Hey, friends! Sorry for sort of abandoning this story - I got so caught up in You Can't Hide It Forever that I sort of lost track of this story. This is officially the final chapter of this story, but please enjoy it.
It had been two weeks. Two weeks since Daisy had lost her powers.
After a few days of non-stop testing and monitoring (courtesy of Jemma Simmons), Daisy was finally declared a normal human again. The serum Dr. Branson and the Watchdogs had created removed the extra macromolecule from an Inhuman's DNA, making their powers, well, vanish.
The Watchdogs hadn't been fully defeated yet but Project Wipeout and all its resources had been snuffed out. Gone.
Today, Daisy had just finished up some training with May. She was helping her to re-learn how to fight without powers.
Lincoln had been allowed out of containment on probation. One mess-up, Coulson had said, and he'd be out of SHIELD for good.
Lincoln and Daisy both decided that it wasn't a good time for them to have a romantic relationship. Daisy was a mess every night as she went to bed and Lincoln only reminded her of what she could be.
Daisy sipped her water and headed to the common room kitchen, grabbing herself some dinner. She was already exhausted from her training session, so she yawned and seated herself at the counter, hoping to get a bite in alone.
She didn't like talking to people much these days. Even after two weeks, they still gave her looks of pity.
Many times, at least one of the SHIELD team members proposed that Daisy should go through terrigenesis again. But of course, it was extremely difficult to find the crystals. More difficult than anything, really, and not a priority of SHIELD's.
Daisy just decided to deal with it.
Deal with it but still cry herself to sleep every night.
One particular night, as she was crying, someone happened to hear her sobs from outside her bunk door. Unfortunately, it was Simmons who'd heard her, so of course, the biochemist forced Daisy to start seeing a therapist.
Yeah, that didn't end well.
Said therapist left the base in anger, storming into her car and driving away. Apparently Daisy angered her quite a bit.
"Hey," someone said to Daisy now. She snapped out of her trance and looked up at Bobbi, who was smiling at her.
"Hi," Daisy responded quietly, swallowing.
Bobbi had been the only one not to press the idea of terrigenesis on Daisy, and the former-Inhuman appreciated her for it. Bobbi was like her only hope; the person she could go to with her problems and not be judged for it.
"How was your day?" the taller woman asked, taking a drink from the fridge and sitting across from Daisy. "I saw May in the hallway. She said you all had some intense training."
"Yeah, we did," Daisy said quietly. She didn't like talking about the training so much; it made her feel like a rookie agent again. "I would rather not talk about training with you, if you don't mind."
Bobbi nodded respectfully. "Of course. Whatever you need, Daisy."
Daisy let out a big sigh, slouching a little on the back-less stool. After a moment, she turned to her friend. "How was your day?"
Bobbi shrugged, sipping the drink. "It was alright. A little uneventful, but alright."
"I'm going to go to my bunk now," Daisy told her quietly, dumping her trash in the wastebasket. She didn't give Bobbi a chance to respond.
The next morning, Daisy was awoken by someone calling her phone. She yawned and picked it up. "Who is this?"
"Hey, Daisy. It's Lincoln."
Daisy groaned. She did not want to talk to him at the moment. "What do you need?"
"I have good news!" he said, too cheerfully for Daisy's grumpy morning mood.
"What," she hissed, barely uttering an audible noise.
"Why don't you come to Coulson's office? We'll tell you there."
Lincoln, Coulson, and Simmons were waiting in the Director's office with smiling faces.
"Okay, what is it?" Daisy demanded. She couldn't stand this.
"Well, first off, we've been doing a wee bit of investigating behind your back," Coulson told her with a smirk.
Daisy set her jaw. "Please don't tell me you interrogated Branson."
Lincoln chuckled. "How'd you know?"
Daisy ignored the young man's question. "He told you where to find Hydra's stash of terrigenesis crystals, didn't he?" she guessed.
The three agents' cheerful expressions turned to shocked ones.
"How did you- " Jemma started.
"Oh please," Daisy said, rolling her eyes. "Why else would you all be so cheerful to be around me?"
Nobody had an answer for that.
"Besides, I'm not so sure I want my powers back," Daisy said a moment later.
Coulson scowled. "Why not?"
"I've come to terms with it," she replied, tapping her foot against the flooring.
"Daisy, there are no consequences of you going through the mist again," Simmons said matter-of-factly. "It won't hurt you. Your powers will be back just like new."
"Yeah, and I'll have to learn how to control them again," Daisy snapped. She shook her head in dismay. "Look, I don't want to do it. End of story."
The three agents eyed each other, and Lincoln nodded.
"We thought you'd say that," Lincoln said. Daisy watched as Simmons and Coulson took gas masks out and put them on, and Coulson pressed a button, sealing the office doors and windows shut.
"Wait, what're you doing..." Daisy started, backing up.
"It's time you stopped beating around the bush," Lincoln said. Before Daisy could react, he took a terrigen crystal out of his pocket and threw it on the floor, making it snap.
Daisy started coughing, hoping to reject the mist, but it was too late.
The Inhuman husk started to appear on her body.
But she didn't feel regret or despair like she thought she would.
She felt...good.
She felt natural and back-to-normal.
She realized she was going to be glad to have her powers back.
Daisy woke up in a cold sweat. She sat up, noticing she was in her bunk. She tried to test her powers but they didn't work. She furrowed her brow, confused, and clicked on her lamp.
She let out a breath when she realized the terrigen crystal had just been a dream.
But it had had some truth to it, didn't it?
Those feelings were real.
It finally came to her: she did want her powers back.
And she had a feeling that there would come a day when she'd get her wish.
This concludes Project Wipeout! Thank you all so much for being here through this whole journey. This has been my longest story to-date! I do apologize if it didn't end as you all would've pleased but I decided this was a better end than nothing. Please check out You Can't Hide It Forever for more Daisy content if you haven't already. Thank you all again for the support. You all mean so much to me.
Thank you, -Daisies and Roses