"Does someone want to tell me why I'm running," Jemma puffs as Daisy slams the wide theater window shut behind them, flipping the lock firmly into place and leaning back against the wall – clutching the aching crick in her side as her burning lungs fight to refill her with oxygen, "because I have not got anyone chasing me!"

Daisy holds up a finger, still gasping in the warm air of the theater and urging the fast pulse thundering against her skull to slow. Jemma crosses her arms over her own heaving chest, watching her with narrowed eyes and waiting for her answer.

"Daisy, who was that guy?" She prompts again with a hint of concern that Daisy isn't quite used to being on the receiving end of – especially from Jemma.

She looks around the comforting orange glow of the upper catwalk of the theater as she draws a few more lung-fulls of air.

"That," Daisy finally says breathily, "was Snyder the Spider. A real sweetheart," she pauses, filling her protesting lungs with another heavy, full breath. "He runs a jail for underage kids – The Refuge. The more he locks up, the more he gets paid."

She spits the words out in disgust, pushing herself back upright off of the cool brick wall and striding past the siblings, towards the ladder down the other end of the catwalk.

"Do yourselves a favor," she adds dryly as she passes them, looking between the innocent wide-eyed faces of her new friends. "Stay clear of him, and of the Refuge."

She lowers herself down the ladder and waits for Les and Jemma to follow before leading them through a set of heavy velvet curtains and back behind the stage with sure practiced steps. The warm orange glow is fuller here, lighting up bare brick walls and thick coiled ropes and scattered canvas backdrops, painted in complementary pastel shades.

"Woah," Les muses, "what is this place!?"

He stares wide eyed between the sets and half-built wooden structures, turning in a slow circle to take everything in until Jemma puts a hand on his upper back to steady him to a stop.

"It's a theater, Les. You know that."

He looks disdainfully up at his sister.

"Well I never seen a theater like this before," he defends, and Jemma drops the argument with a sigh.

"It is the back-part," Daisy tells his still-curious eyes, nodding sideways at the curtains they'd passed through. "The other side is what you see, usually. Back here, it's where things get put together."

She glances at one of the half-painted backdrops, then at her feet.

"Is someone in here!?" The voice comes from the curtains, and a moment later a dark-haired woman in a solemn business-like dress appears through them. Her eyes fall on Les and Jemma, brow furrowing in surprise. "How'd you two get in?" She asks in a carefully hushed backstage voice, "There's no children in the theater."

Jemma and Les open their mouths emptily, and Daisy plants a smile on her face as she steps forward, raising a hand to attract the woman's attention.

"Not even me, May?"

Recognition fills the older woman's expression when her eyes fall on Daisy, lighting up.

"So you are still around," her voice is dry but her eyes are smiling, "I was starting to think you were going to leave me high and dry with all these unfinished backdrops," she adds, nodding at the pretty scenes scattered about.

"'course not," Daisy tells her, but one of May's eyebrows flicks up to call her blatant bluff with ease - Daisy is a good liar, but she still has never managed to get anything past the woman's sharp mind.

Les is wandering again, this time up closer to one of the backdrops with his mouth agape – his sister not far behind him, her own eyes wide as she takes in the details of the strokes on canvas.

"You pictured these!?" Les asks Daisy in awe, and they both look expectantly back at her. She scratches uneasily behind her ear as she shrugs, trying not to notice all the imperfections in the pieces glaring down around her.

"She's got a natural aptitude," May tells him with one of her patented half smiles, eyes never drifting from Daisy's. "By the time you finish this next set I might even have the money to pay you for your trouble," she adds, and Daisy shakes her head.

"Don't get so worked up," she mutters, rolling her eyes, "They're just a bunch of trees. I'm not taking your money."

"They're really good, Daisy," Jemma interrupts, eyes wide.

Changing the focus of attention seems like her best course of action, too many prickly wide eyes all expecting far too much from her.

"We ran into a little trouble, May," she says, "can we stick around back here a while?"

"As long as you need," she answers with a nod, lips twitching a little. "I'll be around – lots to get done."

Daisy smiles her thanks as her friend glances at the kids behind her a final time before disappearing back through the curtains.

"Was that Melinda May?" Jemma asks as soon as she is out of sight, attention successfully averted off of the soft scenes surrounding them. "Doesn't she own a theater?"

"This theater," Daisy confirms, glancing around the comforting space as she considers where to set the sibling up for the next hours - at least until Snyder has certainly left the area. "It'll probably be best up on the catwalk," she finally decides, motioning back towards the ladder. "You can watch the show for free and everything."

xx

She catches sight of the blonde hair without even really seeing him, but she knows it is him by the messy locks regardless – up in one of the side boxes across from the catwalk. She can't get a full look at him from the spot, not really – and she mumbles an excuse to Jemma before she scuttles back down the ladder and into the wing opposite the box he is in, peering up at the focused eyes beneath the familiar golden sheen of his hair. It shines differently in the faux daylight of the theater, less bright and sunny – but still transfixing and foreign – it is a color she can imagine herself mixing paints for hours to try to pin down and still failing, as she has so often tried to capture the sun.

"Who's that?" She asks May when she passes by practically on cue a moment later, nodding up at the box where he still sits, watching the show unfalteringly.

She feels her friend's gaze on her, sizing her up, but she answers after only a moment.

"He's a reporter. I've never seen him around before, he must be new to the game," she pauses, glancing away from him to study Daisy's expression a moment longer. "The door to the box is open."

Daisy shoots her a look that she returns in the form of a knowing wink before turning back off in a different direction – endless work to be done around her theater.

She stares up at him a moment longer before making her decision, slipping back behind the stage and hurrying to reach behind one of the sets she has been painting for a spare piece of crumbling charcoal and an old program. She shoves them into her back pocket before slipping into the other wing up the stairs to the box, letting herself in without a knock.

"This is a private box," he says when he hears the door, not looking away from the show going on beneath them – light eyes narrowed and entranced as they dart between the notebook he is scribbling in and the stage.

She smiles a little in spite of herself.

"You want me to lock the door?" she offers lazily, motioning towards it even though he still hasn't looked up at her.

After she speaks, though, distraction fogs his expression and he peers up – and she could swear recognition crosses through those eyes of his.

She decides to gamble on it.

"Twice in one day," she says, still smiling lightly. "I'd say that's fate, wouldn't you?"

His throat bobs above a swallow, and he tears his eyes off of her.

"I'm working."

She lets him refocus his attention on the stage and his quick scribbles, because she likes how focus looks on him – deliberate and etched lines that are made to fit into his face.

"Working," she murmurs after a moment anyway, testing the word on her tongue… missing his eyes on her. "A working guy. Huh. I don't hang around many guys with real jobs. What is your job?"

She is beginning to wear on his nerves, talking over every other line of the show – she can see it in the little clench of his jaw, and she is suddenly very interested in how his pretty face might look thoroughly frustrated.

For completely innocent reasons, of course.

"I'm writing a review for the Sun," he tells her, "of this show. Which is really difficult to do when I'm not actually hearing the show."

"You work for the Sun?" She says, taking a small step nearer to him and efficiently ignoring his hint about not hearing the show, "I work for the World."

She does, sort of.

"I'm sure there are plenty of people in this theater who would love to hear all about that," he mutters under his breath, frustration making a gentle reappearance in a trio of wrinkles cracking across his forehead as his eyes drift annoyed back up at her. "Go tell them."

She likes his blunt way of talking, likes how it gently contrasts the clear kindness in his eyes – likes what an enigma he is. She shifts a bit so she is leaning on the railing facing him, crossing her arms and watching the deep focus set back into his face.

"The view is better up here," she tells him, keeping her smile contained but waggling her brows when he sighs loudly, peering up at her through his heavy lashes.

"Do you make a habit of talking to strangers?" he asks, dropping his pencil defeatedly onto his notebook and crossing his arms as he stares fully at her. "Because I don't."

She hold his stare steadily for a moment, reveling in the odd mix of intrigue and frustration behind his eyes before speaking.

"Then you're going to make a pretty lousy reporter, aren't you?"

He opens his mouth to snap back at her but clearly comes up empty, instead settling on narrowing his eyes at her before turning back to the show.

She moves back towards the door, situating herself against it as she pulls the paper and charcoal from her back pocket, watching his face for a moment with the same attention he is giving the show, memorizing the way the different contrasting lines curve – before starting to scribble over the words on the old program.

It isn't as if she hasn't been with plenty of guys – it is more that she has never particularly been a fan of the soft kind of love Fitz talks about, the "true" love and the love "at first sight" and all the poetic variations of the basic human instinct to be attracted to other humans. She has never quite been able to convince herself attraction is anything more than simply attraction.

She isn't sure how the way the light shines off of him makes her question absolutely all of it.

He glances at her as she works now, unable to maintain the same attention to the stage he had before she had interrupted, and she tries not to let it show in her face how much the sideways glances make her heart thud. Finally he sighs his defeat, looking between her and the program she is scribbling on.

"What are you doing?" He asks.

She squints at him a moment, and adds another shadow to the page before moving to respond.

"Working," she answers mockingly after a breath. Then she nods at the stage, trying not to smirk as she adds an air of faux authority to her tone, "Quiet down, there's a show going on."

His eyebrows shoot up immediately and she can't fight back her smile any more after finally successfully drawing a full expression of frustration out of him.

"You are the most impossible girl-" he informs her gruffly.

"Shhh," she interrupts, a chalk-darkened finger held to her lips.

"Ever," he finishes under his breath.

(She isn't sure, but she thinks a tiny smile might fight at his own lips as he draws his eyes off of her, shaking his head.)

She shades one final bit of her drawing, holding it up to compare it to its muse before she is content – dropping it on an empty seat and allowing herself one more long look at him before slipping silently backwards out the door.

She is screwed.

xx

She runs a few beats behind the boys the next morning, limbs still aching from the hard chase the night before – and they are in a complete uproar when she arrives, yelling back and forth. No one has bothered to begin to gather into the line for papers, or gather in any way at all except in an angrily churning mob. She tries to seek out Fitz but the moment one of them spots her the lot of them are all crowding her at once, all talking over one another and making it impossible for her to decipher what the hell is actually going on.

"Everyone stick a sock in it," she finally calls loudly over the overlapping voices, pushing past a few of the boys to Fitz. "What the hell?"

He doesn't speak – instead nodding up at the chalkboard she hasn't had a moment to look up at to check the new headline. She follows his movement now, squinting up at the words.

NEW NEWSIE PRICE: 60 CENTS PER 100

She does a double take, reading the letters carefully three times before looking beside her at Fitz for confirmation.

"I coul' barely afford th' price as they were. We're all going t' be living on the streets," he says sadly.

"Fitz, we already live on the streets."

"In a worse neighborhood."

She shakes her head, too exhausted to pretend his odd brand of nervous humor is funny – instead rubbing at her burning eyes as she turns back to the other boys who have stayed silent, awaiting her cue.

"Relax, it's gotta be a gag, boys," she says, "Weasel is pulling a fast one on us."

There is an echoing murmur of agreement as she passes again through the ranks, pulling her coin from her pocket as she approaches Wiesel.

"Real good one," she tells him dryly. "You really had the fellas going." She drops the coin in his outstretched palm. "Give me the usual."

He stares at the coin in his hand and looks slowly back up at her, far too much enjoyment built up into his twitchy smile.

"A hundred will cost you sixty," he says, staring at her unblinkingly as he crosses his arms.

The buzz starts up anxiously behind her again as she stares back, unflinching.

"I'm not paying sixty," she tells him stubbornly, hoping her uneasiness doesn't come across in her tone as she glances again up at the headline plastered above them.

The filthy smile sticks across his face and he speaks slowly and meticulously.

"Then make way for someone who will."

She shakes her head, reeling from the words and racking for a quick idea as she grabs her coin back from his greasy hand, glancing over her shoulder at the line of boys still waiting for her move.

"Fine," she mutters gruffly, stepping away from the counter and back towards the shining World gates, settling on a plan of action and making a show of shoving her money back into her pocket. "I guess me and the guys are gonna take our business to the Journal."

There is another murmur of agreement as they move to follow her, but she nearly runs into Hunter as he is hurrying back through the gates towards her.

"I'll save you the walk, love – they've upped the prices, too."

She swallows, a new sort of anxiety settling into the pit of her stomach at her friend's breathless words.

"Then we'll go to the Sun," she says, but her voice shakes and Wiesel speaks up.

"The prices are up all around town, darling," he says smugly. "New day, new price. So are you buyin', or movin' on?"

Daisy stares him down again, longer this time as the wheels turn anxiously in her mind.

A dime is two days of eating – two days. None of the boys can afford to lose that sort of money and neither can she.

She draws away when she thinks the fear might be beginning to show in her expression – the eyes of all the boys pricking on her skin.

"Hey, everyone come here," she mutters, crowding towards a wagon as the boys close in around her and sinking uneasily onto a stack of papers to hide the quivering of her knees beneath the pressure.

"They can't just do this," one of them mutters fearfully.

"It's their paper, it's their right," says another.

She swallows as the voices raise around her.

"Quiet!" she finally yells over the voices, clenching white knuckled fists at her sides. "Would you all just keep your shirts on and let me think this through!?"

Suddenly little Les seems to pop up out of nowhere between her and the horde of boys.

"Stop crowding her!" he orders, his small voice surprisingly demanding as he shoves the older boys back from where she is sat. "Let the woman work it out!"

He earns her another moment of uneasy silence and she rubs at the bridge of her nose as she searches for anything, any options or answers – but is terrified to continue to come up empty. She doesn't know enough about any of it – their rights, the paper, or who is in charge. She doesn't have any sort of baseline on which to stand, nowhere to start brainstorming a way of fixing what Pulitzer has broken.

She breathes in slowly, trying to fill the emptiness with something.

She has no way of working it out.

"Hey Daisy… you still thinkin?" Les asks after a moment, taking a hesitant step back towards her.

"Sure she is," Romeo confirms, "Dontcha smell the smoke?"

She scowls at him, throwing up her middle finger in his general direction – which only seems to amuse him. When the other boys remain standing by uneasily, his laughter slowly dies out.

She frantically delves into a different approach. The immediate problem is clear. They can't buy the papers.

They can't buy the papers.

She runs an anxious hand through her hair, clenching her jaw tight as the realization hits her hard.

"Alright," she mutters, "Alright, everyone come over here."

Their faces turn hesitantly hopeful at the confirmation of a plan, and she bites at her lip as they crowd back around her.

"If we don't sell the papes, the papes don't get sold," she says slowly, and the boys confirm the sentiment with a few scattered nods.

"So… we don't sell the papes. Not one, not any of us – not till they bring the price back down."

Her words are answered with an anxious buzz.

"Do you mean like a strike?" Jemma asks from somewhere behind the boys, and Daisy considers it for a moment, thinking of the trolley workers and the week after week headlines they made, the buzz they built up through the city.

"Yeah," she confirms, nodding slowly. "Yeah, you all heard her. We're going on strike."

The response is mixed.

"Half of the trolley workers is laid up in the hospital," Alfred calls out uneasily, "the cops beat up on them."

"The cops aren't going to care about a bunch of kids," Daisy says, even though she has no idea – but she seeks out Jemma through the faces for confirmation. "Tell them."

The other girl's eyes have gone wide and doey, and she shakes her head slowly, reaching for Les and drawing him out away from the other boys.

"Leave me out of this," she pleads, "I'm just here trying to feed my family."

The words hit Daisy hard, fiery anger pulsing through her veins as she scurries back up to stand on top of her seat of papers so she can see the other girl over the heads.

"You think the rest of us are here for kicks!?" She asks with a furrowed brow and a raised tone, staring her right in the eyes. She turns away from her and Daisy jumps angrily down, pushing through the boys to grab her upper arm until she snaps back around to face her. "Hey. Just because we only make pennies, doesn't give anyone the right to rub our noses in it!"

"It doesn't matter!" Jemma speaks up over her loud tone, shaking her head hard. "You can't strike, you aren't a union."

It gives her a moment's pause.

"Well what if I say we are?" She challenges icily, scowl deepening when Jemma's expression hardens stubbornly.

"There is quite a bit you've got to have to be a union," she answers, not backing down from even Daisy's hardest stare.

It only makes her grow more frustrated.

"Like what?"

"Like membership."

"What do you call these guys!?" She asks, pointing behind her at the troupe of boys watching the confrontation go down like it is good theater.

Jemma shocks Daisy by not arguing with her, and instead sighing defeatedly as she hangs her head back momentarily, eyes pressed closed. Then she looks back at her.

"You'll need officers," she says, change in demeanor impossible to miss.

There is the creak of Fitz's crutch behind her as he limps forward. She glances over her shoulder and he smiles reassuringly.

"I nominate Daisy as president," he says, loud enough for all the boys to hear, and an affirming sound of agreement echoes through them.

She isn't sure whether she should be honored by or fearful of the faith the boys have in her – she isn't keen on the risk that she might be the one who lets them down.

She takes a small step back so she is even with Fitz, glancing back to Jemma for the next order of business.

"What'll be your statement of purpose?" she prompts, the words all foreign to Daisy's ears. Luckily, one of the boys speaks out before she has to.

"The hell is a statement of purpose!?"

"It is the reason you have for forming a union," Jemma defines easily, but doesn't look at the boy – still staring at Daisy.

She is thinking about the trolley workers again, the front page stories under her nose for weeks on end.

"Fair wages, yeah?" she says slowly, looking up from her feet as she recalls words, "Safety? Job security?"

The fellas continue to murmur their agreement behind her, and she nods her own affirmation of what she's just claimed, looking expectantly at Jemma for guidance into the next challenge.

"Well," a pause. "if you want to strike, you'll have to put it to a vote."

She doesn't have to ask the question to know the answer, but it is a formality nonetheless and she turns back to the boys, hopping through the crowd to jump back up on her stack of papers and feeling every eye follow her.

"What do you say, fellas?" She asks, raising her voice to be heard clearly in every ear. "Do we let Pulitzer push us around, or do we strike?"

There is no hesitation in the loud, united response.

"Strike!"

She looks at Jemma, and the boys, catching on, do too.

"Now?" Daisy prompts.

"Now?" Jemma repeats thoughtfully, shaking her head. "I guess the strike would be more effective if someone in charge knew about it."

"How do we do that!?" Fitz asks.

"Someone's gotta tell Pulitzer," Hunter realizes out loud.

Daisy is sure she knows who someone is, but she stares expectantly at Jemma anyway.

"I think… I think you would be the one who tells him," she says, and pauses before giving in a bit to the excited buzz around them – smiling and adding, "President."

"C'mere," Daisy holds out a hand, urging a still slightly reluctant Jemma closer to her through the boys. "What do I tell him?"

The boys stare at Jemma, and she swallows as she looks out around them.

"Well I suppose you tell him that he's got to respect your rights as employees," she says to the expectant faces before glancing back at Daisy for approval. She nods, and Jemma's voice grows stronger, feeding on the growing energy around them. "Tell them that they can't just change the rules whenever they feel like it."

"We do the work, so we get a say," Daisy adds.

When Jemma looks at her again, there is almost excitement in her eyes.

"We've got a union," she tells her, and a charged muttering travels through the boys at the confirmation.

Daisy stares over the crowd at the headline board they're trying to make, mind whirring as she leaps back down from the stacks and makes a beeline for the ladder up. She scurries to the top quickly, staring up smugly at the perfect view every window in Pulitzer tower has of the board – before scanning the platform for a piece of chalk and puzzling for a moment over what to do when she comes up empty.

Then she remembers the charcoal still pressed in her back pocket.

She snatches it out, lifting herself precariously onto the railing so she can scribble the large black letters right on top of the white ones already there.

STRIKE

Her writing is sloppy but the message is clear.