Chapter 54
Flying and falling are no different until you reach the ground, but it felt different to Daisy. She let out a blood curdling scream as she fell from the hanger, down, down, down. She was going to hit the ground and go splat. She was going to die.
"Shh, I got you." Daisy felt cold arms wrap around her, and she caught her breath. "You're fine Daisy. I've got you."
Daisy sobbed into her dad's cold, titanium alloy shoulder. "The Hulk fell and then I…" She looked up, and hated that she couldn't see her dad's face. He was Iron Man saving someone, but she couldn't feel her dad. It broke her heart. "I'm not even old enough to drink."
"You should never have joined S.H.I.E.L.D," Tony cursed lifting his distraught daughter back onto the helicarrier. "I should have stopped you."
They landed back on the helicarrier where the invasion seemed to have come to an end. Daisy had stopped crying, but she still felt like she was falling to her death. She could barely breathe, but spoke anyways. "I wouldn't have let you."
"Will you now?" he asked, pulling off his helmet so Daisy could see his face. She was shocked to discover the streaks of tears on his face. He'd been crying as well. "Please Daisy, quit S.H.I.E.L.D. Work for me and be safe."
It was such a tempting offer. She'd thought her life in S.H.I.E.L.D would be more exciting than working for her dad, that she could make a difference, but she wasn't. She was sitting at a desk all day, bored out of her mind, and doing nothing. Stark Industries was inventing things to change lives. In S.H.I.E.L.D Daisy did nothing. She'd worked so hard and given up any hopes of a normal life. And for what? She hadn't even been good enough to keep the Hulk from destroying the helicarrier. She got him off the plane, true, but she should have been able to do more. She couldn't though. She wasn't making any difference in S.H.I.E.L.D. Daisy didn't belong.
Daisy was so sure of it that she was about to tell her dad she would quit when she heard Fury's voice over the Coms device still resting in her ear. "Agent Coulson is down."
From the moment Daisy met Coulson, she'd known there was something special about him. His suit was cheap and worn. He seemed uncomfortable, unsure, and yet so wholly driven. He knew what he wanted and he worked to achieve it. Daisy remembered how enamored she'd been with the man. Truly he was incredible. Coulson could put up with even Tony; he had to be incredible.
Every time Daisy saw Coulson she was reminded of a comet. He seemed so sure of his choices, his mission. Daisy had wanted more than anything to be that confident herself. She wanted to be sure of something instead of questioning everything as she did. She wanted to be like Coulson.
Natasha was the one to sign off on Daisy's Academy application, it was true, but Natasha wasn't the one to first believe in Daisy. Coulson was. Coulson never treated Daisy like a child, even though she'd been one. He protected her, but he didn't make her feel useless. Coulson had seen the girl she was, and recognized the woman she could be. Daisy had spent the months before she met Coulson working to impress her missing father, but after she met Coulson things changed. Daisy finally did things for herself, to help her become a formidable and independent person. Coulson never said or did anything to catalyze that change in Daisy, and yet he had never-the-less. Meeting Coulson had changed Daisy just as much as meeting her dad had.
And he was dead. They tried to hide it away in a makeshift morgue, but Daisy could make out the body bag from her infirmary bed. It was just another thing that made her want to get far, far away from where she was, but the doctors wouldn't let her. She had a broken leg, and yet they were treating her as if she was about to die, watching her carefully to make sure she was safe. Daisy suspected her father was bribing them to do so, or perhaps they were just scared of what would happen if Iron Man's daughter died suddenly while under their care.
Clint was in a containment box beside Daisy, but he wouldn't look up at her. He'd been mind controlled, and yet somehow still managed to blame himself for Coulson's death. They both knew how much Daisy cared for Coulson, and so Clint couldn't look at Daisy without feeling guilty. She thought that was ridiculous. Surely Clint knew Coulson better than she ever did, Coulson having been Clint and Natasha's handler for a great many years. Daisy should have been expressing her condolences to him, not the other way around.
"You know it's not your fault," Daisy sighed figuring if Clint wasn't going to start the conversation she had to. "Coulson's death, the destruction of the Helicarrier, none of it is your fault."
Clint looked up, his eyes haunted in the way Daisy had seen Natasha and her dad's before. It was the look that reminded Daisy of the fact that she'd been through tons of shit, but they'd been through more.
"Coulson knew the job's dangers," Clint replied, probably trying to make himself feel better as well. "I'm upset because I almost got you killed."
What? Clint was beating himself up because she had a broken leg? Was he ridiculous? People had died. Coulson had died! And he was upset because Daisy's leg was sticking out at an awkward angle? "I'm an agent the same as him. I know the job's dangers too."
Clint laughed at that. "You're not an agent, you're a kid. No security clearance or badge is going to change that. You… you're Lila in fifteen years. Cooper in twelve!" Daisy had no idea who Lila and Cooper were, but Clint seemed horrified at the idea of them having anything close to Daisy's life. "You shouldn't have gotten hurt."
"Why does everyone still think of me as a kid? I'm an adult! I can take care of myself! I can fight. I'm not helpless anymore." Even as Daisy said the words she knew they weren't particularly true. She'd sobbed earlier in the day, and she still always felt so scared and helpless. She wanted everyone to treat her like an adult, like a competent agent, but she wasn't one.
Clint smiled at her childish denial. "You could be fifty and I'll still think of you as a kid. I think we all will. I can't explain it to you Daisy, but that's just the way it is."
Well Daisy found it remarkably annoying, and would have said so too if she hadn't noticed her dad fighting with a doctor down the hall. Whatever they were fighting about must have been resolved, because Tony stalked towards Daisy speaking, "They need to put you under to reset your leg."
Oh great, just what Daisy wanted. "Okay," she caved handing her phone to her dad. "I have it set up to track the Tesseract. You should know where it is soon."
"Even if it finds it I'll be here when you wake up," Tony promised, squeezing his daughter's hand tight. "The world can wait."
