy picked at the threadbare office in Coulson’s office and glanced around. Jemma sat next to her staring determinedly ahead, her clothes and hands still stained with blood. Joey sat on Daisy’s other side. He rested his chin in his hands and took deep, shaky breaths. Elena was given a chair, but she chose to stand. Her hands gripped the back of the chair so hard her knuckles were white and indentations formed in the wood.
Daisy could only imagine the pain Joey and Elena were feeling. Daisy had only known Lincoln for a few months, but it still felt like her family had been shredded in front of her eyes.
Across from them, behind his desk, sat Coulson. He glared down at the report the hospital staff had given him and rubbed his temples. May leaned against the wall and stared out the window. On the surface, Daisy would have thought she was just disinterested in everything that had happened, but Daisy had seen the tears welled up in May’s eyes when they were escorted in.
Coulson sighed and glanced up at them. He hesitated another moment before he spoke.
“Lincoln Campbell’s death is a tragedy and one that could have been avoided,” he began. “I assure you, a full-scale investigation is going to be launched to determine how the Watchdogs were allowed to be active on our campus and how they had access to those kinds of weapons.”
“An investigation?” Elena snapped. “A student is dead. What we need is action!”
“I understand that you’re hurting right now, but we can’t do anything rash. Unfortunately, the main campus administration has the final say in what groups are permitted on campus,” Coulson placated, but he pulled a grimace. “Violent action from any of our students will probably lead to them disbanding the Erebus school entirely. The current administration isn’t too fond of the fact that we exist anyway. All we need to give them is an excuse.”
Elena growled and started to pace.
Daisy dug her fingernails into her palms and tried not to glare at Coulson. She could still feel the shadow of Lincoln’s hand in hers while he bled out. She squeezed her eyes shut to try to block the memory. The shadow was replaced by a real hand and Daisy’s eyes shot open.
Jemma had done her best to wash the blood off her hands before they were hustled into Coulson’s office, but the stain was still there. She uncurled Daisy’s fingers and intertwined them with her own. She squeezed gently and gave Daisy a watery smile. Daisy’s heart swelled with affection and she turned her attention back to Coulson.
He was probably right, but they couldn’t sit around and do nothing while there was an ‘investigation.’ The only thing stopping Daisy from arguing was the fact that Coulson looked just as unhappy about this response.
“We have grief counseling available for all of you in case you need to talk. In the mean time, we need to worry about the safety of our students,” Coulson said, “We’re putting the school on lockdown until further notice. No one leaves the dorms at night.”
The room erupted.
“You can’t do that!”
“The full moon is tonight!”
“We can’t stay locked inside all night—”
“Hey!” May’s voice echoed through the room and she slammed her hands down on Coulson’s desk.
The pack fell silent.
“The Watchdogs have the ability to kill you all and know where to find you on the full moon. Killing Lincoln is going to make them cocky and if you’re in the woods, it’s just asking them to shoot you,” May growled. “We are not letting them hurt anyone else, and if that requires locking you up, so be it.”
Her words were harsh, but Daisy could see the pain in her eyes.
“What are we supposed to do about the full moon?” Daisy asked. “We can’t just not change.”
“We can,” Elena muttered. “It’s difficult and painful, but I’ve managed before.”
“Well, that sounds pleasant,” Joey grumbled.
Coulson shrugged. “That’s settled then—”
“It’s not that easy,” Elena countered. “Lincoln once told me, the pack pulls energy from each other. The effects of the moon are magnified between us, which makes shifting easier and gives us more control. That also means it’s harder to resist shifting when we’re together. The one time I managed to resist was before I found the pack.”
“Sounds like we need to separate you then,” May said.
The room erupted again into protests until May leveled them all with a glare.
“May is right,” Coulson said. “The last thing we need is three stressed out werewolves crammed into the same space. That’s just asking for someone to get hurt, likely yourselves.”
“Being isolated makes it worse,” Daisy grumbled, remembering her first shift.
“We’re willing to hear suggestions,” Coulson said.
The room was silent for a beat.
“I might have an idea,” Jemma said.
Coulson nodded at her to continue.
“I’ve done some research and there’s a few methods that people have tried to help werewolves abstain from a shift with…varying success,” she started. “Most studies have some success with having somebody the werewolves know nearby to distract them and keep them calm.”
“How effective is ‘some success?’” May asked.
Jemma grimaced. “Not as effective as one would hope, but it’s something. They also tended to have someone else on hand with enhanced strength to subdue the werewolf if they have to.”
“We can work with that. Miss Rodriguez, don’t you know Alphonso Mackenzie rather well?” Coulson asked.
“I’d say so,” Elena said with a smirk.
“He’s, what, a demigod? I think he’ll work for this situation.”
“My boyfriend is on the rugby team,” Joey offered. Coulson looked skeptical.
“He’s part minotaur. He can do it,” May said.
Daisy fidgeted. She didn’t exactly have a demigod she wanted to spend the night with.
“I can watch Daisy,” Jemma said.
Daisy’s gaze whipped to her.
“Are you sure?” Coulson asked.
Jemma gulped. “Yes.”
Jemma’s silver knife and terror the first time they met in the woods flashed in Daisy’s mind. “But I thought—”
“I know,” Jemma said. “I’m not leaving you alone or with a stranger for this, though.”
Daisy’s heart swelled again and she had the intense urge to sweep Jemma up in her arms. She wondered if that was still a residual effect from the bite that had yet to heal.
“Now that that’s sorted out, you all are free to go,” Coulson said. “I’ll need to speak to each of your companions before tonight to debrief them. Miss Simmons, could you hold back for a moment?”
Daisy followed Elena and Joey out of the room and hovered outside the door to wait for Jemma.
“I can’t believe their solution is to lock us up,” Elena hissed.
Daisy shrugged. “We just have to deal with it for one night. Then, we have a whole month to come up with a plan.”
“A plan?”
Daisy nodded. “We’re not just going to sit around and wait for an investigation to come up with nothing. We’re taking the fight to them.”
Daisy swore that Elena’s wolf form appeared for a moment from the sharpness of her grin.
Joey shifted. “Isn’t that a good way to get ourselves shot?”
“Not if we’re smart about it,” Daisy said. “Which we will be. We’ll talk more tomorrow.”
Elena and Joey nodded and headed down the hall just as Jemma slipped out of Coulson’s office. She hastily shoved something in a canvas bag and her eyes looked tight.
“Everything okay?” Daisy asked.
“Fine.” Jemma responded. “They just wanted to give me some advice for tonight. We should get something to eat.”
Daisy eyed her suspiciously, but followed Jemma to get some breakfast.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Daisy and the pack—what remained of the pack— spent the entire day outside in an attempt to burn off as much energy as possible. They went on a jog through the town and then back to campus until all of them were about to collapse, but it still wasn’t enough. The hollow ache in Daisy’s chest each time she glanced at the open space beside her didn’t help. Once the sun started to sink, they checked in with Coulson and May, met up with their companions for the night, and reluctantly went their separate ways.
Daisy had seen the burly guys Elena and Joey were spending their evening with and got the feeling that Jemma was woefully underprepared to restrain Daisy if she had to.
Apparently, ‘restraining’ was not what Jemma had in mind.
Daisy stepped into Jemma’s apartment and the familiar space that Daisy had shared for a month was completely transformed. The blackout curtains were drawn and the overhead lights were off, replaced by the soft glow of a few lamps. Lit candles covered every surface and filled the room with a heavy scent of lavender. A ceramic tea pot that Jemma said she only used for company sat on the coffee table with a lazy curl of steam trailing from the spout. The slight break in the lavender scent told Daisy it held chamomile tea. Every surface not covered with candles either had a pile of fluffy blankets or an array of face masks, lotions, and nail polish.
Daisy gawked at the display. “What is all this?”
Daisy tried to pay attention as Jemma launched into an explanation of all her research that showed relaxation and distraction were the best methods to keep a werewolf from shifting on the full moon, but her eyes landed on a bottle of massage oil and her mind started to race through how they could use it.
Daisy blamed it on the excess energy from the rising full moon.
The next few hours contained the most aggressive attempt at relaxation Daisy had ever experienced. Jemma plopped Daisy on the couch, thrust a cup of tea into her hands, and began giving her a manicure. She chattered at Daisy about all manner of things, just to fill the silence, but spoke only in a slow, even tone used by most yoga instructors.
Jemma eyed Daisy. She had been doing that all night. It was like she was waiting for Daisy to explode or something. Given the situation, she probably was. Daisy sighed and pulled the frozen gel face mask over her eyes so she wouldn’t have to see the poorly disguised fear in Jemma’s eyes.
When she closed her eyes she saw Lincoln, bloodied and pale, black-gray trails of poison sneaking across his skin. She saw the group of wanna-be Watchdogs spewing hate in the Free Speech Corner. She saw red around the edges of her vision and her heart rate spiked.
Daisy didn’t have to see the moon to know it was rising. She could feel it. The energy bubbling up in her skin, urging her to dart into the woods, strip, and seek vengeance. She took a few slow breaths to try to relax again. It didn’t work.
“I need a break,” Daisy announced.
She pushed herself to her feet and started pacing around the apartment. Sitting still was getting too much for her. Jemma just quietly capped the nail polish and muttered something about fetching more tea.
Daisy strolled to the window and nudged the curtain aside. This side of campus was quiet, since all the Erebus students had been corralled into the dorm as soon as the sun went down.
Her attention was dragged to the bag on the end table that Jemma had stuffed something into after speaking with Coulson. Her curiosity won out. She tiptoed over to the end table and gently poked the edge of the canvas bag open.
A pale hand slapped over it.
“What are you doing?” Jemma snapped.
Daisy lurched. Curse those sneaky vampire skills.
“Being nosy,” Daisy said. No point in lying. “What did Coulson give you earlier?”
“None of your business,” Jemma replied, grabbing the bag.
Bullshit. “Really? Because he gave it to you right after you guys talked about babysitting me tonight. Kinda seems like it might have something to do with that.”
Jemma just glared. Daisy weighed her odds and dove for the bag. Jemma snatched it away.
Oh, that’s how it’s going to be? Daisy didn’t care as much about the contents of the bag as she did this new game. Wolf-brain equated this with the teasing games she played with the pack and was suddenly laser-focused on winning.
Daisy dove for the bag again, only to have Jemma shift out of the way again. Daisy smirked. She feigned one way and, anticipating Jemma’s dodge, slid the opposite at the last second. Her fingers grazed the canvas of the bag and she internally cheered in victory.
Jemma’s tossed the bag into her other hand and snapped her fingers around Daisy’s wrist.
She was suddenly very close. Her eyes were hard as they bored into Daisy’s. Daisy’s gaze flicked down and the memory of Jemma’s teeth on her neck surfaced. She felt the flush creeping up her face and tugged her wrist free.
“Fine, don’t tell me,” Daisy grumbled. She turned her back to Jemma and headed back to the window, hoping Jemma didn’t notice her blush.
Jemma was quiet for a long minute. She took a few steps closer to Daisy and a small clink echoed from the coffee table. Daisy spun. A tiny vial filled with a glowing blue liquid sat on the table.
“The school counselor gave you drugs?” Daisy guessed.
Jemma fidgeted. “It’s a high-strength sedative. Coulson had Bobbi brew it when he realized he would have to lock you all in tonight. Because she didn’t have all the proper ingredients, she had to improvise. It’s untested and potentially dangerous, so I’m not going to use it. He gave it to me as a worst case scenario, but—”
“Yes, you are.”
Jemma blinked. “What?”
“Going to use it,” Daisy clarified. “In the worst case, you’re going to use it.”
Jemma looked appalled. “But…I have no idea what kind of side effects it might have, or if it even—”
“Jemma!” Daisy interrupted. “I want you to use it. I couldn’t live with myself if I hurt you. I’ll take whatever side effects to avoid that.”
Jemma frowned and scanned Daisy’s face, but Daisy wasn’t wavering. If it made Jemma safer tonight, Daisy wasn’t going to change her mind.
“Fine.”
Jemma pulled something else out of the bag, snapped the vial into it, and slammed it back on the coffee table. It was gun-shaped and had a wicked-looking needle poking out of the barrel.
“Happy?” Jemma snapped. She glared at the object in disgust and then marched into the kitchen.
“Yikes,” Daisy muttered. Hopefully, they wouldn’t need it after all.
She pushed the curtains open and peered onto the grounds. The moon was starting to cast long shadows over the grass and Daisy knew things were going to get unpleasant soon.
No sooner had the thought crossed her mind, when whooping and laughter echoed across the lawn. Daisy frowned. No one was supposed to be out right now and human students never wandered over to this side of campus.
Daisy pressed her face closer to the glass to try to see the culprits. Eventually, they came into view, camouflage-clad, toting large rifles, and with dog-shaped masks over their faces as they shoved and laughed with each other.
It was the Watchdogs.
Daisy snarled. “What the hell are they—”
It was that moment when the muscle spasms started.
Daisy cried out and braced herself on the windowsill. Her muscles twitched and shifted under her skin to make space for her bones to remodel, but she fought them. She clenched every muscle in her body to hold them in place. A chunk of windowsill broke off in her hand.
“Daisy!”
Jemma’s voice vaguely echoed in her ears, but Daisy’s attention was occupied. She felt cool hands on her, moving her away from the window and growled. The last thing she wanted right now was someone touching her. If she wasn’t already paralyzed, she would have snapped at the hands.
Through the pain, Daisy felt confusion echoing from the back of her mind. Why are you fighting it all of a sudden?
Daisy cracked her eyes open. Her hands were leaving gouges in Jemma’s (probably antique) dining room table and there were gun-toting werewolf-hunting, psychos outside. That’s why she was fighting it.
Even though she could easily rip those psychos’ arms off.
A voice—a real one, not just an echo in Daisy’s head—drilled through her ears with calming, placating words that Daisy couldn’t fully hear. Her gaze snapped up to the speaker with her teeth bared.
It was Jemma. You like Jemma, remember?
But Jemma was looking at the tranquilizer on the coffee table. Daisy snarled.
No, weapons bad, wolf brain thought.
Don’t you dare, Daisy thought back.
Jemma dove for the tranquilizer and Daisy dove for Jemma. Daisy tried to wrestle control of her body away from wolf-brain, but it was like she was trapped in a runaway train. Even with her muscles wound as tight as a spring, Daisy managed to beat Jemma to the tranquilizer and pinned her to the wall with her forearm pressed into Jemma’s chest.
She growled in an attempt to communicate, ‘submit, I won,’ to someone she knew didn’t speak wolf. Jemma froze. Whatever calming words she had been preparing died in her throat. Jemma’s heart raced, thundering an erratic beat against Daisy’s arm. Daisy knew Jemma was strong, but she definitely wasn’t strong enough to fight off a raging werewolf with her bare hands.
Stop it, stop it, stop it! Daisy shrieked at herself.
No matter how hard she fought, she couldn’t stop herself from surging forwards.
Her lips crashed into Jemma’s and the tension in her body melted away.
Wait…What? Daisy thought.
You want this, was the reply.
I do?
Jemma’s hands hovered on Daisy’s hips for a moment, before fisting in the hem of her shirt and pulling her closer.
A groan crept out of Daisy’s throat, as her body pressed flush against Jemma’s. Okay, you’re right.
She deepened the kiss. Her tongue slid along the seam of Jemma’s lips. The arm pressed into Jemma’s chest slid around the back of her neck to pull her even closer. She scraped her teeth along Jemma’s lower lip, pulling a slight gasp from her. Daisy’s muscles still twitched under her skin, but it seemed like wolf-brain had different priorities right now.
“Daisy,” Jemma whispered.
A shudder of heat jolted through Daisy’s body. She liked that. She wondered how many ways she could make Jemma say her name.
Her lips slid low on Jemma’s neck and found two tiny, scarred puncture marks at the joint of Jemma’s neck and shoulder. As soon as the pressure of Daisy’s lips hit them, another gasp slid from Jemma’s and her fingers dug into Daisy’s hips. Daisy’s fingers toyed with the button on the front of Jemma’s pants.
“Daisy.”
Okay, that wasn’t quite the tone Daisy was hoping for. That sounded a bit…stern. Maybe she should try a different spot.
One of Jemma’s hands snapped from Daisy’s hip, up the back of her neck, and tangled in her hair. With a harsh tug, she detached Daisy from her neck. Daisy whined low in her throat.
Jemma was wrecked. Her face was flushed, her pupils dilated, and Daisy swore she saw her fangs peeking out of her lips as she caught her breath. What’d I do wrong?
“Daisy. I need to know,” Jemma panted. “Do you want this?”
Daisy frowned. That seemed like a stupid question. How else was she supposed to answer that then by doing what she was doing.
Jemma sighed and used her grip on Daisy’s hair to angle her so she had no choice but to stare Jemma straight in the eyes.
“Do you want this or is this the effect of the full moon? Tell me the truth,” Jemma commanded.
The rest of the room around Daisy faded to black as her world slimmed to only Jemma and her demand. This must be what that mind-control thing feels like full force.
Daisy’s knees shook and buckled, leaning her body closer into Jemma’s. The only things that kept Daisy’s knees from hitting the floor were her arm wrapped around Jemma’s neck and Jemma’s fist in her hair. However Jemma was doing this, it felt like wolf-brain was being forcibly removed from the controls of Daisy’s body, until it was just her in her brain. But the ‘her’ that was in charge now wanted nothing more than to do what Jemma wanted her to. The echo of the command reached into Daisy’s throat and pulled her answer out.
“I want you,” she choked.
That was apparently good enough for Jemma. She surged forward and sighed into Daisy’s mouth. The effect of the mind control dissipated and the feeling crept back into Daisy’s limbs, along with the wild hunger of the wolf. Jemma pushed herself off the wall and pulled Daisy towards her bedroom.
Daisy was too impatient for that. She grabbed Jemma by the hips and spun her around. Once the back of Jemma’s knees hit the arm of the couch, she leaned into her until they both tumbled onto it. Jemma hooked her hands into the backs of Daisy’s knees and tugged them to either side of her hips.
Whistling and clicking from outside pulled Daisy’s—or rather, wolf-brain’s—attention. She cocked her head to listen. The Watchdogs below the window called, “here, doggies,” between whistling and laughing derisively. Wolf-brain reminded Daisy of how easy it would be to disembowel them and a snarl ripped from her throat.
A hand slipped around her neck and pulled her back down, where Jemma’s lips could press against Daisy’s neck. Daisy melted.
Eviscerating the Watchdogs could wait. She had better things to do.
Daisy supposed this situation should feel weird; her on top of her best friend, grinding her hips down, Jemma’s fingers digging into her upper thighs.
It didn’t, though. She felt like a puzzle piece snapping into its slot.
The Watchdogs mimicked howling outside the window, but Daisy ignored it. She burrowed her face into Jemma’s neck and inhaled her scent. The same one she tracked every month when she searched for Jemma through the woods. It wasn’t as strong as when Daisy was in wolf form, but it still was familiar, warm, and felt like home.
But there was too much separating them. And the room was suddenly sweltering.
Daisy straightened up only long enough to whip her own shirt off and fling it across the room. Her fingers then found the hem of Jemma’s shirt and toyed with it before sliding it up. Daisy didn’t know about Jemma, but she couldn’t deal with teasing for too long. Daisy pressed her lips along Jemma’s torso and chest, chasing the edge of the shirt, and ghosting over Jemma’s nipples with her lips. Daisy smirked when she realized Jemma wasn’t wearing a bra. This was meant to be a ‘relaxing’ night after all.
Jemma’s small gasps only encouraged Daisy to move faster. She ground her hips down into Jemma’s, angling to get them to meet in just the right spot, while she returned her focus to Jemma’s lips. Jemma returned her enthusiasm, thrusting her tongue into Daisy’s parted lips.
Each time they parted, their lips met again haphazardly, both too distracted by the building heat between their legs. Jemma’s breathy moans nearly pushed Daisy over the edge, but she needed more.
Daisy dragged her teeth along Jemma’s bottom lip and trailed nips and soft kisses down her jaw and neck. She paused just long enough to run her tongue over the sensitive scars on Jemma’s neck, earning her a sharp gasp and a satisfying jerk of her hips, before continuing down. Her hands trailed down Jemma’s sides, tracing over nearly 400 years of scars that crisscrossed her skin, before resting on her hips. Her lips continued downwards as well until they reached the pink peak of Jemma’s breast and flicked her tongue across it.
While Jemma was still mid-sigh from that sensation, Daisy slipped her hand under the band of Jemma’s sweatpants and teased the inside of her upper thighs with her fingertips. Jemma’s hand shooting to tangle into Daisy’s hair was her sign to keep going.
Her fingers slid up to trace Jemma’s wet folds for a moment before sliding in. She slowly thrust her fingers, matching their movement with the motion of her tongue tracing Jemma’s nipple. Jemma’s hips were already twitching and her breath came out in short pants.
Within moments, Jemma’s back arched and gasped out a short cry. Her fingers fisted in Daisy’s hair tugged harshly, almost to the point of being too painful, but not quite.
But Daisy wasn’t done yet. She wanted to drag as many of those beautiful sounds out of Jemma as she could.
So she kept going, shifting her angle and sliding up to ravage Jemma’s neck with her mouth.
It wasn’t until many orgasms later, when Jemma’s legs were shaking that she tapped on Daisy’s arm and asked her to stop.
Daisy let out an undignified whine, but withdrew her hands and placed a final kiss to Jemma’s neck. She could still feel the hum of the moon’s energy under her skin and squirmed, trying to get a release of her own.
Jemma sat up pushed Daisy backwards so her lower back was pressed up against the arm of the couch and Jemma’s chest pressed into hers.
“Don’t worry. I haven’t forgotten about you,” Jemma whispered in Daisy’s ear. If Daisy hadn’t already been on the verge, she definitely was now. Jemma pressed her lips to Daisy’s, more gently than Daisy’s aggressive kisses before, but no less urgent. She shifted her position so her thigh was pressed right between Daisy’s legs. A jolt of pleasure shot through her and Daisy moaned. Daisy swore she felt a smirk pull up the corner of Jemma’s lips. Daisy deepened the kiss as Jemma rocked her hips and pulled Daisy’s closer. Everywhere Jemma’s body touched her burned and Daisy tried to pull her even closer, relishing the sensation.
Far too quickly, the orgasm shot through Daisy’s body and she rode it out on Jemma’s thigh until they were both breathless. Jemma laid back on the couch, pulling Daisy down on top of her so Daisy could rest her head on her chest.
The high from the moon’s energy was fading and Daisy started coming back into her mind. She and Jemma definitely should talk about this now, but she was exhausted. Jemma’s fingers lazily combed through Daisy’s hair and her breathing slowed with sleep. Eventually, the soothing motion and the still lingering smell of lavender candles dragged Daisy into sleep as well.
1) How old were you when you first starting writing fan fiction?
Uuuuhhh I wanna say like 15 or 16? Pretty sure it was an Axis Powers Hetalia (anime) fic that I just wrote down in a notebook and then passed to a few friends.
2) What fandoms do you write for and do you have a particular favourite if you write for more than one?
Pretty much exclusively Agents of SHIELD currently. I’m not really invested in any other shows enough to write fic for them ATM though there’s some old Supernatural fics floating around
3) Do you prefer writing OC’s or reader inserts? Explain your answer.
OCs. Idk why but I can't get into reader inserts.
4) What is your favourite genre to write for?
Romcom, meet-cute kinda stuff. I love writing anything that can involve humor.
5) If you had to choose a favourite out of all of your multi chaptered stories, which would it be and why?
Oh god, this is like asking me to chose a favorite child. I think I gotta say Who’s the Hero though. It was just a completely random prompt I saw that spiraled out of control and tbh if the world wasn’t tired of superheroes i might consider publishing it also the amount of research I did on plants for that fic was astounding.
Thanks for the ask! And sorry I haven’t gotten to your prompt yet it’s dissertation season for the next few months
Most of the writer ask posts I come across are only like ten or so questions long so I thought I’d try to make a longer one because we like talking about our writing! Feel free to reblog!
1) How old were you when you first starting writing fanfiction?
2) What fandoms do you write for and do you have a particular favourite if you write for more than one?
3) Do you prefer writing OC’s or reader inserts? Explain your answer.
4) What is your favourite genre to write for?
5) If you had to choose a favourite out of all of your multi chaptered stories, which would it be and why?
6) If you had to delete one of your stories and never speak of it again, which would it be and why?
7) When is your preferred time to write?
8) Where do you take your inspiration from?
9) In your xxx fic, what’s your favourite scene that you wrote?
10) In your xxx fic, why did you decide to end it like that? Did you have an alternative ending in mind?
11) Have you ever amended a story due to criticisms you’ve received after posting it?
12) Who is your favourite character to write for? Why?
13) Who is your least favourite character to write for? Why?
14) How did you come up with the title for the xxx? - You can ask about multiple stories.
15) If you write OC’s, how do you decide on their names?
16) How did you come up with the idea for xxx?
17) Post a line from a WIP that you’re working on.
18) Do you have any abandoned WIP’s? What made you abandon them?
19) Are there any stories that you’ve written that you’d really love to do a sequel to?
20) Are there any stories that you wished you’d ended differently?
21) Tell me about another writer(s) who you admire? What is it about them that you admire?
22) Do you have a story that you look back on and cringe when you reread it?
23) Do you prefer listening to music when you’re writing or do you need silence?
24) How do you feel about writing smutty scenes?
25) Have you ever cried whilst writing a story?
26) Which part of your xxx fic was the hardest to write?
27) Do you make a general outline for your stories or do you just go with the flow?
28) What is something you wished you’d known before you started posting fanfiction?
29) Do you have a story that you feel doesn’t get as much love as you’d like?
30) In contrast to 29 is there a story which gets lots of love which you kinda eye roll at?
31) Send me a fic recommendation and I’ll post it for my followers to see! (The asker is to send the rec not the answerer)
32) Are any of your characters based on real people?
33) What’s the biggest compliment you’ve gotten?
34) What’s the harshest criticism you’ve gotten?
35) Do you share your story ideas with anyone else or do you keep them close to your chest?
36) Can you give us a spoiler for one of your WIP’s?
37) What’s the funniest story you’ve written?
38) If you could collab with any other writer on here, who would it be? (Perhaps this question will inspire some collabs!) If you’re shy, don’t tag the blog, just name it.
39) Do you prefer first, second or third person?
40) Do people know you write fanfiction?
41) What’s you favourite minor character you’ve written?
42) Song fic - What made you decide to use the song xxx for xxx.
43) Has anyone ever guessed the plot twist of one of your fics before you posted it?
44) What is the last line you wrote?
45) What spurs you on during the writing process?
46) I really loved your xxx fic. If you were ever to do a sequel, what do you think might happen in it?
47) Here’s a fic title - insert a made up title. What would this story be about?
48) What’s your favourite trope to write?
49) Can you remember the first fic you read? What was it about?
50) If you could write only angst, fluff or smut for the rest of your writing life, which would it be and why?
Hey all, so I’m very stuck on Bite Me and kinda hitting a writing block in general so if y'all wanna throw some one-shot prompts (either other AUs or in Bite Me verse idc) that would be rad and I’ll try to work on them.
Also, if you already sent me a prompt, I promise I still have it and will work on it as soon as I can!
Loved your Vigilante!Quake one-shot as well as the Supervillain!Jemma story that went along with it. Although I must say I simply loved your take on Garrett, Raina, Quinn as more “regular” supervillans then “espionage” villains. I can tell you have Raina a more Hulk like power with her being able to transform, Quinn in that whole fund the operation as well as public image like Lex Luthor, and Garrett well I’m not sure his insane like the Joker but he also seems to be primarily muscle
Thank you! I really liked their dynamic in the show and, since they all worked together anyway, it seemed fun to make them a more traditional super-villain team up. Glad you enjoyed, this was one of my favorite universes to write!
Tony Stark had only been gone for months, but it felt like years. After a particularly aggressive fight with some random villain, he suddenly announced his retirement and disappeared. All of his suits self-destructed and he left a few piles of half-finished schematics and partial constructs in the hands of Jemma’s boss at S.H.I.E.L.D. Apparently and Tony and Coulson went way back. Coulson was the only one Tony trusted with his creations and was tasked with finding a replacement for Iron Man.
Which meant it was Jemma’s problem.
She spent all her lunch break looking over the schematics again. It seemed to be written in code, and not the easy kind. She was supposed to be reverse engineering an Iron Man suit that they could test replacement candidates from S.H.I.E.L.D. with, but she couldn’t make heads or tails of these notes.
She glanced at the clock and realized the half hour she was supposed to take for lunch was nearly over and she could get her hands back to work. She trudged back to the lab, still glaring at the nonsense on her tablet, when she realized there was someone in her lab.
And they were flying.
Jemma gaped. Whoever it was had the Mark II boots on and some spare flight stabilizers strapped to their hands and were wobbly hovering around the lab. They spun around and Jemma recognized who it was.
“Daisy?!”
Daisy froze midair and blanched. “Shoot.”
The flight stabilizers flickered and the boots shut off, sending Daisy tumbling to the mats below. She scurried to her feet and tried to detach everything from herself.
“Please don’t tell on me. I came up looking for you, but you weren’t here so I figured I’d wait, but this stuff was just laying out and—please don’t tell Coulson. I can’t get fired already,” Daisy rambled.
Daisy was a relatively new recruit with a shady past that Coulson decided to take a chance on. He put her to work in cyber security and gave her the lowest rank he could manage, but she still managed to break into the lab to keep Jemma company most days.
And apparently crack the code that no one else had been able to.
“How did you know how to work those?” Jemma demanded.
Daisy blinked. “I-I don’t know, they’re not that complicated. I just turned them on.”
“Show me.”
Daisy eyed Jemma like she was afraid this was a test, but obliged her. She held up the flight stabilizers to Jemma, tapped the sensors, and made a gesture with her hands and the reactor in the center lit up. Jemma gaped again. She had fidgeted with these things for weeks and hadn’t figured out the trick.
“Am I fired?” Daisy asked, tentatively.
“Far from it.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“You want me to do what?” Coulson asked.
“Make Daisy the new Iron Man. Or Iron Woman,” Jemma replied, though she sounded less convincing the second time.
“Simmons, we have seven candidates lined up already, ranging from ex-Navy SEALs to aerospace engineers, and you want me to make the new Iron Man a hacker who, according to her S.O., can’t even do a pull-up?” Coulson said.
Jemma winced. “We’ve had professionals working on these prototypes for weeks and none of them have made any progress. Daisy managed to get herself in the air on her lunch break because she was bored. There’s more to her than what we think we know. Plus, we don’t have to worry about past training interfering with her new training.”
Coulson stared at her skeptically. “Where is she now?”
“The lab. She’s decrypting some of Stark’s files for me so I can reverse engineer the complete armor.”
Coulson gestured for her to lead the way down to the lab.
Jemma scanned her card at the door and hoped Daisy was behaving herself.
Daisy was sitting on top of Jemma’s desk with her left arm encased in a crude version of the gauntlet from the Iron Man suit and a screwdriver in her other hand, jabbing at the wiring inside.
“Hey, Jemma. I think I figured out the issue with this flight stabilizer—”
“Daisy, that’s not the stabilizer! That’s—”
Too late. Daisy pointed it towards the ground and ignited it. Unfortunately, that was the energy blaster that Jemma had been working on and Daisy was knocked off her feet and into a pile of raw materials.
Jemma winced and glanced towards Coulson. He looked unimpressed.
“Sir, I promise that—”
“You have one week to train her. Then, we start interviewing from our list,” Coulson informed her.
Jemma eyed the tangle of limbs that was Daisy. They had a lot to do in one week.
“Didn’t your S.O. teach you that you never point a weapon at your face?”
Daisy rolled her eyes. Jemma was getting to the point that she wanted to smack her every time she did that. In the interest of professionalism, she bit her tongue and made a few calibrations on her tablet.
“Okay, try again.”
Daisy was rigged up in what looked like the skeleton of an Iron Man suit. Once Daisy decrypted the files, Jemma managed to put together the main components of the suit that would be needed to pilot it. Daisy switched on all the components, seemingly effortlessly, and hovered a few inches above the grass. Jemma took a step back and started the training program.
The first target lit up and was blasted apart in a fraction of a second. The next one was behind Daisy and she had to spin midair while keeping herself stable to shoot it.
The next one was a pair on opposite ends of the training field that Daisy had to hit simultaneously, which she did. Her aim still needed work, but she hit the target, which was the important part.
At the end of the field stood Coulson, watching the training session impassively.
Daisy finished up target practice and glided over to hover in front of Jemma. Jemma nodded and Daisy killed the thrusters.
“Do you really think I can do it?” Daisy muttered.
“I think you’ve proven that you can pilot the suit fantastically. You should have no problem passing the assessment,” Jemma replied, looking through the stats from the session.
“No, I mean do you really think I can be a superhero?”
Jemma looked up from her tablet. She had never seen someone covered in that much firepower look so timid before.
“I don’t know. It’s a demanding job, but I think you could be up for it.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The day of Daisy’s assessment came and she spent the entire morning in Jemma’s lab. Jemma was too busy performing last minute adjustments to the wiring to offer words of comfort to Daisy, but Daisy didn’t seem to mind as she was scrolling through her phone.
“Simmons, look at this,” Daisy suddenly blurted, diving over Jemma’s desk.
“Daisy, I’m a little busy. Your assessment is in two hours and I need to even out the lateral—”
“This is important!”
Jemma glanced up with a frown. The video of penguins falling over was also ‘important’ an hour ago.
But this actually was. On Daisy’s phone was a live feed from a hostage situation downtown at a bank.
Jemma gulped. “That’s awful, but there’s not much we can do about it from here.”
“Except for the fact that we have a high-tech supersuit right here,” Daisy prodded.
“No!” Jemma insisted. “It’s nowhere near ready for the field and even if it was, we don’t have anyone to pilot it—”
“I’m right here.”
“—who has piloted it outside a training facility.”
Daisy groaned. “Come on. Innocent people could be hurt. You can’t expect me to sit here and do nothing.”
“That’s exactly what I expect you to do, considering you’re not a superhero yet and the suit has no armor on it,” Jemma replied.
“Fine.” Daisy pouted. “At least call Coulson and see if he can send someone down to check it out.”
“Okay.”
Jemma scooted her chair to the other desk where she had left her tablet. She called up Coulson’s office on the video call.
“Simmons? Is everything alright?” Coulson asked.
“Yes, there’s just a situation downtown that Daisy was concerned about. She was wondering if—”
“What is she doing?”
Jemma spun. Daisy was strapped into the skeletal Iron Man prototype and sprinting towards the windows.
“Daisy!”
Jemma hung up the call frantically, hoping to limit what Coulson saw of that.
“I’m sorry, but I have to!” Daisy called back. She swiped the helmet off a table, slid the window open, and jumped out. Jemma held her breath until she saw her rocket down the street.
Jemma grumbled to herself as she tried to open the cameras she put in the helmet. It took a few minutes, but Daisy eventually opened it on her end too. Thankfully, that was on of the projects that Jemma had focused on early. Otherwise, Daisy would be completely on her own.
“Okay, Simmons, I know what you’re going to say—”
“I’m going to actually murder you.”
“…Okay. I was expecting ‘be safe’ or ‘OMG, you’re so heroic—”
“Heroic doesn’t mean stupid,” Jemma snapped. “You have no armor, limited firepower, zero experience, and no clue what you’re running into.”
“I know what I’m running into! There’s a hostage situation,” Daisy replied.
“How many hostages? How many people are holding them? What kind of weaponry do they have? What are their demands?”
“Uh……”
Jemma rolled her eyes and sighed. She pulled up surveillance from the bank and surrounding streets. All but one of the security cameras had been shot out and the one functional one was transmitting sideways. Jemma corrected the image and mirrored it over to Daisy’s helmet.
“Three suspects, armed with double-barreled shotguns. Their only demands have been for cash. NYPD is getting ready to pay,” Jemma informed. “They’re definitely amateurs, but that doesn’t mean it’ll be easy to take them down.”
“Thank you,” Daisy trilled through the comms.
The lab door behind Jemma beeped open. It was Coulson.
“What’s going on? Last I saw, Daisy looked like she was stealing the suit.”
“Stealing the suit? Ha!” Jemma plastered a fake smile on her face and flipped the tablet upside down. “She was just messing around.”
“Where is she?” Coulson asked.
“Restroom.”
“Where’s the suit?”
“….Storage.”
Coulson raised an eyebrow. “Storage? Daisy needs it for her assessment in an hour.”
“I know it was just—”
“Why is the window open?”
Gunshots rang out from Jemma’s tablet along with a colorful string of curses from Daisy. Jemma’s stomach dropped.
“Simmons—” Coulson started.
“Video game?” Jemma squeaked helplessly. She knew the ruse was up and dove for the tablet. “Daisy? Daisy, are you alright?”
“Yeah, fine. Orange hat is just a little trigger happy,” Daisy replied.
Jemma’s eyes flicked between the feed from Daisy’s helmet and the security camera. Daisy had already flown straight through the front windows of the bank and tackled one of the robbers. The other two dove behind counters.
Daisy herded the hostages out the broken windows while the robbers took cover.
“Daisy! Three o’clock!” Jemma shouted.
“Wha—Oh!”
Daisy whirled just in time to see the second robber, wearing an orange hat, raise his gun at her. She pushed both of her hands in front of her and fired a blast that knocked the robber through the wall.
Orange hat was effectively unconscious, as was the robber Daisy had tackled on her entry. On the bank camera, Jemma noticed the third robber scuttling around the counter and darting for the broken window.
“Daisy, the last suspect is running,” Jemma informed her.
“On it.”
Daisy turned and marched for the door. The police outside were more concerned with the hostages and apparently didn’t notice the escaped robber slip into the crowd.
“Which way did he go?” Daisy asked. Reporters were starting to converge on her, so she launched into the air and hovered.
Jemma frantically tapped away on her screens to pull up the surrounding area security cameras. “He’s heading west on 15th Street.”
“Right. Which is…?”
Jemma rolled her eyes. “Go left, then take the second right.”
Daisy rocketed off in the direction she indicated. She was moving too fast for Jemma to keep up with her on the local cameras, so her only visual came through Daisy’s helmet. Eventually, she spotted the robber, who was peeling off and ditching layers to attempt to blend in with the crowd, even though he was sprinting away from a crime scene. Amateur.
“White T-shirt, Daisy,” Jemma relayed.
“Target acquired.”
Daisy swooped lower to the ground to skim just above the sidewalk. Just as she was about to collide with the robber’s back, she swerved to the side and started to ascend.
“Daisy? What just happened?” Jemma asked.
Daisy’s only response was to glance down, where she was dangling the robber by his ankle while he screamed. She circled back around to the bank, where the police were finally exploring the scene. She landed on top of a police car and tossed the robber at the feet of one of the cops.
“I think this belongs to you, too. His friends probably miss him,” Daisy quipped.
“Alright, Daisy, you’ve done your job, now get back to the lab,” Jemma grumbled. She waited until she saw Daisy go airborne again before letting out a breath of relief.
Which is when she remembered that Coulson was still standing behind her.
“I…She…The thing is—” Jemma sputtered.
Coulson held a hand up to stop her explanation. He looked mad.
Within a few awkward minutes, Daisy was at the open window, wriggling herself through it.
“Oh my god, did you see that? The way I blasted that guy through a freaking wall?” Daisy gushed.
“Daisy—” Jemma tried to interrupt.
“That was the most epic thing—”
“Daisy—”
“And then when I swooped in and grabbed the guy while he was running? He was screaming like a baby—”
“Agent Johnson.”
The wide grin dropped from Daisy’s face and was replaced with horror as she realized Coulson was there.
“Director Coulson. I—”
“What you just did was stupid, reckless, and at least ten types of illegal. I could have you arrested for removing classified S.H.I.E.L.D. property from this facility without permission,” Coulson shouted. Daisy stared determinedly at the floor and Jemma tried to melt into her chair. “Not only did you reveal a new Iron Man prototype to the world before it was ready, you put yourself at risk going into the field without proper training, back up, or equipment. To reiterate, your half-baked idea was not only stupid…it was also the most Iron Man thing I’ve seen in months.”
His voice softened, just slightly at the end.
Daisy hesitantly glanced up at him with a confused expression. “What?”
Coulson sighed. “Tony Stark was a genius, but he was never one for self-preservation or following orders. He was determined to do what was right. It was part of what made him a great superhero, but also nearly got him killed on many occasions. When he tasked us with finding his replacement, I was hoping we would be able to weed out those qualities in the next Iron Man. Apparently, it’s a hazard of the job.”
Daisy and Jemma glanced at each other, then back at Coulson, trying to figure out what exactly Coulson was saying.
“Agent Johnson, congratulations. You’re the new Iron Man.”
Daisy gaped. “Are…you serious?”
“Agent Simmons wouldn’t have been able to get to this point in the suit’s development without your help and, I hate to admit it, but you did stop a bank robbery today. From what I’ve seen, you have all the qualities to be a superhero,” Coulson said. “Also, the rest of our applicants turned out to be a bunch of tools.”
Daisy’s beaming smile returned full-force. “Oh my god, thank you!”
“Don’t mention it. We’ll need to set you up with a training schedule and get you a handler. I’ve got a few candidates from Operations that I can run by you—”
“No,” Daisy said.
Coulson drew up short. “Excuse me?”
Daisy gulped. “I’ll only take the job if Jemma can be my handler.”
Coulson’s gaze shot to Jemma and he looked just as stunned as Jemma felt.
“I think we can work that out,” Coulson said finally. “Simmons, you’ll need to get the full suit and weapons systems operational as soon as possible. After Agent Johnson’s stunt, every news station in the city now has footage of the new Iron Man, and that’s sure to cause some crazies to come out of the woodwork. Are you ready for it?”
Jemma looked at Daisy, with her hopeful smile on her face, and then back to Coulson.
“Absolutely.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Left, left, left! Your other left, Daisy!” Jemma shouted.
She heard a distinctive metallic thud and Daisy’s screen went dark for a second.
“Daisy? Are you alright?”
Daisy grumbled, “I just ran into a plane, if you consider that ‘alright.’”
“I told you to test out the suit after I did calibrations on the flight stabilizers. It would have let you get used to the new sensitivity of the controls,” Jemma scolded.
“Yeah, but I had better things to do.”
“Call of Duty does not count as ‘better things’ when you’re a superhero!”
Jemma rolled her eyes and relayed a quick message to ground control that their plane was not under attack. She zoomed in on the the holographic display from Daisy’s helmet to find their target. The full body monitor spun slowly in Jemma’s peripheral vision. She was so glad that Daisy had agreed to get rid of the garish red and gold from the old Iron Man suit. Instead, it was painted a glossy black, with silver accents and two yellow pinstripes going down the front.
The helmet had also been fully redesigned, at Daisy’s request, because she didn’t like the ‘creepy robot face’ on Tony Stark’s versions. The new variety looked more like a sleek motorcycle helmet with a heavily tinted face plate hiding Daisy’s identity.
“It’s strategy training!” Daisy shouted over the roar of a jet engine.
“I’m sure that strategy training will serve you well when you end up getting sucked into a turbine. Now, proceed to the target I highlighted on your map.”
Jemma tapped the camp Daisy was meant to be infiltrating to put a target on it and swiped it up onto Daisy’s display. Daisy adjusted course and started descending toward the target.
“Be ready for anything, Daisy. They have heat seeking missiles pointed in your direction, so be ready to dodge,” Jemma warned.
“Great,” Daisy grumbled. “Well, assuming I don’t get blown up, we should go for dinner when I get back. There’s a nice sushi place down the block that I’ve wanted to check out.”
Jemma’s hands froze over the holotable. “Are you…are you asking me out?”
Daisy huffed out a laugh. “Have been for the past five missions, but thanks for noticing. Why do you think I wanted you as my handler?”
“Because I know your equipment better than anyone?” Jemma countered, though she knew that wasn’t the reason. Daisy had spent weeks hanging around Jemma’s lab long before she was in the running to be Iron Man. Jemma’s annoyed with herself that it took this long for her to figure out why.
“There’s a joke in there, but I’m not going to say it,” Daisy muttered.
Jemma smiled. “I appreciate your restraint. Assuming you don’t get blown up or break anything on the suit or your body, I’ll go get sushi with you.”
Daisy let out a ‘woo-hoo’ and spiraled in the air.
“How serious are you about the breaking anything condition?” Daisy asked.
“Deadly.”
“Alright, I’ll just have to be quick. See you in the morning when this place is a pile of dust,” Daisy quipped.
Jemma smirked. Daisy rocketed towards her destination and Jemma stood ready to provide her back up.
