I'm devastated. I'm devastated for my country. For Muslims. For the LGBTQ+ community. For minorities. For women. For the planet. For Hillary.

It physically hurts me in my gut to finish and post this chapter right now with all of our beloved characters happy and contented and healing. But if this brings a smile to a single person's face today who's feeling terrified or lost due to the election, it will be worth it.

Stronger Together

Something warm and light stroked across the soft skin of the back of her hand, then moved along, tracing delicate patterns up her arm and over her shoulder. She exhaled, her lips curving upwards as her body curled into the touch. Her eyes blinked open slowly as it started downward towards her chest.

The touch stilled. "Mornin', beautiful," said a voice to her left. The hand cupped her cheek, drawing her close for a kiss.

Hunter had his shirt off, she noticed as they broke apart. Which wasn't unusual sleeping attire for him, certainly, but she had a sneaking suspicion... Yep, a quick check under the covers confirmed it. She was completely naked as well.

Good to know.

"You seem relaxed," Hunter said, pressing yet another kiss to her temple.

"I am relaxed," she murmured, memories of the previous night slowly trickling back to her.

He smiled. "It's good to see. When was the last time I woke up before you…?"

"Never, that's when," she told him. "Still..." Bobbi placed a hand against his bare chest, feeling the thud, thud of his heartbeat quicken at her touch.

Hunter grinned, looking pleased with himself. "It's been a while since we've done this."

She raised an eyebrow, feigning affront. "Is that your way of telling me I'm out of practice?"

"You kidding? You're amazing, Bob," he praised, throwing his head back against the pillow.

"Your way of apologizing for you being out of practice?" All the breath flew out of her as he flipped on top of her, his entire weight warm and crushing at the same time.

"Never!" His mouth captured hers harshly, nipping at her bottom lip. When Bobbi finally pushed him off of her and back onto his side of the bed, she was pink-cheeked from lack of oxygen—a result of both him and her pent-up laughter. "Retract your statement," he demanded.

She rolled her eyes. "Retracted."

He was still suspicious. "I'm better than Barton?"

"Clint and I never had sex!" she yelped.

"Better than you imagine Barton to be?"

"You're ridiculous."

"Say it anyways."

"What, that I like you more than my Clint Barton fantasies?"

He loomed closer, on the verge of pinning her underneath him again. "Exactly."

Bobbi rose up to give him a chaste peck on the lips. "You're better than any fantasy, Lance." She smiled. "About any man."

"Or woman."

"Or woman," she agreed with a laugh. "Although I think that's more of your thing than mine, Hunter."

"I don't know, I've always thought there was something fishy going on between you and Romanoff," he shook his head. "No way you two are that close when she's that cold..."

She hit him in the arm so his brown eyes would stop laughing at him teasing her. "Shut up. You know what Romanoff would do if she heard you say that?" Bobbi asked.

"Murder me. Make me nothing more than smear of blood against our lovely base's gray walls," Hunter replied, completely serious.

Bobbi nodded in agreement, then smirked as a new thought occurred to her. "Or just start kissing me—you know how she likes to play unpredictable."

"You're mine," he growled, flipping himself on top of her again.

Her phone chimed, and they tumbled apart in a heap of bedsheets. Bobbi barely had time to pull them comfortably over her chest before the door opened and Isabelle poked her head in. "Mommy? Are you awake yet?" She spotted them in the bed. "Daddy, what are you doing in here?"

"Nothing," Hunter replied in a higher octave than normal, at the same time as Bobbi said, "Sleeping."

"He was extra tired last night, so he slept here," Bobbi said, tugging the blankets upward even more.

Isabelle tilted her head to the side. "Why was he extra tired?"

"We were up late talking, love," Hunter told her.

"'Bout what?"

"How about you go get dressed and then we can have breakfast?" Bobbi suggested. "Phil said he was making waffles, remember?"

"And Daddy said I could put whipped cream on mine," Isabelle grinned. "As much as I want."

Had Bobbi been able to hit her ex-husband in the face with a pillow without the covers slipping, she would have done it. As it was, she could only say, "Better go get dressed then, or by the time we get there it might be all gone. Skye is as obsessed with whipped cream as Daddy."

Isabelle's eyes grew huge and she scampered off. Bobbi's phone chimed again to let her know the girl's room door had been opened.

"You're dealing with her hyperactivity later," Bobbi grumbled, falling back into the pillow with a sigh.

"I was just gonna hand her off to May for Tai Chi time," Hunter shrugged, laying back down beside her.

Despite herself, Bobbi smiled, turning her head to look at him. "You're evil, you know that?"

"I learned from the best."

"So did I," Bobbi replied, thinking of Natasha.

He was silent for a few seconds. "So why are you in such a good mood?"

She thought about it. "I don't know. Just feels like a good day, I guess. And we haven't had one of those in a while. But now that Skye's doing Tai Chi with May the base hardly ever gets tremors anymore, and Isabelle hasn't cried during the night in a week, even when we talk about Trip, and..." She smiled. "It just feels right, you know?"

He pressed a kiss into her hair. "I know." His eyes had a mischievous glint in them as he pulled away. "So, round two?"

"Three, and no, Isabelle could walk in at any minute wondering what's taking us so long," Bobbi shook her head. "Do you want to scar her for life?"

"I would lock the door first," he pouted.

"Hunter, you can't lock the door against our four-year-old daughter who currently has no supervision." She rolled her eyes.

"She's almost five."

Bobbi laughed. "So she keeps reminding us." She sighed, then poked him in the shoulder. "Up you get." He groaned, but pulled himself out of the bed all the same and pulled on last night's clothes. She went for new ones in her dresser, pulling them on and barely having time to run her fingers through her bed-mussed hair before Isabelle was through the door and bouncing at her side. "Hold on a minute," Bobbi told her, set on finding her hairbrush as Hunter disappeared into the bathroom.

"But then Skye will eat all the whipped cream before I get there..." Isabelle pouted, unable to stand still.

"And what a travesty that would be."

There was a knock at the door, and Bobbi opened it. "Hey, Barbara, I'll take her," Mack offered, standing on the other side of it. "Could feel her excitement from a mile off." His eyes slid sideways to where Hunter was re-emerging from the bathroom. "Oh, and Hunter..." he greeted him, looking him up and down. "...in yesterday's clothes..." He raised an eyebrow at Bobbi.

She gave him a none-of-your-business look at the same time as Hunter delivered his patented got-laid-last-night look, smug and proud as a peacock.

"Uh huh," said Mack. She couldn't tell if he was amused or exasperated. Quite possibly both. "C'mon, Isabelle, breakfast is waiting." He bent to take her hand.

"Mommy doesn't keep Daddy's clothes in her room because Daddy's clothes belong in Daddy's room," Isabelle informed him matter-of-factly as they walked away.

Bobbi let the door close before looking sideways at Hunter. "Told you. That was too close for comfort. And now Mack's going to go all big-brother on me as soon as he gets the chance."

"He is a big brother," Hunter nodded, messing with his belt buckle.

"But he's not my big brother."

"Tell him that."

"I plan to. It won't be the first time," Bobbi said. She looked at herself in the mirror. "I'm ready to go, you?"

"Go ahead; I'll catch up. Left my wallet on the floor somewhere," Hunter told her, getting on his hands and knees.

"See you in a minute." Bobbi opened the door and stepped out into the hallway beyond.

"Hey, Bob," he said suddenly.

"What?" She turned back.

"You never actually said I was better than Clint."

Bobbi rolled her eyes and kept walking.

He sprang to his feet and chased after her. "Bob! You never said I was better than Clint!"

"God, I am so bored," Skye complained, sprawled upside down on the couch. Her feet stuck up in the air while her spine pressed into the bottom cushion. "Coulson and Simmons have still got me on the DL—"

"Down low?" Bobbi asked.

"Disabled list. Wow, that really needs to catch on around here," Skye muttered before resuming her tirade, "—which I get means no missions and stuff but I haven't been off-base in two weeks." She sighed. "Two weeks without sunlight."

"Did Coulson specifically say you couldn't leave the base?" Bobbi asked with a slight frown. "The way he told it to us, it didn't sound like house arrest."

"No, but May implied it…" Skye told her with a huff.

"Actually I implied nothing of the sort," the Asian specialist declared, walking into the lounge. "I think it would be good for you to get a change of scenery and to resume something akin to a normal routine, as long as there's one of us with you."

"Really?" Skye sat up so fast that she almost spun off the couch. She grinned at Bobbi. "Want to come with? Where should we go?"

"We're out of pancake mix, among other things," May said, walking out of the room.

Skye made a face once she was gone. "What? No. My first time out since San Juan should be, you know, fun." She smiled. "Something Isabelle would enjoy."

"She's four; she'll enjoy almost anything," Bobbi laughed.

"It's a nice day out—supposedly, as I wouldn't know—so we could take her out on the water," Skye suggested. "I'm not a huge fan of fishing but boating could be fun."

Bobbi shook her head. "I have no idea if she can swim."

"Oh, right. Hmm…" Skye bit her lip in thought.

"Laser tag?"

The young agent looked at her. "Kind of on-point, given what we do," she said.

Bobbi looked askance for a second, then nodded. "True."

"Where is she right now anyway? With Hunter?" Skye asked.

"No. She's decided when she gets tired of running around that she likes sitting on Coulson's desk and watching him while he does paperwork," Bobbi answered. "Also it doesn't hurt that he keeps small candies in his top desk drawer."

"Isn't he worried about Isabelle seeing any classified information?"

"He might be...if she could read well enough to understand any of it," Bobbi smirked.

"OH," Skye said suddenly. "When I was a kid in the foster care system, there was this one time I got to go to another kid's birthday party and we went to this place full of plastic tubes that we could climb around in. I remember having so much fun that day—until that asshole Darren Crosby shoved his little sister down one of the slides head first and told his parents it was me, made them ship me back to the orphanage." She still sounded bitter, although mixed with excitement. "I've always wanted to go back. We should find one of those places around here."

"Isabelle would love that," Bobbi laughed. "But would the rest of the team?"

Skye had a mischievous glint in her eye. "We'll make them love it."

True to her word, Skye did the research with a few quick key clacks on her laptop and then set off rounding up the entire team. She refused to tell them the destination, using her puppy dog eyes and I've-had-a-really-crappy-last-few-weeks guilt-tripping to devastating effect. All in all the agents fell into line rather easily except for Coulson, whom no amount of begging or prodding could budge.

"Fine," Skye said finally with a small stamp of her foot. "But when we get back tonight we're coming with pizza and churros and we're doing a mandatory movie marathon. Disney until Isabelle goes to bed and then Star Wars afterwards."

"Agreed," Coulson smiled. "And have a good time, Skye. You deserve it."

Bobbi watched Skye rally the troops with a small sense of awe for the sway the once anarchical hacker had over them. It wasn't a bad sway—as an agent she'd seen many of those over her lifetime, from drug exposure to Stockholm syndrome to Clint struggling with the after effects of Loki's hold on him before the Battle of New York. This was a good sway, the kind that came from love and trust and respect and was woven into the fabric of their group dynamic, especially among the original members of Coulson's team. Those five had gone through so much together; it was as visible in the casual looks they exchanged as it was in the S.H.I.E.L.D. files documenting the entire event.

About ten minutes later they were in the car and off, May driving with Bobbi co-piloting up front, Isabelle in between Hunter and Mack in the middle, and Fitz sandwiched between Skye and Simmons in the back. As Bobbi was the only one besides Skye who knew where they were headed, she fielded sneaky requests for hints from their passengers—or quite overt ones from Isabelle—while giving May the occasional "Turn left here" or "Get on the freeway."

But when they arrived, Bobbi began to have her doubts. The building was large, with curvy letters spelling out 'The Jungle' on top in a fluorescent green, and all of the windows were taped over with kids' drawings and cartoon animal stickers. As May set the parking brake, Bobbi wasn't the only one who was giving Skye a look, though hers was more 'are you sure' than the 'are you crazy' and 'ah hell no' looks she was getting from those in the back. Though they had two, it didn't take a genius to work out that this place was clearly designed for children, not adults. Sure, it would have been wonderful for Isabelle had she had some friends here with her, but...were adults even allowed in the tubes?

"Are you trying to tell us we're too childish?" Hunter piped up first.

"This is like 'Kid's World'," Fitz pointed out with a strange note of happiness in his voice. He shared an awed, excited look with Simmons. "I loved that place!"

"I had my sixth and eighth birthday there," Simmons said.

Hunter was also appearing somewhat swayed, leading Bobbi to believe that clamoring through plastic tubes must have been some sort of British childhood ritual. She had been to one of these before as a child, she was sure, but it hadn't been entertaining enough to be counted among her few long-lasting good memories from elementary school.

Skye frowned exasperatedly. "No, no, it's not for kids—it's for everybody."

"You want me to climb in there?" Mack asked, skepticism dripping from every word. "It's like a pint sized version of the obstacle course at the Academy of Operations."

"Though I doubt it's hosed down as quite often, or disinfected so completely," Simmons pointed out, turning her nose up ever so slightly at the thought of germs.

"What? Simmons, weren't you just saying how you had two birthday parties at a place like this?" Skye whined.

"Yes, but that was before I knew the dangers of Staph aureus, Pseudomonas, E. coli, Bacillus cereus, and Coliforms," Simmons replied matter-of-factly.

Skye looked around at them all, gaze tinged with equal parts begging and disbelief. "Come on, guys. When did we lose our spirit? Our spontaneity? When was the last time you gave into your...your childhood self and just did something for the fun of it? Just because you wanted to?" Not waiting for an answer, Skye turned directly to her and asked, "Isabelle, do you want to go and play?"

Isabelle threw her hands up in the air with excitement before trying to unstrap herself and failing to get the latch out in her haste. "Yeah! Let's go!"

Hunter shrugged, a small grin taking over his face as he helped her unbuckle. "As always, I'm with her," he said as he lifted Isabelle out of her car seat. "And her." He glanced at Bobbi. "You're coming too, right, Bob?"

"Wouldn't miss it," she assured him.

Once they were all out of the car, the eight of them trooped toward the building together. The bored-looking teenager behind the counter didn't even bat an eye at the large party escorting the single four-year-old—perhaps because it was the middle of a weekday during the school year, or maybe he was too underpaid to care—and just told them the price and handed out green wristbands also decorated with animals. May pursed her lips, but even she pulled the sticky end off to attach it around her wrist as soon as the teen returned her credit card.

Isabelle practically dragged Hunter further inside, then dropped his hand and went back for Skye to drag her in as well. Then the three of them disappeared one after another into a bright yellow tube.

"Hey, wait for us!" Fitz called. They looked up to see Skye sticking her tongue out at them from one of the windows, somehow already having made it into a red one that must join the yellow somewhere in the twist of tubes. He and Simmons dashed for the green, clamoring up inside it.

Shaking her head, May left them to find a table. Bobbi and Mack approached the entrance to a blue tube. He peered into it. "You're not seriously gonna make me do this." She nodded. "What if I get stuck?"

"Wiggle," Bobbi suggested with a grin before swinging her leg up to climb inside the tube as well.

Bobbi sat down with a tired but contented sigh across from May, having spent the past two hours on her hands and knees crawling around in tubes that smelled vaguely of sweat and old pizza after her daughter. Mack had bailed after only half an hour upon seeing the arcade below—"Now we're talkin,' Barbara"—but at this point she couldn't say she blamed him. Her shoulders, while providing the power behind her swings when fighting enemies, already proved to be somewhat cumbersome in the tubes, and she had nowhere near the physique he did. It had been fun though. Bobbi gave Skye that much. And judging by the frequent shrieks of laughter, Isabelle was loving it too.

"You could join them, you know," she said to May. She gestured towards the tablet on the table in front of her. "I'll take that from you for a bit, if you want to."

May gave her a withering glance. "Don't be ridiculous."

Bobbi smiled; perhaps she was being unrealistic. This was the Cavalry, after all.

A comfortable silence fell between them as Bobbi casually checked her email on her phone and May alternated her gaze between the tablet readings of vitals from Skye's wristwatch and up at the tangle of tubes and rope ladders, where occasionally one of the team could be spotted climbing by on all fours.

"Your kids lost somewhere in there too?" a voice from behind May asked. The Asian specialist turned to the stereotypical-soccer-mom-looking woman who appeared to be speaking to her. "Mine are. Personally I don't see the appeal of climbing around like rats, but whatever keeps them occupied for an hour, you know? Kids will be kids."

Fitz and Simmons clamored through the tubes above them, recognizable through the opaque plastic by "Ow, Fitz, you ran into me!" and the corresponding "We're never going to catch Hunter and Isabelle at this rate. You know...if we had a monkey, we could send it scouting out ahead of us…"

"Yes, they will," May replied with a slight smirk as she turned back to Bobbi.

"Did you have fun today?" Bobbi asked.

"Yes!" Isabelle grinned as she tucked her into bed. "How much do you love me?"

"What?" Bobbi asked, surprised. "That's a silly question. I love you a lot—more than I can tell you."

"But how much is a lot?"

Bobbi thought a minute. "Imagine the biggest thing you can."

"The refrigerator!"

"The refrigerator's pretty big, but think bigger," she prompted.

"Mack?"

Hunter chortled and Bobbi smiled, but still said, "Bigger."

"An elephant," Isabelle said in a triumphant voice. "They're huge, and they have a long trunk."

"Well, my love for you is bigger than an elephant," Bobbi told her. "Bigger than the ocean. Bigger than you can even imagine. I've loved you from the second you were born, and I'll continue loving you forever and ever and ever." She gave her a swift kiss on the forehead. "Okay?"

"But you didn't know me when I was born," Isabelle said, brow furrowed. "You weren't my mommy then."

Bobbi and Hunter looked at each other. "Well, actually..." Bobbi began.

Hunter cut across her. "Let's try to put this into terms you'll understand," he said, coming closer to the pair of them. "How about a story?"

"A story?" Isabelle asked.

"Yeah. Once upon a time..." He looked to Bobbi quickly for help, but she simply nodded, encouraging him onward. "Once upon a time, there was a knight who was strong, brave, and quite handsome—" She rolled her eyes. "—who was married to a noble lady who was also a powerful warrior. Together the two of them protected many towns from wild beasts and witches and other evil things that wanted to harm the people of the kingdom. Then one day, the lady had a beautiful baby girl whom they loved very much." He poked Isabelle in the stomach, making her smile. "That's you."

"And Mommy's a warrior lady and you're a knight?"

He grinned. "Precisely."

"But then what about my other Mommy and Daddy?"

Hunter put a finger to his lips to forestall her, his tone shifting to his storytelling voice again, "But then an evil dragon started terrorizing the kingdom and hurting its people. The knight and the lady knew they had to try and stop its rampage but they knew they couldn't take their baby with them because it would be too dangerous for her around a dragon. It was the hardest thing they ever had to do, but the lady entrusted her baby to another kind couple who agreed to take her in and treat her as their own." The description of this action as the woman's in Hunter's story did not escape Bobbi, but she was grateful he had made them sound like a team from the beginning, with no hint of the betrayal he had felt when she kept Isabelle a secret from him. Isabelle was now listening to him enraptured. "So the knight and the lady went off to stay the evil dragon and though they had to fight long and hard, they managed to slay it and save the kingdom. When they returned home, however, four years had passed and the couple they had given their beloved child to had grown sick and through no fault of their own could no longer care for her. The knight and the lady were very thankful to them for all they had done, and they gladly took her back—and they loved her for ever and ever and ever."

They were all quiet for a minute, Bobbi gazing with baited breath at her little daughter's face. "I gave birth to you, Isabelle," she said. She didn't know if the girl would know what that meant, but she felt she had to say it anyways. "I held you as a baby, as my baby, when you were no larger than—" Her gaze fell to the stuffed rabbit lying beside her. "—no larger than Hoppity. And I had to give you up, and I'm so sorry for that, but I am so glad to have you back and for us to be able to be a family. Do you...do you understand?"

Isabelle nodded. "You were my first Mommy and Daddy. And now you are again. Right?"

"Yes," Bobbi smiled. "And we love you, so much. We always have."

"Did my second Mommy and Daddy love me too?" Isabelle asked.

"Of course they did," Hunter replied immediately.

"Do you have any other questions?" Bobbi pressed.

"What if there are more dragons?" Isabelle asked. "Are you gonna give me up again?"

"Never," Hunter said in a choked voice almost before she'd finished speaking.

"That's never going to happen again," Bobbi promised. "It was such a hard decision the first time that I never want to repeat it. And if there are dragons...we have Phil now, and May, and Jemma and Leo and Skye and Mack. Even if Hunter and I have to go away for a few hours or a few days every once in a while, you'll never be alone. You'll never be alone, and we'll always come back." She paused. "You remember Janet?"

Their daughter nodded.

"Well, her job is to be your social worker. She basically checks in on you every once in a while to make sure that you're safe and you're happy, and eventually, she'll trust us enough that she can stop doing that. In the eyes of the law, when that happens, you stay with us forever and ever." Bobbi kissed her forehead, then glanced at Lance. "But we don't need that to happen yet to know that we're a family. We have each other, and we love each other, and that's all that matters."

Isabelle smiled, snuggling into her pillow. "I love you, Mommy. I love you, Daddy." Her eyes slipped closed.

"We love you too, Isabelle," Hunter whispered, his arm slipping around Bobbi's waist as he side-hugged her to him.

After a few moments Bobbi stood up to flick the lights off, then rejoined Hunter, who hadn't moved from her bedside. His arm circled around her again as she leaned into him, close enough to feel the mingling of their heartbeats thud-thudding in their chests. Except unlike hers, which was surging fast and quick from nervousness and excitement, his was calm and steady and soothing to feel pulsing underneath his skin. "I love you, you know," she said quietly.

"I love you too, Bob," he said, clasping her hands in his as she turned to face him. "Just...never do anything like this to me again."

She shook her head. "We're stronger together. I know that now."

The glow of the clock reflected off his teeth as he smiled, leaning forward to rest his forehead against hers. "Stronger together."

There is one more chapter of this story still to come—an epilogue, showcasing their lives through the years.