Archive of Our Own ^beta

Jimmy Woo has never been one to mingle with computers and technology. 

There were things one was good at, and things that one wasn’t really excelling in: all that science-y stuff fell into the second category for special agent Woo, which is why he prefered to stay aside when Monica Rambeau borrowed a quinjet that Melinda May had provided them with and drove to a small house in Yorkshire, where two of SHIELD’s best scientists waited for them. 

Monica wasn’t big on words during the ride there, and neither was he; no matter how many times he’d read the same line over and over again from the documents that have been sent to him from Hayward’s computer, Jimmy kept thinking about her who had sent them - her, who had stayed. 

She stayed to discover all the secrets that have been kept from both the Bureau and Hayward’s own employees, risking capture for the price of the truth, and then the Hex expanded.

His thoughts kept swarming and buzzing inside his skull, an ailment which would’ve been eased by some fresh air and maybe a coffee, had things not gone so horribly south - looking in retrospect, one minute he was in New Jersey; the other he was shaking hands with the director of shield, Alphonso Mackenzie, and his former and favourite teammate - agent May - and the next time they opened their eyes, they’d been on  a plane to visit Monica’s friends in Northern England. 

He’d heard of them - few hadn’t, really - but he’d never met them in real life; that was the reason why Jimmy Woo had been so amazed by the velocity of their work, their eagerness to deduce and discover - Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons truly were the perfect pairing, completing each other both in thought and in work. 

The two of them and Captain Rambeau worked on systems that made his head spin from all those sequences and numbers, and Jimmy had once more been reminded why he stuck to the field; he’d taken the liberty to pay a visit to a nearby coffee and donut shop to ease his head. 

He’d been sipping his mocha latte when he returned to their home setup version of a base, immediately noticing the victorious gleam in Fitz’s eyes. 

“We’re near,” he said with a flash of a smile, “we’ll crack the anomaly’s communicational code in a few minutes.” 

Jimmy’s heart skipped a beat. The coffee almost dropped from his hand as Jemma Simmons began, “This far we’ve reached a one-sided feedback - we can track their vitals through the measurement devices I designed for the silencers.” 

Rambeau put a hand on his shoulder, gently grasping it and sending reassurance through the touch. 

“They’re fine,” she said, “both of them. They’re safe and sound.” 

He knew - on a deep, intrinsic level, he knew Wanda wouldn’t hurt anyone, not when she herself was still hurting, but his mind kept going back to all the horrible thoughts that raced through his veins along the adrenaline. Hearing Monica say that their friend was fine untied a knot he hadn’t even had time to notice had formed; afterwards, breathing came easier, and so did sitting down and relaxing without guilt. 

The smile on Monica’s face was beautiful as he thanked her; she’d been relieved, returning to the setup where the three of them worked in what seemed like an effortless manner, solving every problem that comes to their hands. 

A sound buzzed from the microphone and speakers on the table next to his chair, and Woo jumped straight up, wishing it to be her voice, wishing for it to be her. 

“Darcy?” 

*

“I know how crazy it sounds,” she said, biting down on a chocolate-glazed donut. 

Daisy drank her beer before agreeing with a nod. “But it makes sense. It does, I swear.” 

“Wanda isn’t the bad guy here,” she repeated her astrophysicist’s words. The more time she spent here, thankful for Fitz’s silencers, she was more and more convinced of the idea that Westview hasn’t been taken hostage in ill intentions - the Avenger meant no harm to any of them; she just wanted a sanctuary of her own, a home. 

Daisy had been no stranger to that feeling herself. Taking a donut from the box she’d bought this morning while Darcy still slept - another way of history repeating itself - her eyes locked with Darcy’s. “Who do you think is the bad guy?”

She shrugged. “Beats me,” the astrophysicist opened her Budweiser, “for all we know, it could be a demon, an alien, a god - a witch, at this point.” 

“A witch?” Daisy chuckled, and the girl who she’d awoken by light kisses to her bare shoulder this morning shot her a glance that she knew all too well - she loved it, along with the way her nose perked up whenever she had a theory. 

“I wouldn’t put anything past the realm of possibility,” she said, and the former agent nodded, raising her can as if to cheer, when the very metal in her hand began glowing reddish - as though its edges had been glitching like a computer program. 

She looked at Darcy, who spat out a small chunk of her donut - also glitching. 

Darcy reached for her hand, and instinctively, Daisy jumped from her chair and wrapped her arms around her, pulling her to the white-painted wall, far away from anything that might disappear or explode into their faces, protecting her with her own body. 

The entire room began glitching before their eyes as a wave of scarlet began swallowing it; spreading like a drop of water on a kitchen towel, it ate away at furniture and walls alike, reaching them in heartbeats. She pressed Darcy into her chest, arms wrapped around her like a cocoon. 

The next time she opened her eyes, the living room in which they were having breakfast moments ago had been turned into a kitchen - there’d been a red brick wall instead of a white one, wooden shelves with numerous spices atop of it; a kitchen island of black marble, paired with black bar stools and simple black chandeliers that hung from the ceiling. 

The world around them had changed in a heartbeat. 

“I knew it wouldn’t hurt - knew I wouldn’t feel anything,” Darcy said, holding her hand near Daisy’s cheek, “but I couldn’t help myself when the memories of that numbness and emptiness I got from the last wave of her energy.” 

Daisy loosened her grip, seeing Darcy’s new outfit - black skinny jeans and a red and black plaid shirt, paired with beautiful curls in her dark hair and a dark shade of red on her lips. 

“I know,” she replied only, because she was ready to feel it herself, which is why she held onto her as hard as she did - if she was going into silence and darkness despite the silencers, then let the last thing she feels be her; her touch, her warmth, her scent.

Her heart still raced as she realized Darcy put her hand on her cheek, softness and comfort radiating from where skin met skin. She ran her thumb near her eye - wiping away a tear she didn’t even know she’d let slip. “I felt the same,” she said knowingly, as though Daisy had been thinking aloud; for all she knew, she could’ve been. 

“I wanted it to be you too, Johnson.” 

Daisy’s shoulders relaxed, her breaths deep and sending calm down her spine and into her stomach, when Darcy stood on her toes. Slowly and gently, she leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to her lips, brushing against them the way a shooting star brushes against the night sky - with intensity and beauty entwined, sparks trailing afterwards.

The tension dispersed from her muscles as though it’d been ashes on the wind under her loving touch; Daisy’s stole away a kiss of her own, her heart fluttering in response as she put her arm around the doctor’s waist and pulled her closer in, reveling in the softness of her lips and the small grin that curled them upwards. 

“Now, that was a blast from the past,” Darcy said, and the former hacker chuckled; she enjoyed every second of it, and noticing the glint of tears in her eyes, she’d realized Darcy did, too. 

“Speaking of the past,” she said, putting her hands on her hips and looking at the renovated home - had she not been terrified moments ago, she would’ve been impressed beyond words at the way things changed and shifted; right now, the only thing she’d been is lucky to have Darcy at her side. 

“What year are we in now?” 

Darcy took a look at her outfit, and then at Daisy’s hair. “Late 2010s,” she said, and Daisy must’ve frowned because the astrophysicist stuck out her pointer finger as if to say wait as she reached for a little mirror that now hung on the wall. 

Her hair had changed, and she’d known this style too well; it fell barely past her shoulders in soft curls, the brown color contrasted with honey-colored highlights at the end. 

Memories began flashing back: the Secret Warriors, Yoyo and Joey, Lincoln -

The last time she wore this had been when she lost - 

Darcy seemed to realize, too, so she took her hand. “Come on,” she said, “I wanna see the rest of the place; you gotta give it to her, for someone who keeps emotional support hostages, Wanda sure does have a knack for style and fashion.” 

Daisy’s heart softened and a laugh escaped her. “She sure does.” 

She accepted Darcy’s laid-out hand; when they intertwined their fingers, a feeling tucked deep inside Daisy’s chest, like a small flicker of light she hid from the darkness of her world, had awoken and it made holding her hand in her own feel like the pieces of a beautiful puzzle had finally fit together. 

They hadn’t taken more than two steps before a loud buzzing erupted in their ears, filling each curve of the ear with throbbing and nauseating static. Was it Wanda’s power? 

She couldn’t think, couldn’t function from the disorienting pain; until a voice spoke, clear as day. 

“Darcy?” 

They locked eyes, and the voice that rang inside their skulls repeated the question. 

“Darcy,” an excited, male voice said, “Can you hear me?” 

Recognition shone in her eyes, silvery tears rimming her sapphire eyes. “Jimmy,” she spilled over barely open lips, both a question and a hope, “oh god, I’ve never been so glad to hear your voice.” 

Jimmy laughed, a heart-felt chuckle. “It’s nice to hear from you, too.” 

Darcy reached for her hand again, and Daisy gladly accepted it. The doctor smiled again, shaking her head in disbelief. “How did you get through to us?” 

A female voice replied, “We had some help from old friends,” she said. 

“Hello, Daisy. I’m Captain Maria Rambeau from S.W.O.R.D.” 

Tears of relief spilled from Darcy’s eyes. “It’s nice to meet you, Captain” Daisy said, “I just wish the circumstances were somewhat better.” 

Maria Rambeau laughed, and it’d been a beautiful chuckle. “Me too. Somebody wants to speak to you, by the way.” 

Daisy nodded, even though Maria or whoever this person was couldn’t see it; then she heard the familiar voice. “Alya told me to say hi to her auntie”

“Simmons,” her sister’s name spilled over her lips, tears blurring her vision. “Oh god, it’s so nice to hear your voice. How are you? How’s Fitz -” 

“We wanted to ask you the same,” he replied, that Scottish accent sweeter than honey, a balm to her soul. “Seeing as you two are the ones in a different dimension, you know.” 

Daisy snorted. They’d all made it - 

“We discovered something,” Jemma announced; 

“A possible exit point,” Fitz finished. 

Monica took on the role of explaining afterwards, “The Hex is shaped like its namesake, a regular hexagon,” as she spoke, Darcy pointed her finger to herself and mouthed, The name was my idea , to which Daisy raised her thumb. A good one , she responded. 

“Meaning that all six sides are equal. Now, Fitz and Simmons realized that, if we weaken one side - say the west wing of the anomaly’s border wall - then a weak spot should occur on its parallel side as well, the east wing in this case.” 

Darcy’s grip on Daisy’s hand tightened. “So if something was to hit one wall…” Johnson spoke, and Rambeau finished. “It would give you a door into the real world on the opposite wall.” 

“I assume you have a plan as well,” the astrophysicist said, “for us to go through the wall - the levels of radiation are rewriting blood cells like they did to Monica. We both already passed once.” 

“We do, actually,” Jimmy said, “and it’ll be big and loud and distracting enough for the two of you to take the chance and get the hell out of there.” 

Silver rimmed Darcy’s eyes. “I don’t know what to say.” 

“Captain Rambeau is one hell of a pilot - I never knew you could cross the Atlantic so fast. I’m still spinning,” Jimmy spoke instead and laughter echoed on both sides. 

*

They had a plan, they had a date, and they had one hell of a gamble regarding the execution of said plan on said date. 

Daisy was zipping up her jacket - thanking whatever lizard ruled the heavens that leather jackets with lapels were back in fashion - when she noticed Darcy standing at the threshold of her bedroom door. 

She noticed it before the astrophysicist even spoke, noticed it when the grip of her gentle hand tightened on the elbow of the other arm; Daisy was familiar with the stance she’d take whenever something was bothering her. 

“What’s wrong?” she unzipped her jacket while asking - exploring the exit could wait until tomorrow. 

“I want to talk about that night,” she said with her voice thin, and Daisy’s heart skipped a beat,
“We’re getting out of here tomorrow, and when we get back into the normal world... I know what I want to do, Daisy.” 

“And you need to know if I want the same,” she said, and Darcy nodded. 

Of course she did . For fuck’s sake, she wanted it bad enough to enter a different reality without backup - and yet, she found her stomach twisting at the thought of reopening an old wound. 

She took off her jacket, leaving it across one of the faux leather kitchen chairs. 

Darcy still stood at the threshold, her knuckles white as she held onto her arm; it was only when the girl who drove her van down the highway like it’s the last day of their lives each time she sat behind the steering wheel laid out her hand before the scientist, that she released her grip. 

Sliding her hand atop of Daisy’s felt as natural as breathing itself did; it’d been as though each curve of the smooth skin in her hand fit her own perfectly, pieces of a puzzle put together at last.

She led her to the sofa, and with each step, Darcy’s breath ran shorter. 

They’d had this conversation once before, after a long night of drinking too much for two hearts that were wounded beforehand by the cold hand of death - one had lost her mother and the other hand lost her boyfriend. 

It only took one wrong sentence to ruin it all - to ruin the chance for seeing the light at the end of the tunnel both of them had found themselves stuck in for far too long, and ever since, Darcy found herself with ideas of how things could’ve gone differently if only she hadn’t said it, running through her mind at least once per day. 

As soon as they sat down, facing each other, Daisy took the scientist’s hands into her own before she first spoke. “I do,” her voice sounded determined, despite the uneasiness in her stomach. 

“Tomorrow, when we get out and then get the hell away from all of this, I want to start over with you - just the two of us, and the world at our feet.” 

It's been eating away at her for all these years - perhaps that’d been the reason these words came as naturally as they did. Despite her hands trembling as she remembered that night, remembered Darcy’s broken heart and the tears streaming down her cheeks as she ran after Daisy, she continued. 

“I’ve thought about that night so many times that I lost count. 

I thought about it when I got stranded in a dystopian future in which my powers ripped the planet apart - thought about it when I searched for your name on the list of those lucky enough to have boarded the bunkers before everything went to hell, and cried myself to sleep when I didn’t find it.” 

As tears filled her eyes, her hands clutched onto Darcy’s as memories of the panic and the heartbreak returned, as though to savour every millimeter of her skin to remind her she was here - alive and before her. 

“I thought about it when I destroyed the Confederation’s ship - knowing that the blast would probably kill me as well, when it launched me into space. And I thought to myself, just for a second, that it was what I deserved for breaking your heart.” 

“Daisy…” her voice broke as the name spilled over her lips like a prayer, hand immediately reaching for the tears that kept on streaming endlessly. 

“You told me you loved me that night,” she said, “and you told me to run away with you like we wanted to all those years ago - told me that we could still move south and get away from all the pain and loss and suffering, and I…” 

Darcy’s heart ached as she wept along with her. “I shut you out. I ran away from you that night.” 

“Daisy,” she said, wiping her own tears with one hand and hers with the other, seeing the pain in her warm eyes when they glanced at her, “it’s okay - really. You don’t have to keep going further.” 

Every heartstring told her what she already knew; that night had hurt Daisy as much as it did her; if not even worse. 

“I have to,” she said, gasping for air. She took a few deep breaths, Darcy holding her hands for each of them, and continued. “I have to, because I’ve been keeping it so long that it will choke me if I don’t say it out loud right here and now.” 

“I ran away that night because when you told me you loved me, I was afraid you’d die soon, because everyone I love dies - Tripp, my mom, Lincoln, Coulson and Fitz and May… They all died, and I was at the epicenter of each of their deaths.”

How her two shoulders carried so much sorrow and loss, and yet walked so graciously and brightly each day was beyond Darcy’s knowledge. 

“I’d just lost Lincoln. Months before that, I watched Tripp die. I was barely holding on as it is, Darcy,  and the second you said you loved me… I already saw myself burying another loved one.” 

“One of the agents that found me as a baby told Coulson and May something they never thought I’d heard: wherever she goes, death follows, and he wasn’t wrong, you know?” 

Darcy’s heart shattered. 

“It was stupid. It was irrational and stupid and I cursed at myself so many times for doing it, but at the time, I thought that being around me would get your life in danger, and to lose you…” 

What she was willing to do, read on her face as clear as day. Darcy cursed silently. 

Seeing her beautiful face brokenhearted and reading the pain in each tear she shed broke something within Darcy - something she thought she herself had mended long ago.

Gently, she wiped away the last of the tears and the sweat that was sliding down her temples and forehead. With enough love to fill an ocean, she put her hands on Daisy’s cheeks, pulling her closer. 

She leaned her forehead on her own. “You won’t lose me.” 

That wasn’t a promise; it was a threat. Not to her, who’d been broken and shattered by fearing it alone, but to anyone who dared separate them now. 

“You’ll never lose me again. I’ve got plenty of fights in me too, you know? It takes some real ass strength to get a doctorate in astrophysics, don’t let my title fool you.” 

Daisy chuckled. 

“I’m serious!”, she exclaimed, and another chuckle followed, quickly becoming Darcy Lewis’s favorite sound in the universe. “Nah baby, you aren’t getting rid of me anymore.” 

Daisy’s grin was wide and beautiful before she stole a kiss away from her beloved; it only grew both wider and even more beautiful when she looked at her again. “Good,” she said, “because you owe me a trip and some new memories.” 

“I’ll give you far more than that,” Darcy teased and kissed her again. 

For the first time in years, Daisy Johnson’s shoulders felt light; and for a moment - a tiny, stolen moment, she allowed herself to hope.

Worrying about the exit strategy could wait until tomorrow.

She’d seen the perimeter before and already became familiar with it on her first day so that, and all the worries and doubts and fears, could wait until tomorrow, because tonight, Daisy Johnson had an old promise to fulfill. 

She began at the lips she dreamt of for so long that night, and around the first breaths of dawn, ended in places that are better left unspoken of.