7362/Watch Him for Me

From Heroes Assemble MUSH
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Watch Him for Me
Date of Scene: 13 August 2021
Location: Gym - Playground
Synopsis: Before she leaves for Nepal, May seeks out Daisy. The pair make sure they're each doing okay, May explains a little more about just why the Framework was so harrowing, and together they agree to keep an eye on the oddly behaving Phil.
Cast of Characters: Daisy Johnson, Melinda May




Daisy Johnson has posed:
The day of Daisy's release from the hospital couldn't had been an happier one for her. No more pudding. No more staying stuck in bed. And sure, it had been 'advised' that she spent a few days just resting. But it's Daisy, so those days had been spent meeting a few friends, focusing on getting the Secret Warriors set and trying to get back into shape as once again her powers had been rocked. Sure, most of the after effects were gone but she still felt something not fully right.

And training had brought her to the gym today, working on some cardio, then on to throw a few punches on a sand bag, which is exactly what she is doing now, going over a few combination sets, an exhale, then going back again. Over and over.

It helped in keeping her mind clean, away from what troubled her, the echoes disappearance, the aftermath of the Framework that was still affecting most of her 'family' and how .., peculiar Coulson was being as of late. Both with what he had asked of her but also how she had found him in the hospital, having missed one arm. And even then there was .., something off. All that of course made it so she was a jumble of emotions, all bottled and stirred, even if she was determined to get to the bottom of it all.

They were SHIELD. And the future was what they made it be.

Melinda May has posed:
May finished her workout early in the morning and has no training sessions scheduled today. Indeed, she spent most of the morning in the hangar, going over equipment lists and ensuring that things are moving in the right direction for the move back to the Triskelion.

There's a sense of anticipation around the base that has become constant background noise for her, not that she doesn't feel it herself. Everyone seems to just be waiting for the return to action. Or, more accurately, the return to open action instead of always skulking in the shadows.

However, finished with the lists and having clocked out for the day at lunch, she has one or two more tasks to complete before she joins Bobbi on QJ-14 and they fly off to Nepal. One of these tasks is to check in on Daisy... whom she's actually sorely missed this last little while.

She checks various places around the base she thinks the young woman might be found in. It's as she nears the gym that she picks up on the sense of her friend. The jumble of emotions within her cause May's brows to dip slightly as she enters the room, head canted lightly.

"There you are," she says casually, moving to watch her pound that bag. "Feeling better?" Physically, anyway.

Daisy Johnson has posed:
On the bottom end of finishing a sequence Daisy tosses one last punch on the sand bag, making it rock with just a touch of vibrational prowess before she lets it rest, one hand against it before her darker gaze shifts to look at May. "May.." she says, a smile cropping up to her features, warm. She can smile for the two of them! "I am." she then answers the question before casting a brief look to the entrance and adding in a lower tone. ".. Just don't tell Jemms you saw me here. It can be our little secret."

She keeps so many secrets now!

"But yes, it is good to feel that it was worth it, that we were able to push Hydra back. Not that our job is done but .., it's something at least." she walks over to the side to pick a water bottle, taking a few long gulps before her attention returns to May.

"And you?" Her eyes roam over the older agent, thoughtful, watching her overall posture. "We hadn't talked since the Framework, I am glad to see you are well." physically it seems to imply, "Read on the report you took Gale off. Glad that bitch is finally off the equation." noone likes a copycat.

Melinda May has posed:
"Mm." May chuffs a soft grunt in acknowledgement of the death of Gayle Trueshot. "She won't be coming back." There's a certain grim satisfaction in her tone as she says it. She's never taken a life lightly, but beating the shit out of the HYDRA woman with the rage staff in her hand was... oddly therapeutic. Especially after the Framework.

And, in retrospect, a little troubling.

She pushes that thought away and moves to join Daisy off to the side. "I'm doing alright. Just glad things are starting to return to normal." It's not so much a lie as it is a glossing over of the rough spots.

She hasn't really had time to breathe since returning from the Sphere. Between filling in for a honeymooning Bobbi, Peggy's near assassination, stopping the Incident at Park St., and Phil's subsequent injury... May's been the one picking up a lot of the slack. With most of them back up and around, maybe she can take time to breathe a little, now. Maybe.

"Actually," she admits. "I'm intending to take a couple of days off. Should be back by the weekend but..." She glances sidelong at the young woman. "I'm thinking of going to Nepal." Which translates between them to Afterlife.

Daisy Johnson has posed:
Things returning to normal?

Even Daisy doesn't believe that. So she lets that known by lifting her brows, "I suppose for our kind of normal, maybe..." she lifting her shoulders in a bit even if she does eye May for a little while longer. Perhaps trying to break through and figure out what she really is feeling! But no such luck, not her power! Still, she saw the Framework videos, no one would come out alright from it.

"Bobbi is trying to cope." She finally speaks out, "Have you visited her new place?" she asks quietly, "The doggos are great.." bittersweet of a smile on her expression. Yes, no one was really alright after what had went down.

At those last words she blinks once, head cocking to the side. May on vacation? "Well, if anyone deserves one, that's you." even if she does quirk a brow at her choice of destination, but she smiles understandingly in the end, "If you are feeling adventurous there's a large temple hidden up in the mountains that I went to with Lara a few months back. But there really isn't much left of the settlement anymore.." and yes, she still blames herself for it.

Melinda May has posed:
"I haven't yet," May says as to Bobbi's place. "I will. She invited me to their open house." And May does want to meet the dogs. She's also already taken the time to reassure Bobbi that, yes... they're still good. Framework be damned.

She pauses for a long moment, feeling like she owes Daisy more than that. "The Framework is a lot to deal with," she says finally. "We're all still trying to cope, I think." She gives the young woman a small smile. "I'm just glad you were there to ultimately pull us out."

She nods to Daisy's assessment of the settlement. "I still think I'll visit," she says. "I... don't really have clear memories of the place any more." Her most recent memories are from the Framework. And they're pretty horrific. "I know it's not anything like it was, but... I'd like to see it, anyway."

A beat. A wry smile. "And, let's face it... there's probably no more isolated place on Earth right now, outside of the arctic circle." She could use the solitude. Get her head on straight before she immerses herself in the craziness that is life back at the Triskelion and in the great metropolis of New York.

Daisy Johnson has posed:
Daisy takes in a breath before exhaling, a small feeling of guilt coming out as she exhales and offers a small nod. "I may have come down a bit hard on Bobbi when I spoke with her about it.." she admits, putting the water bottle down and reaching for a towel to clean at her neck, "My mind has difficulty assimilating that it could had been more than a simulation." blame the hacker mind and being around computers for so long!

"But to you it was as if living through it all. And it's been hard for me to ..., understand that." her smile deepening at May's own smile, "I should take a picture of that." she teases. Just a bit to lift the mood! "And I only did what I know anyone in there would do for me. We don't need thanks for that."

"And true, it's very isolated. Even if last time I was there I met Blackagar so ..., one never knows what we will find. But fine, I hope you will enjoy it. I mean I would had personally chosen some tropical place to go to but ..., I can understand."

There's a small pause and then she asks, "Have you spoken with Phil recently?" some worry tinging her emotions.

Melinda May has posed:
May senses that guilt, and perhaps understands now why Bobbi was so very afraid of talking with her the last time they did. "What we did in the Framework..." she begins, mind flashing back to her brutal fight with Jiaying. If she hadn't been told the Doctor wanted the woman alive, she would absolutely have been the one to kill Daisy's mother, and she knows it. She closes her eyes, guilt of her own flashing across her features.

Pulling a deep breath in through her nose, she lets it out through her lips. "The thing you need to understand about the Framework," she tells Daisy, opening her eyes, "is that, out here, we *know* it wasn't real. But in there..." It was all too real.

She shakes her head. "It doesn't matter that the events weren't real, that the memories aren't real. The *emotions* were real. Are real." she meets Daisy's eyes, her dark gaze stormy, but more open than it usually is. "I felt what everyone else was feeling the whole time I was in there. I even felt you out here. I just didn't know that's what was happening. I thought I was losing my mind." Losing her control.

"I was only conscious of it when I could see people in front of me and could match their emotions to what I was feeling. It confused the hell out of me." Right up until Jemma doused her with Terrigen in the middle of their escape from the Triskelion. Then she got overwhelmed by virtual emotional junk data on top of everything else.

"But that means that I *know* better than anyone else that it doesn't matter that it was a simulation. It doesn't matter that we didn't actually do all those horrible things. We feel like we did. That makes it real." Her expresion tightens. "Which means Bobbi and I... Fitz, too, I imagine... feel we have a lot to make up for."

She doesn't know if Daisy really can understand. She's not sure if anyone outside of the tramatized crew that lived inside the virtual hell, oblivious to the outside world, ever could. But... she hopes so.

In the end, however, she pushes all that away, more than willing to focus on Phil. "I have," she says in response to Daisy's question about him. "It's actually why I'm here." Yeah. VR confessionals weren't actually on her list.

Daisy Johnson has posed:
"You were still riding on the backseat of an out of it's mind AI putting you all in those scenarios. None of it was your fault, nor anyone would have any right to judge what was done in there." Clearly Daisy doesn't blame anyone for whatever happened in there. But her deeper connection with the computer world does 'help' her in that, even if it may hinder her ability to fully understand how it was for the victims, and that it just shouldn't feel like some enhanced VR that looked way too real but wasn't.

At least until May explains how she felt, and what was going on around her. She is silent for a time even if eventually she does nod slowly. "What you say does .., bring a new perspective though.." perhaps more than one. She lets out a sigh. "The detachment wasn't really there at the time was it? Like the one we understand exists when we are using a VR gadget of some kind. The emotions always stay..." and she knows how those can be overwhelming. "But where I am concerned, you have nothing to make up for." she tells the other, all the certainty in the world in her voice and posture. Such is Daisy, quick and open with her feelings. "Just being back with us is good enough for me." a faint grin on her expression. Perhaps an attempt to reassure the other. But she knows it will take time for them to cope with all that went down..

As the talk turns to Phil she presses her lips together to a thin line. "You have noticed it too, haven't you?" the absent looks, the .., strangeness. "You were always one of the closest to him."

Melinda May has posed:
May shakes her head. "There was no detatchment," she confirms. "You know how deeply those machines invaded our bodies."

They had wires everywhere, and bore the scars of them like a tribal tattoo for days afterward. Their bodies were as violated as their minds, though none of them, she suspects, has been willing to give that a whole lot of deep thought.

"I don't get biology, but I understand enough to know that what our body perceives, our minds perceive. I think a lot of what we experienced was input through our bodies as much as our minds. We had no way at all to know that we weren't living in the real world. Not until you all came in and started acting crazy." There's a ghost of a smile as she says it. But, from their perspective... that's how it was.

Still, she's grateful for the sincerity she senses from Daisy, particularly knowing what she knows about what happened in the Framework at Afterlife. The young woman's capacity to forgive and her loyalty to her friends is unfathomable to May. She finds she cherishes it more than she realized, even if she can't quite express it.

Phil, in this moment, is her greater concern, in any case. "That there's something bothering him?" she says, answering Daisy's question about Phil. "Yeah. It has something to do with a machine that was used to help Peggy recover from House's attack. I've figured out that much. But I can't tell you what or why."

Her own lips press together with her concern. "Look, I need you to keep an eye on him while I'm gone. He's... up to something. I don't know what. But I don't want to see him become obsessed. He asked Bobbi what the machine does and she told us both that it was classified." She exhales tightly. "You can imagine how well that went over." And how easy it would be for Phil to become obsessed with finding out why.

Daisy Johnson has posed:
This is about the time that Daisy would rush over to give May a hug. But the older agent is saved from it by the concern about Phil's condition. Yes, it's clear Daisy noticed something. Maybe more? But her concern is the overwhelming feeling on her feelings right now. Specially as May reveals more about it all.

So that's why...

A faint frown creases her expression and she murmurs, "We both know how well secrets go, May." she says, "SHIELD hid what they knew of me for years and .., it made me obsessed in finding the truth. It was how I came to be here, but you know all this... Is it really wise to keep whatever information exists away from him?"

In many ways Daisy and Phil are quite similar. Obsessed with the truth and secrets.

"But I will.." she then finally says, ".. I will keep an eye on him." Well, knowing Daisy she most likely will have words with him.

Melinda May has posed:
"Thanks," May says. She shakes her head lightly. "I don't have any other information I can give him." It's true enough. Despite the fact she's acting on Fury's orders, watching Phil, she doesn't really know why. And she really doesn't know what the machine does.

"Fury gave orders that information on the machine is level 10 and need-to-know only. Not even Peggy has the authority to find out more." That will probably concern Daisy, May knows.

"There are reasons for that. I trust Fury, so I have to trust that there's a good reason for this. But I know Phil. Barring Fury, he's the best strategist we've got. If anyone can devise a way to get that information, it's him." She frowns. "I just don't know that it's smart that he does."

Not for Fury's sake. But for Phil's own.

She shakes her head. "There's something more going on," she tells Daisy. "But until I know what it is, I don't know how much to say to Phil. I'm afraid, if we say anything, it'll only fuel whatever obsession is building in his brain. Especially if we're wrong." Perhaps she does know Daisy, too.

Daisy Johnson has posed:
"Level 10.." Daisy murmurs, looking down at the ground before shaking her head a bit at herself. It's the kind of classified that indeed would make anyone scared. On what could be hidden behind such an high clearance. But she can very well understand on *why* it would only spark Phil more to search for it. Like he had started to do already.

"I don't like all the secrets." She finally admits. "Even if I know we are a super spy organization, but even so..." she lets out a sigh, eventually offering a committed nod and repeating, "I will keep an eye on him. It's the least I can do, I owe him everything I am in SHIELD after all." he had been the one to give her her first trainee badge, and get her into the fold.

Is she feeling guilty? Perhaps she knows she'd help Phil if he asked. But she's also not the same young hacker that she was in the past so there's conflict. "We will hold the boat while you are out in Nepal and...." perhaps in an attempt to bring some levity to the darkening mood, ".... it means I will have the chance to fly a quinjet, mmm?" because May isn't around! So she smiles at the other woman.

Melinda May has posed:
"Compartmentalization has a purpose," May says. She's a SHIELD lifer and, no matter how concerned she is about Phil, it still takes a lot to make her cross some lines. "Now that we've rooted out HYDRA, I'm more willing to trust the system again."

She pins Daisy with a direct look and points at her. "Don't let him rope you into doing anything for him that could give him access to things he shouldn't." A beat. "Not until I get back." Another beat. "And tell me, if he does." She shakes her head. "Then, we can deal with it together." It's the only way to keep Daisy on side and she knows it.

Then, she's snirking at Daisy's attempt at a joke. "Don't go blowing up my quinjets," she warns her. Then, perhaps surprisingly, she cracks a small joke of her own. "Only I'm allowed to do that."