Work Text:
It's just 'another day at the office' – not even, you know, field work – and still, he feels like he's suddenly aged a hundred years during the past few weeks. Everything feels too much and too little, and at times, the team is just … too loud, maybe. He spends hours and hours in his office during the night, doing not really pointless, but not really urgent work.
It’s not because of Rosalind, not really, at least. He can't say he's completely solved the mystery she's been surrounding herself with, but it's become clear that she's up to no good. Basically, all he silently wishes for is that she's not HYDRA, but with his usual luck, he guesses, she'll turn out to be one of its heads – and with that, he doesn't even dare compare himself to May anymore, because this, this was his (albeit tactical) decision.
And comparison, or so it seems, isn't even necessary, since on Tuesday – the day following his first 'visit' to Rosalind's bedroom – May has pulled him aside before his first morning coffee, into one of the storage rooms, and more or less told him – in shouted whispers – to get his shit together (even though that's not exactly how she phrased it). She's told him she's seen him 'pay attention to other women' before and that none of those had ever made her skin crawl as much as Price.
The sad thing about this is that he knows, oh yes, he knows nothing good could ever come of this liaison. Not personally good, anyway. Strategically, who knows. That's what he's counting on. And up to a certain point, it does seem to have an effect on Price. For what it's worth, they've put Andrew in stasis, and he prays it's not just for postponing a gruesome matter.
He has to admit, the days where he's hiding in his office, working alone, are the ones that drain him the most. It's true that on some days, he'd really rather not be around people, but the looks they throw him when he finally shows up for coffee or briefing or whatever are crushing at best. Yes, that is because of Price, and because Daisy saved her, and because of Andrew, and because of the fact that they haven't opened the portal yet again, because Hunter's been gambling with Andrew's life, and because now that Simmons is back, Fitz has gotten back to impersonating generosity.
He assumes most of those things are his fault. He should have let Bobbi get back in the field quite a bit sooner. He should never have let Andrew go through Jiaying's books on his own (he should have known they would contain something dangerous). He should never have let Hunter go on a hunt for Ward: he's not the one who needed revenge. He should have suspended Fitz the moment Simmons disappeared and not let him spend his days at the lab. He should have paired Daisy with Mack sooner. He should never have trusted Lincoln, not during this particular mission. He should never have left Daisy alone with her recruitment plans when things with the ATCU started going south. He shouldn't have, should not have been so focused on his hand; he had known it was going to need a lot of work and a lot of prototypes, and it shouldn't have been his first priority to get his fingers to work again. What difference have his hand exercises made anyway? It still feels numb, and the phantom pain still keeps coming at night, keeping him from falling asleep.
And still, he hides out in his office, pretending he's got more important things to do, classified things, Director things, paperwork that's not meant for anyone else's eyes, phone calls that require the absolutely ridiculous security measures of his office. He's not sure if isolating himself from the team when things don't exactly require his presence is actually helping or making matters worse. He knows he hasn't been like that before – well, before Rosalind, and he feels like this is precisely what he deserves.
Yet, he can't take it. Not like this. Not the whole of it. The occasional coffee 'outside' is a start, but the situation seems to still be hostile, partly, at least. Sometimes he wonders if it's just his mind playing tricks on him. After all, nobody's been overtly aggressive towards him, except for Lincoln, maybe, but most of the time, he feels like that doesn't count since their antipathy has been mutual from the beginning. The team's broken, he can see that, May trying to anchor herself by training with Daisy, Simmons holding onto her memories of Fitz, Bobbi keeping Mack company when he's taking care of Lola. Well, that's one advantage of isolating yourself: you get quite the general overview from standing at the margins of a group. It makes intervening all the more difficult, though, and he knows it's time to get back inside the team. If they'll let him. Whenever he looks at Daisy, she seems sad, and it makes his heart drop, makes him fear she won't like him trying to integrate himself into the group again.
He tries, he really does. At first, it's just Backgammon games with Simmons in her room, which is actually really, really nice. He'd learned the game from his grandmother and never really played it after she passed. Then, it's letting Mack fly Lola, just for fun, which turns out to be such a happy event that he internally scolds himself for not doing it sooner. During the following weeks, he tries to establish a sort of routine where he leaves his office to connect with the team every few hours. At first, they all look at him like he's gone completely crazy, but with the help of coffee, things settle down into a pleasant rhythm. Daisy keeps looking really sad though, smiling these smiles where the corners of her eyes don't really move, and laughing about jokes so hard that he's afraid she's going to break in two because of it.
So he starts walking over to her desk regularly to ask her for advice and frowing whenever the others (especially Hunter) answer his questions before Daisy does. She looks at him like he's going crazy at first, but soon, he notices her sitting up very straight whenever she hears the sound of his door opening. He knows that she knows that he doesn't really need her intel, but she seems to think it's nice that he's inquiring about her opinion. May starts giving him strange looks where she's rolling her eyes but he's not really sure what that means.
After a few days, Mack sort of just sighs out aloud how he should just share an office with Daisy if he intends to keep swinging to and fro between her desk and his desk in the near future. All that earns him is a group laugh and he doesn't hesitate to join in, and that's because he sees a small twinkle in Daisy's eyes.
The next time one of their missions goes south (it's because Lincoln has, once again, lost patience with an Inhuman unsub and received quite the blow to his head), Daisy orders Lincoln to another base, led by Joey, where he's supposed to provide solely medical (not tactical) support to a small group of Inhuman newcomers. Lincoln makes no secret of the fact that he's not very pleased with this change of scenery, telling Fitz to 'let the girl go, you moron', stealing all of Hunter's beers, and wishing Phil 'good luck with Skye' in front of the whole team, and all during the last twelve hours he spends at the Playground. He can't help checking Daisy's expression, and to his surprise, there is the smallest grin. His heart leaps.
The very next morning, he sneaks into the training room when May and Daisy are sparring. Everything looks very professional, very efficient, and he wonders why he's never openly admired their fighting techniques. "You haven't even had coffee yet," May points out as a greeting, and he realizes he's sort of been staring. He smiles at Daisy, and she seems to double-check with May if it's okay to smile back, but she does. Smile back. Which makes him miss the next thing May says, and when he turns to face her, she gives him the look, the one he remembers very clearly from Academy days. Most of the time, it just means, come on, Phil, what are you doing, but at the moment, it also means, Phil, you idiot, and it means he has to go and train with Daisy because May's already grabbing her towel and walking to the door without looking back even once.
Daisy doesn't look like she's up for any more sparring with the Director though. Her expression does that thing where she's actually frowning quite a bit, but her mouth is minimally curled upwards in such an adorable way that Coulson's not sure what to say anymore.
"So, you've started training with May again?", he asks, stating the obvious, and she chuckles. "Yeah. It's been quite intense. I know it's for all the wrong reasons, but I'm really glad she's back." He nods. "But that's not really why you came here, right? I mean ... you've been gravitating around me for weeks now."
Now it's his turn to chuckle. "Was it that obvious?" She smiles. "I mean, you've been quite adorable, but I don't think there's anyone at the base who hasn't noticed. Are you here to, you know -" she steps closer, "make a move?"
For a split-second, he forgets how to breathe. "Do you want me to?", he whispers. "I could ... We could go to the movies, I have – Billy could reserve some seats." She takes another step, and they are so close he's not sure he should be moving at all. Her smile is the most beautiful thing in the world. "Or you could just, you know – make an actual move. Like, move forward. With your lips", she whispers back. And that sort of just dissolves everything that's been in the air and between them and on his shoulders, and he just leans in that remaining little bit, which is no distance at all, really.