For five days Phil Coulson tries to make sense of it, for five nights he has to look Daisy in the eyes and lie. She had to go away for awhile.

Her phone rings for thirteen hours, then the battery dies and it's straight to voicemail. Maria Hill tracks it down to the side of a road outside Pocatello, Idaho, but no one remembers a tiny Asian woman on a grey sedan from Arizona. No one, in Arizona, has seen Melinda May since she moved out six months ago.

Phil Coulson cannot make sense of it. The quiet, reserved, insightful woman he trusts with his daughter disappeared. Abducted, they think. But after five days of no clues it feels more like vanished. And he cannot make sense of it, or of the panic keeping him up all night.

They try to find the car but it doesn't appear on any security camera footage in town after that first morning, nor in any gas station between there and Pocatello, Idaho.

They dig into her backstory and nothing stands out, no alarm rings, and none of her old acquaintances knows anything.

She changed after her husband died.

She was always quiet.

They were a happy couple. No kids, just… them.

Everybody loved Melinda, of course. Andrew, her husband, poor soul… he adored her.

He was a shrink.

She was always an early bird, up at sunrise for her tai chi, but after the car crash she wouldn't even get out of bed. For awhile.

No, we haven't heard from her in months.

Mr Garner? Andrew's tomb is in town, yes. No, she hasn't visited since.

It was an accident. She was driving.

Maria Hill sighs and slams the report shut on her desk. "It seems to me the only person really hating Melinda May, is your precious Melinda May," she concludes.

At his own desk opposite hers, Phil Coulson keeps silent.

He's sure Daisy can feel his distress, even if he tries to act like everything is normal when he's around her. But she's been having nightmares the past couple of nights and Phil is quite certain it's all about Melinda May.

"Are you sure she hasn't run away with a younger handsome guy, maybe?" suggests Rosalind Price.

Phil snorts in the phone, almost indignant: "She has no boyfriend. And no. I mean yes, I'm sure," he corrects himself.

"Phil."

"I'm sure," he protests. He doesn't tell her it's more of a hope than a certainty, because he doesn't really know much about Melinda May (or the current state of her love life) and he regrets it now. Sure she is beautiful… she probably had plenty of suitors, but… He grits his teeth. "She wouldn't leave without warning, she wouldn't leave Daisy..." He stops himself before his voice raises further, his blood pressure already skyrocketing.

He's making it personal, like disappearing before he has the decency to get curious about his daughter's nanny is a terrible rudeness on her part. He remembers the feeling of confusion the day they called him from kindergarten to pick up Daisy because Melinda hadn't showed up like she'd done the past six weeks. Bemusement at first, bewilderment, and worry at last. She was reserved, he's assumed, withdrawn, she valued her personal space, she wasn't nosy, she was good with Daisy, and he's forgotten to look beyond the cool detachment and the silence because it was convenient. Because he was distracted.

"I'm sorry we have to cancel the reservation."

"It's ok, I understand," Rosalind says in a soft voice "Just, Phil, please… try not to stress over this more than you already are, you need some rest, look at the matter with a fresh mind in the morning."

Sleep… He needs to find Melinda May first. "Yeah."

The grey sedan, her abandoned phone, her house as it was, her bank account untouched… If she voluntarily disappeared why stage it like an abduction? It doesn't add up.

He can't really sleep, for days, he keeps going over every mundane detail, information, fact or impression they were able to collect, mixing them with his own personal experience of her. Which, it turns out, is quite limited. (He only has himself to blame). The truth is only one person was really paying attention to Melinda May beyond pleasantries these days.

"Has she ever told you she wanted to go away? Or was she ever worried she had to leave at some point?" Doctor Weaver asks in a gentle voice observing Daisy as she builds a lego miniature house.

It's hard to make an interrogation as casual as possible, but he's not going to traumatize his daughter, so he set up his phone to record the conversation in his living room instead of the police station. The Special Agent they sent from the FBI had no complaints about it as long as he was allowed to listen.

"She never said that. But she is always so sad."

"Sad?" Phil prompts.

"She never smiles."

"Have you ever met any of her friends?"

Daisy ponders the question for a few seconds, then answers: "No. Is she sad cause she has no friends? Dad can be her friend! Right, Dad? You can be her friend!"

Phil has to chuckle, reassuring his overly eager daughter.

"Has she ever told you about other… people? Bad people?" Doctor Weaver clarifies.

"No. Is she in trouble?"

"Of course not."

Daisy goes back to assembling her lego village, but from his spot on the sofa beside her Phil can see the little cogs spinning in her head. "Mom says I can move mountains if I want," Daisy reveals at last, "I will move mountains if bad people hurt her."

Doctor Weaver smiles softly at his little girl's brave statement and his heart aches.

Phil Coulson's mission (now more than ever) is to find Melinda May. And Phil Coulson's greatest fear at the moment is to only find Melinda May's body.

"Have you ever seen her fight with someone? On the phone maybe?"

"Only bricks."

"Bricks?" It's not the answer Doctor Weaver was expecting, clearly, she throws him a look of confusion and he shrugs. All he knows is she was a self defence trainer and did tai chi back in Arizona, but when and where Daisy could have witnessed Melinda May breaking bricks is anyone guess. (And that's concerning, regardless).

"Yeah, like rocks, mountains," Daisy explains casually, her attention clearly on the more important task of finding the right block for the little house chimney. "She can cut mountains in half," she adds nodding "If she wants. She's gonna teach me, too, one day."

Melinda May is a soldier, he realizes then. She's not always been one and he's not sure when and why but something hardened in her, coiled around her spine, made her one. He can understand it now, clearly see it in the way she discreetly evaluated ways out of new spaces, silently observed details, tensed at accidental touches, her instinct kicking in because, for her, contact is always violent. Until Daisy found her and spun her world on its axis.

Phil Coulson at least is sure of one thing: Melinda May wouldn't go down without a fight.

The fifth day a black Harley Davidson stops in front of Daisy's school seven minutes before class is over.

Phil Coulson is leaning on his car across the street, waiting for his child, and almost gets run over as he scrambles to get to the tiny figure dressed in black getting off that bike. "May!"

Melinda May turns to face him and in the few seconds that he needs to reach her he can see her go from startled to tensed to crimped.

"May!" he calls again stopping himself a few inches from just grabbing her by the shoulders. "What happened to you?"

She is wearing make up, a little more than usual to cover the shadow of a nasty bruise on her left jaw and a few scratches, but it can't do much for the gash on her forehead just above her left eye, and who knows what she's hiding under the aviator sunglasses and the black leather jacket and pants. "Nothing," she dismisses him.

"What? Are you ok? Where have you been?" he presses, confused, unable to keep his hands to himself. (He wants to touch her, make sure she is real, safe, alive… But the tension in her neck is a clear warning and his hands just hover awkwardly in the space between them).

Melinda May fists her hands at her sides. "I'm sorry," she whispers "I'm just here to say goodbye."

"What?" Phil mentally slaps himself for sounding like a broken record "No, you- You disappear for five days and come back battered… I need to know what happened."

Other parents are gathering around to retrieve their kids and are (more or less subtly) staring at them. Melinda purses her lips. "You should see the other guy," she deadpans.

"This is not funny."

"I'm sorry, I can't say, Phil- I…" she stammers on his name, like she's not used to say it out loud. "I'm just here to say goodbye," she repeats, and there's a rather sharp edge to it, something resembling her jawline (or a knife in his guts).

Phil Coulson wants nothing more than to stop time, right then and there, to take a breath and take her hand, because he finally has Melinda May, but she is telling him she's going to leave for good. And somehow the thought is unbearable.

"No, you…" he stumbles on words as well till he finds some footing on a bubbling rage: "You're fooling yourself if you think i'm gonna let you anywhere near Daisy untill I know more, and your story better be convincing!"

"Not here," she hisses, tilting her head towards their audience.

"Oh yes, here, now!" he snaps.

Melinda May loses her composure then, she presses her lips together and her hands come up to his chest. But she only brushes at his lapels with her fingertips in what he thinks is a mixture of self defense and plea. "Phil, I-"

"Mom!"

And then he's watching Melinda May's dark silky hair fly over her shoulders as she spins around to Daisy's voice without missing a beat. When just a few months earlier she wouldn't even have raised her eyes at the call now it's one fluid motion to drop to one knee and catch his daughter mid-air.

"Mom! You're back!"

Daisy clutches at her as tight as she can, tiny fingers digging into black leather, legs circling her waist and Phil thinks he sees Melinda May wince just a little. Broken ribs, he deduces. What have you been up to, May?

The other parents find their children and it seems their little altercation is forgotten. (Only a few still hang by the gates, chitchatting, maybe waiting for a resolution he, himself, cannot foresee).

"Does it hurt?" Daisy inspects Melinda May's forehead wound with exaggerated apprehension.

The woman shakes her head, rubbing the tip of her nose against Daisy's cheek in the process, making her giggle, and it feels like another punch to his guts because in months she's been around Daisy he's never witnessed her showing unrestrained affection, it's puzzling, it's all out, it's definitely once in a lifetime. She's going to leave. She's going to leave then, he thinks with a pang of regret.

"Nothing a kiss can't cure."

His daughter gently peppers her face with noisy kisses then, giggling and making faces when Melinda sticks out the tip of her tongue and licks her playfully on the nose.

"Better?"

"Much better."

"I made new drawings! Wanna see?"

"Of course."

"They're at home."

Phil Coulson doesn't know what to do with himself. He just stares at the two of them transfixed, knitting his brow, realizing for the first time just how high the stakes are.

Interlude V

Daisy adores her father. To her, Phil Coulson is the kindest and the strongest man in the world (he can lift her up with just one arm!). Whenever she's moody his soothing voice can always cheer her up, he just takes her in his arms and she is safe. (And he knows all the princesses stories!) Her father's smile could make anyone feel better.

She is ever so puzzled when Melinda May seems to stubbornly resist his spell. She thinks maybe sadness is an illness she doesn't have a cure for, and she's afraid even Phil Coulson could catch it.

VI

"Why do you look so sad?"

"I'm not sad," answers Melinda May as neutrally as always.

"But you don't look happy to be back?" counters Daisy.

Phil Coulson should knock on the bedroom doorframe and tell them dinner is ready, but Daisy is sitting on her bed inside the circle of the woman's legs, struggling to put her arm in the pajamas' right sleeve while Melinda braids her still wet hair, and somehow it's a picture he doesn't have the heart to break.

Melinda May is not sad, at least not on the surface. Phil Coulson cannot decide if Daisy simply doesn't have the words to describe her perfectly composed non expression or the little girl is seeing that something that still eludes him.

"It's… My head still hurts a little, that's all."

He watches Daisy turn around and stand up on the bed, arms flying at the woman's shoulders to seek balance. "Aren't my kisses enough? Should we ask Dad to make it better?" He is an over forty male police officer, but Phil Coulson feels his cheeks burn bright at that.

"I'll be alright."

"Does this hurt too?" From that angle Phil cannot see the spot on Melinda's chest his daughter is pointing at, but he imagines, having bathed together, that she's seen other injuries now hidden by the bathrobe, and his blood boils. They need to talk, at length (but not in front of his little girl).

Melinda May shakes her head and Daisy drops back in front of her, sitting on her heels between the woman's legs, tiny fists on her thighs, pouty lips and squinty eyes in conspiratory fashion. "Maybe we can have dessert tonight."

Phil Coulson chuckles then from his spot leaning on the doorframe, regretfully breaking the intimacy. "Maybe," he grants, "But dinner first."

Putting Daisy to bed is harder than any other night. But in the end Phil Coulson finally gets to have Melinda May sitting on a barstool by the island in his kitchen, alone. The grey Blondie tank top she had underneath the leather jacket is finally revealing a constellation of bruises and patched up cuts and burns on her upper arms, shoulders, and back, disappearing under the fabric on her chest. Without makeup on, he can see the bruise on her jaw too is somewhat fading into a bluish green, which tells him it's at least a few days old. What he still doesn't know is: "Who did this?"

"I didn't ask. I punched back," she delivers without even blinking.

"Ok, rambo," he scoffs, "now tell me how you disappeared for five days, punched your way back and from where." She sighs. "Now, preferably, before I drag you to the station and listen as you tell everything to the feds."

She snaps her head up at that. "You called the FBI?"

"Of course, I had to, you disappeared! For days… Your phone was found in Idaho, May, I had to."

"I don't trust the FBI."

"I don't give a damn," he replies "Convince me to still trust you with my daughter's care."

Melinda May looks back at him with something akin hurt that has nothing to do with cuts and bruises, and somehow it makes him uncomfortable (in that sort of way public displays of affection do). Her shoulders subtly drop, her lips part slightly. And that's how he knows he won't like her truth any better than her silence.

Not really knowing why he can't look her in the eyes then he gets busy checking her injuries. He realizes soon enough she should see a doctor, but for now his first aid kit will have to do.

She lets him fuss about her, maybe sensing that he needs something more tangible than words to root him. It seems to suit her too, because when she eventually starts talking about Eva Belyakov and her daughter Katya she feels million miles away.

She tells him Eva came to her classes needing to get stronger to protect herself from a violent boyfriend. Gritting her teeth against the sting of rubbing alcohol and her own memories, she tells him how she trained her, and how three months later she still ended up at her door, battered and bruised, with her little girl and one bag. So she did what she felt was right and helped them disappear. What she didn't know at the time was that Eva's boyfriend was Anton Ivanov, reclusive industrialist with interests all over the globe (and a small dedicated personal army he called his Watchdogs at his disposal, like any respectable Bratva leader).

"So he kidnapped you to know where Eva is hiding," Phil guesses, carefully dabbing at the gash on her forehead with a glue soaked swab and internally mapping a way to get the man behind bars.

"No," Melinda May hisses "Eva was found dead with her little girl in an FBI safehouse two weeks later." Phil pauses, searching her eyes, but Melinda is fixing some point in front of her seeing nothing but her own guilt. "A month after that Andrew was gone, too."

He takes a second to collect himself and the growing impression he's dealing with something bigger than even the FBI agent they sent can handle.

"Not an accident."

"No. Another car hitting our car till it sent us crashing off road," she confirms flatly. "I should have died that night."

"May-"

"I waited, for months, for them to come and finish the job. But it never happened." After the car crash she wouldn't even get out of bed. For awhile, he remembers. "So I put as many miles as possible between me and everyone I still cared about. I didn't know anyone here, I didn't want to put anyone at risk again, I- I never meant to... get attached... to anyone," she admits softly.

"Till Daisy roped you in," he quietly adds.

Her eyes well up then, but her voice never falters: "That was stupidly selfish of me."

"You're too hard on yourself, you know that?"

Melinda May thins her lips and he holds his breath.

"They had footage of Daisy," she says, breathy, "in kindergarten, at the park, at home… Footage of you on patrol..."

"May-"

"I'm just doing what needs to be done." Her goodbyes echo in his ears.

"What's your plan, May?"

She hesitates.

"Are you going to disappear? Is that it? You're moving again? Hoping Ivanov won't find you?" No, he reads that in her eyes, that's not it. That would never break the loop, that wouldn't keep Daisy out of danger, and she'd still be constantly watching her back for Ivanov's Watchdogs. No. Melinda May is not getting out of dodge this time, and she sure as hell is not going to go down without a fight. "It's a suicide mission..." he guesses.

She sighs, shaking her head. "My plan is to survive," she argues "but, in case it goes south..."

"You are here to say goodbye," he concludes for her in a whisper.

After that, everything happens so fast he doesn't really have time to catch his breath.

They hear the glass breaking as the power goes out. It's only a second before she's pushing him out of the way and throwing a kitchen knife at a shadow he hadn't even sensed. It hits mark in the intruder's right arm and his weapon drops to the floor with a metallic thud. In one single motion Melinda May grabs the stool she was sitting on and knocks the man down before even a yelp gets past his lips.

Phil furrows his brow, his brain still trying to catch up with reality.

Something Melinda May doesn't seem to need as much, she has it all figured out: "Daisy," she breathes, her broken ribs cutting the air in her lungs.

And Phil Coulson steps out of his shock to leap over the unconscious body bleeding out on his kitchen's floor and run down the hall, to his daughter's room.

He's not halfway to her door that a punch to the stomach folds him to the ground. But Daisy, is all he can think.

He doesn't know from where and how many men slipped into his house just like that, but the irrational panic rising at knowing his daughter is in imminent danger bounces him right back on his feet at the click of a cocked gun.

Daisy... He sucks his breath in, lets instinct take over, and concentrates on shapes and solid flesh and bones and the heat of a living punching bag in the dark.

Daisy. He can just see her door a few steps ahead, slightly ajar. (It shouldn't be, it wasn't open when he left her asleep earlier…)

The man is taller than him, probably professionally trained, and strong. Phil lands a punch to his jaw and he merely grunts, but doesn't let go of the gun.

And pulls the trigger.

It's in that hot flash of light that (beside his whole life) Phil sees Melinda May's cat like shadow sliding past them down the hall. A goddam ninja, his brain supplies, still stunned. Then the bullet lodges itself somewhere in his leather couch and a swing hits him square in the lower back.

With the gunfire still ringing in his ears and a sharp crippling white pain bringing him to his knees, Phil Coulson resolves to burying punches in his attacker's guts without really aiming. Hitting, just hitting and being hit in return, over and over, till he can barely breathe.

If he's fighting me he's not getting to Daisy, he vaguely plans. His face is probably a mask of blood when he can finally turn around and use the man's arm and push to pull him above his shoulder, landing him on his back at his feet, his boot on his chest (on what feels like a bulletproof vest), and finally gets a hold of the gun to knock him unconscious. They came prepared for a gunfight, he notes (and found hand to hand combat).

Daisy. He straightens up and doesn't quite register Melinda May ducking under a third man's punch right next to him, he skirts just in time, surprised when her kick sends him piling up on his own opponent against the wall. Score.

Then the floorboard creaks and they both know someone else is in Daisy's room.

Melinda runs in first, he follows, and for half a second there everyone stands still. Melinda, the fourth man on the other side of Daisy's bed, and Phil, still on the threshold.

Because the little girl is awake, sitting up in bed and rubbing her eyes to adjust to the darkness.

It's short lived: there's the hiss of a switchblade and Melinda May flying over the bed (with only two fingers on the covers) to kick the knife off the man's hand. It hits the wall and slides down while Phil lunges at him.

He grabs him at the waist, throws him off balance, and for a while they struggle to get the upper hand, thrashing and hitting uncoordinatedly, rolling on the floor beside the bed to grab at the blade that slipped underneath. And in the back of his mind he is aware of something else happening in the room but the adrenaline rush (or maybe the well delivered headbutt he just got) is making his ears ring and his vision blurry.

He finally gets to render the thug unconscious by grabbing him by the hair and hitting his head to the floor repeatedly till he goes limp.

He gets to his feet a little unsteady, clearing his eyesight first to his daughter, now fully awake and standing on her bed wide eyed, and then to what she's all caught up in: the fight between the tiny shadow of a woman and one of the guys they'd left for dealt with in the hall.

And that's how Phil Coulson really gets to see what he could only glimpse at by the feeble street light spilling in from the slit in the curtains.

Melinda May disposes of her body like a ballerina, her hair flying around her shoulders with every sharp and perfect movement, every punch or kick or side step packed with an energy that keeps her balanced and controlled (in spite of her injuries), it's beautiful to watch and frightening altogether. She seems to move faster than her opponent, anticipating his moves and retaliating in the same step. She blocks a blow, ducks, uses the man's knee to climb on top of him and roll him to the floor while breaking his arm behind his back with a very chilling pop. That sends shivers down Phil's spine (and he's either terrified or he just fell a little bit in love, he can't be sure yet).

She gets to her feet breathing heavily and finally kicks the whining man unconscious.

Daisy makes little jumps on the bed throwing her hands up. "Yes!" she cheers with a comical, lasting, whistling S, and Phil Coulson finds himself huffing a laugh.

"We have to go," Melinda hisses, somewhat painfully. She has a split lip she didn't have before, Phil Coulson notices, his jaw dangerously slack in awe.

"There are four knocked down, unidentified, probably Russian mafia associated men in the house... Who just tried to kidnap my daughter... And maybe kill us," he unnecessarily points out, watching with growing concern as she busies herself around the room grabbing a few of Daisy's clothes from the chest drawer and shoving them into a Frozen themed small backpack. When she moves to pick Daisy up from her bed he cuts in front of her, lifts his toddler in his arms and sternly adds: "I need to call downtown, arrest them, inter-"

"I know this one," she interrupts him hitting the leg of the guy he fought last with the tip of her boot, "He was there, watching while I was being tortured, I nailed his friend's foot to the floor to escape. I'll tell you everything," she promises "but right now we have to get the hell out of here."

Daisy looks from one to the other, waiting for his reaction (maybe just to the explicit language like he usually does, or the general very unusual commotion), any trace of sleep promptly vanished. He can only hope she didn't catch the apprehension behind his words or the spite and the ill concealed fear in Melinda's voice.

He calls Maria Hill from the car as Melinda drives and Daisy nervously swings her legs on the child seat behind him. They painfully need a plan.

He doesn't like this plan. Even if it's his plan. He's surprised Fury is rolling with it. Even more astonished Maria is on board.

He's very not shocked Melinda May doesn't like any of it and it feels almost like a consolation. In all honesty, it feels like they're a team. They've probably been on the same page ever since the whole portrait mishap, maybe even before that, and the thought is soothing his nerves.

"So, just to be clear, we're doing this for the nanny?"

John Garrett, on the other hand, is an idiot. There's no other way to put it. A good cop, surely, but right now Phil Coulson cannot, in good conscience, pretend he likes the man.

Still, Fury didn't have many options on such short notice so they'll have to make do. And he's probably going to work better than most, with the amount of self confidence and brassy attitude he can bring about on any given day. If he knows John Garrett (and he's known John Garrett for a long time) he won't let the poor man get a word in to interrupt his never ending monologue about that time he did this or that. He'll be perfect to stall the FBI.

"We're doing this because it's the right thing to do," counters Nick Fury with all the patience he's left with. Opposite him, on the ragged up sofa where he's cleaning up their disassembled firearms, Phil grimaces. They are really doing this for the nanny. But he can't make the difference anymore.

"Ok, sure, I get everything, I mean..." stammers the idiot with his thick accent, blabbering on as he works on his own gear.

A chilly October dawn is lighting up the sky, but it's still dark in Fury's basement that they work with the lamp on. Phil's head throbs behind his eyes, his nose is probably broken and he's needed a stitch to close the cut on his brow from his boss' very not sensible nursing skills. But all things considered he's in good shape. For now. He'll have time to be sore and catch his breath later.

Maybe. Maybe not.

At least Daisy is safe, upstairs. The last time he checked, his daughter was nestled against Melinda May's side on the guest room's bed, one leg carelessly thrown across her middle and one little fist holding the sleeping woman's shirt.

They spent the night plotting, patching up off record informations from the four intruders in his house Maria Hill and John Garrett apprehended, and mixing them with what Melinda May had to tell.

The more he thinks about the hollow deepness in Melinda's eyes as she told him about Eva and Katya Belyakov or Ivanov's Book of Sins, the guiltier he feels. The more he discovers about what really happened in those five days she went missing (or the year before in Arizona), the less inclined he is to let justice in the hands of someone else. He can't forget the tiny Asian woman his daughter adores has gone to hell and back (she has the wounds to prove it, even if she's a beautiful badass iron fist ninja warrior), nor he can forgive.

Nick Fury lifts his only remaining eye on Phil, pointedly. "I ain't said lawful thing, I said right." Sometimes Phil thinks losing the eye made him psychic or something, which is probably why he's the boss, anyway.

"Yeah," Phil snorts "It's just… I feel bad about involving all of you in this, we're police officers, not vigilantes... We should- I just didn't know who to- I didn't want to-" he stutters, the right words eluding him once again.

"You don't want the mother of your child to get killed," offers Fury. "We get it."

Or bear the burden of crossing off Ivanov and his people, or going against the FBI on her own, he mentally adds (not that she'd confessed that to the police, but he figured). Instead She's not really Daisy's mother is what Phil decides to pinpoint, feeling the blush spread up his neck almost instantly.

Nick Fury has been his friend for decades before being his boss, he's known Daisy since he got her into his house, he knows exactly how things are. But he's heard the little girl talk about Melinda May as Mom once and he's taken it at face value. "Like you're not really Daisy's father, does it change anything?"

Phil just sighs, Melinda's out of the blue whispered question hanging in the back of his mind. Have you ever thought about what you'd do if Daisy's parents showed up and reclaimed her at some point? He hadn't. His world has never been shaken as much as tonight and he's not sure where the random thought came to her either, earlier, eyes dark and closed off just before slipping into the guest room for some rest. He had to answer something: One horror scenario at a time, ok. Thus confirming her they both felt this nightmare had no end.

Phil just sighs. This is not your war, she said when he asked her to rest a bit.

But they kidnapped her, tried to abduct his daughter and kill them, so he is making it his, even if only to alleviate a bit of her burden.

Besides, she's the only one he trusts with Daisy's safety after tonight. His daughter, in her quest for a mother, unintentionally also found herself the best bodyguard.

Maria Hill arrives with breakfast and a manila folder soon after. "Vic made a fuss, but she's got us hooked. Here's everything," she says unloading the folder among now empty styrofoam cups on the coffee table and getting comfortable beside Phil on the sofa with a donut.

"Sweet," comments Fury shuffling the papers toward Garrett. "Get to know the man," he orders.

John Garrett snickers from his corner. "So… we're really doing this."

This, is illegal, dangerous, and nothing sworn police officers should be trying anyway. But they are definitely doing it.

"Can't keep the FBI waiting."

They have a plan (it stands on a gamble but it's quite a solid one).

And Phil should know by now that nothing ever goes according to plan.