89. Caught in a Trap – ft. Daisy Johnson/Melinda May, + Coulson

"It's quiet," Daisy said as they approached the main control room. May shook her head, gun up.

"Too quiet. We should have run into someone by now."

"Agreed."

From their comms., Coulson spoke, "Just in, there's some kind of gas leak. Fitzsimmons are trying to figure out what it is before you go in. Wait."

"Gas leak?" May frowned. "If we go in, will we be blown up?"

Daisy went over to the door, crouching down slowly, then kneeling, putting her face to the bottom of the door, sniffing… "May, get back!" She scrambled to a stand, wheezing, pushing up the mouth of her tac-suit, grabbing May's wrist. "We have to go! It's a trap!"

"Daisy-" the doors banged open, a line of darts flying out of a cloud of red fog, hitting them each in the thighs multiple times. May shot into the cloud, stumbling, before the fog tumbled over them, eyes watering as she dropped to her knees.

"May, Daisy! What's going on in there?!" Coulson shouted, before the sedatives in the darts took effect, the smog only encouraging her into the dark.

When May awoke, she was duct-taped to something beeping. As she pushed the fuzz from her brain, she realised what that something was.

"Daisy? Daisy-" she tried to look around, catching sight of her groggy colleague over the top of the bomb. "Daisy, are you alright?"

"May?" She questioned, wincing, "What's that beeping?"

"Daisy, we're strapped to a bomb. Take an inventory." May snapped, trying to figure out if they had her knives – her guns and comms. were missing, as well as her outer jacket, leaving her in a tank-top. She and Daisy had only been there by chance – the agents Coulson had wanted to do it came down with the flu. It was supposed to be easy, so she'd not worn her jumpsuit, but as they progressed further into the complex, it had steadily become worse and worse, until that dead silence from their enemies. "What have you got on you?" She questioned the Inhuman, who conveniently hadn't been using her powers for the last few months because of her guilt over the Hive debacle.

"Nothing," she got out, groaning. "One camera in the corner, along with a Boss Douchebag." May couldn't see them, but she trusted Daisy as she looked over her side of the room. Empty of everything but the walls. Stretching her neck saw a glimpse of what could have been the door, before her eyes completely failed her, causing her head to ache.

"You know, when I heard that SHIELD was coming, I expected…bigger," 'Boss Douchebag' said idly, tracing around the rim of what sounded like a wine glass – half full. "Or, I at least expected an Inhuman. They're quite popular these days."

"What do you want?" May asked, acting as the senior agent in this endeavour.

"Oh, nothing, except…I want to see if you're Inhumans. As I said, they're quite popular – among my people, too. If either of you are Inhuman, you'll fetch a pretty price on the market after I turn you to my way of thinking, and if you're not, well…two less SHIELD agents." She sounded amused. May didn't really care about anything except getting out of here alive, and – more importantly – making sure she didn't discover Daisy's powers. "That bomb is a safety measure. Don't worry – it won't go off unless I want it to. Now…"

High heels clicked on the floor, and Daisy's breath hitched.

"This, I got off someone from the black market – they said it could cause you to become Inhuman by just touching it. Let's see if that works, yes? I think the older one should go first – maybe then, you, sweetheart, will see the error of your ways by joining SHIELD, if you turn out to get powers." The woman came around into May's view. She was surprisingly young, with dark ginger hair and a clear aesthetic of crimson and grey. In her gloved hand was a crumbling Terrigen crystal.

May's heartbeat picked up.

The woman came close, bringing the crystal close to her skin, before brushing it down her arm, dust scattering across her skin. May waited for the pain, for the rock to form over her skin…

But it never came.

The woman seemed to realise something was wrong at that point, narrowing her eyes before starting to fume, throwing the crystal at the opposite wall.

"Hunt him down! Get that bastard who would take half a million off my hands!" She screamed at the camera, before slamming a button on top of the bomb, stalking out of the door without another word. May swallowed, before twisting her head around to see a bright red countdown.

"Thirty minutes." That would be plenty of time for Coulson to get them out, but he had no idea where they were, what kind of pressure they were under. He could be days. "Daisy, I'm sorry."

"No, don't be. This is our job." But Daisy's hand slipped into her own, catching her off-guard. "If Coulson doesn't get here-"

"Don't say it," May snapped, glaring at the wall in front of her. "I know what you're going to say. Don't."

"I wasn't going to…confess my eternal love for you or anything," her tone disagreed, and May had to roll her eyes before she continued, "Just, if Coulson doesn't get here in time, we'll be missing our holiday. I was looking forward to Belgium."

"Me too," May admitted. "I was on a mission there once. It didn't take long, and after, Maria Hill and I went to this courtyard in Bruge and got drunk. We woke up the next day in a police station covered in chocolate sauce."

Daisy let out an unexpected laugh, "Chocolate sauce? Really?"

"Don't tell Maria I mentioned it. She'd tell you about the time we were in Budapest after the clean-up of a mission by STRIKE Team Delta mission."

"That's Black Widow and Hawkeye, yeah?"

May nodded. "Yes. Don't ask what happened."

"What happened?" May could sense the grin. "C'mon, Melinda."

"No."

"May…"

"…there was a football match going on, the World Cup, and-"

Ten minutes later, Coulson turned off the bomb and didn't even ask why Daisy was practically hysteric with laughter.