Disclaimer: All rights belong to Disney, Marvel, and all the men and women that created the Agents of SHIELD TV shows, and comics. I take no credit, and I do not mean to break any copyright rules. This is simply a work of fiction made for enjoyment. No money is being made.

Rating: T for dark themes, graphic violence, mentions of torture, drug abuse, supernatural violence, major character death, and minor language

Author's Note: I'm updating early because tomorrow I'm going on a Christmas break road trip and will be unavailable until the 29th or 30th. I hope you all have a good Christmas or whatever you guys celebrate, and if you live somewhere cold and snowy, stay warm and safe!

Chapter 9: Archives and Admissions

"Lower your hands. You're leaving your entire chest wide open." Melinda May walks around the inspects Daisy's position. "Not bad."

Daisy relaxes, wiping some sweat off her forehead. She had stayed up so late waiting for Robbie last night that she'd barely gotten any sleep. Now she's paying the price.

"You look exhausted," May observes. "Why don't we stop early today? You're not getting much out of this session."

Daisy reaches down and picks up her towel. "Thanks. I think I'll go down to the lab and see what FitzSimmons is doing."

"Good idea."

She showers and changes back into normal clothes, then heads to the science lab. The cold water had helped wake her up a little bit, but she could still do with some coffee. She brings two cups for Fitz and Simmons.

Simmons is working at a microscope, and she doesn't even bother looking up as Daisy sets a cup of the steaming beverage down near him. "Thank you, Daisy. And good morning."

"What are you working on?" Daisy asks, knowing full well she won't understand it.

"I'm researching the effect of different environments on the DNA of bacteria," the bio-chem major replies. She finally lifts her head. "It's fascinating!"

"I'm sure it is." Daisy thinks that kind of stuff is boring, but she pretends to be excited for her co-worker's sake.

Next is Fitz, who is sitting at the computer desk and tracking something. Daisy sets down the coffee and looks over his shoulder. "What are you doing?"

He watches for a moment longer then spins around on the chair and stands. "You have to come see this," he urges, weaving through the science lab tables and shelves to a white desk covered in a type of small handgun.

"You've invented firearms?"

Her sarcasm is lost on him. Fitz picks up the gun and shows her the chamber of bullets. They are tinier than normal bullets, and these ones look like plastic filled with something that's a navy blue color.

"I'm thinking of calling them night-night guns," he says. She can sense the excitement in his posture and tone. "They're kind of like tranquilizers, except different. Tranquilizers are depressants, and they work by calming down the central nervous system. The serum in my night-night guns spreads through the bloodstream and freezes body function temporarily - kind of like freezing someone in ice. It preserves them, so they're fine, but they can't move."

"What purpose does that serve that tranquilizers can't?" she asks, picking up the gun and examining it.

"If someone is hurt and we can't get them to a hospital on time, you shoot them with one of these and it buys you a few hours. Or it can stabilize someone who is the midst of a medical condition like a heart attack."

"Huh. You should call them Icers, instead." Daisy walks around the table, sliding her fingertips across the smooth surface. "Do you think you could get me into the tech room, Fitz?"

He looks up from his tablet. "The tech room? I don't know. You're supposed to have level seven clearance, unless Coulson lets you through. You only have level five."

Daisy internally sighs. She needs to get her hands on SHIELD's information database. They have to have records of all the gangs, or at least all the criminals.

"I'm sorry, Daisy. I'd like to help you, but you'll have to take that up with Coulson." Fitz returns back to his work station, and Daisy grips the table hard, taking her frustration out silently.

There has to be another way to get that information. Daisy sneaks on a computer in the lab and pulls up a map of the base. She notices there are two huge unmarked rooms in the basement. "Wonder what you are," she murmurs to herself, closing the tab and heading down towards them.

The basement is dark and creepy, but she shines a small flashlight around and shakes away her chills. There are armed government agents upstairs. No way is anything bad going to happen to her here.

The first room has a huge, rusted lock on it. She picks it with a bobby pin easily and slips in, shutting the huge door quietly behind her.

The room has old rusted scaffoldings around, rotting wooden shelves stretched between the metal bars. An eagle emblem similar to, but not quite, the SHIELD emblem is painted on the wall with the letters SSR about.

On the wooden shelves are boxes of files. There must be thousands of them in this room. Daisy opens a box and skims through the papers.

1952. 1954. 1967. 1970.

Years of history is spread out in this room, but it's all too ancient. She needs more recent information.

She heads to the second unmarked room and picks that lock, too. The shelves here are in better shape and the papers are not as yellowed or as frail. The dates are much more recent, too, and some of these boxes are labeled.

This must be the archive where all the physical copies of information is kept. Everything she'd find in the tech room must also be in here.

But looking around at the dozens of shelves and the hundreds of boxes, all of which are filled with even more papers, Daisy realizes this could be a long search.

As she starts rifling through a box, she begins to recognize how dependent she is on modern technology - most of all, search bars.

"How did anything get done in the old days?" she asks the silent room, shoving the lid back on the box and heaving it back on the shelf. "This is going to take me days."

The boxes don't answer her.


Robbie watches Daisy walk up the driveway, her computer bag slung over her shoulder and lightly thumping against her leg with each step. Dressed in all black - like usual - she stands out sharply against the bright day.

She looks exhausted when she approaches him.

"Rough day?" he asks.

She nods. "I was trying to look for information on…" she trails off, glancing at his crew members - who are all probably listening in. She recovers and continues. "On you know what. I couldn't get into the digital information files, so I'm stuck having to go through the paper copies in the archives."

"I bet that's fun."

She rolls her eyes, and he resists the urge to smile. It's amusing whenever she gives people that look. "Yeah. A blast. It might take days before I get anything useful."

Robbie steps closer and lowers his voice to the guys can't hear. "You won't get in trouble for snooping around, right?"

Daisy shakes her head. "No. I've only been working there a week, so I have nothing to do except for training. When I'm not training, they could care less where I am."

"I just don't want you getting fired for this. It's not worth it."

She cocks an eyebrow. "That depends, I suppose. I think my vengeance is worth losing everything I have left. Not that I have much to lose anymore."

Robbie steps even closer and grabs her arm tightly, forcing her to listen to him. "It's not worth it. Right now, in the midst of the pain and the grief of whatever you lost, you think you'd die to get revenge. But later, a month from now, maybe a year, you'll regret it."

"And you're the expert on loss?"

"I have some experience." If she wants to ruin her whole life, then she can go ahead. Robbie has tried to help her as much as he can. If she doesn't listen to him then there's nothing more he can do.

She stares at him for a long minute, as if trying to read what he means. After a moment she steps away. "Okay. I'll be inside."

He doesn't really believe she's listening to him, but at least he tried. He watches her walk up to the house, chin lifted high. She's too confident. That's her biggest problem. She thinks she is willing to sacrifice everything. But when the storm is passed, what will she have left? Will it be enough for her to keep going on?

Revenge doesn't make anything better. It doesn't bring back the things or the people that you lost. It just prevents the guilty person from acting wrongly again.

But some people just need to learn from experience.

"She's a spicy one," Francisco says when Robbie turns back to the engine they're working on. "Full of fire."

Just like me, Robbie thinks to himself. Being full of fire isn't good, because often people will catch fire around you on accident. And some people can't handle the flames. "Yeah, I guess she is."

"The brighter they burn, the faster they burn." Francisco sighs, and Robbie notices a far away look in his eyes. "They're gone before you know it."

"What do you mean?"

"People who live life quickly - like her - live too quickly. They take more risks, live more dangerously. They aren't the kind that aspire to grow old and retire quieter. No, they are the ones who die in action before the curse of age hits them." Francisco shoves his hands in his pockets. "She reminds me of my sister."

"What happened to her?" Robbie has never heard Francisco get this deep before. Usually the guys only talk about funny stories. Never anything personal.

"She lived life too fast and was gone before we could blink. You have to find a way to slow her down without dimming her flame." Francisco walks past Robbie and pats him on the shoulder. "Buena suerte."

"Good news," Robbie says as he enters the apartment. "Your car is fixed."

"That is good." Daisy turns off the faucet and dries her hands. "Are you kicking me out now?"

He shrugs. "We're working together now. It's a little different situation than before." He stops to think for a moment longer. "But you have to be gone before my brother gets back. He can't know anything."

"Why not? Why are you hiding such a big secret from him?" Daisy frowns. "I thought you trusted him."

"I do. With my life." She won't understand until she meets Gabe. Which she won't ever do, if everything goes according to plan. "But he worries about me too much already. If he knew what I did with my free time…"

"He would be disappointed in you," she finishes. "So he doesn't agree with the whole vigilante thing, huh?"

Robbie shakes his head. "I don't want him worrying about me, either. He needs to focus on his schooling. He has a bright future ahead of him. I don't want to get in the way of that."

"You never finished high school yourself, did you?"

How does she read people so well? Daisy always seems to know what he's thinking. "No. But I'm making sure he gets through college."

Her face softens. "That's really sweet."

He shrugs. "I don't want him to have a life like mine. He's so smart, he's meant for much bigger things. I'm satisfied with staying right here and working on cars, but he is never happy with little goals. He always is reaching for the sky, and who am I to stop him when he has the potential to reach it?"

"I used to dream like that." She moves her eyes to the floor.

"Why did you stop?" She's a genius. She could do anything she wants. If he's figured this out in two days, then how can she not see if for herself?

"When everyone I loved died." She pushes herself away from the counter. "It made me realize that potential does not mean the same thing as destiny. Maybe I can do amazing things, but I don't want to. I think I'm meant to stop these gangs." She lifts her eyes up and looks at him again. "So, what's the plan for tonight?"

"I am going to go on patrol for any Fifth Street Locos that are hanging around the city. You are staying here."

She smiles tightly. "That's not going to work. As you said yourself, we're in this together. I'm going with you."

Robbie knows a losing fight when he sees it. "Fine. But when the killing starts, stay back. I'm not quite...myself."