Middle School Heroes

Chapter 50 - Sixteen Years Later

"....Yep. So that is how Daisy became my girlfriend, the first time at least. Nat terrorized us into it." Clint laughed.

"Oh come on, it was becoming painful to watch. You moping around pathetically and her glancing at you when she thought no one was looking, trying to figure out why you were acting so weird. Someone had to do something! Wait until Jemma gets here tomorrow. She'll back me up." Daisy and Clint both stared at her disbelievingly and Natasha threw her hands up in the air. "Okay, sure, it might have been a little bit dramatic and mean, but it worked, didn't it?"

Daisy smiled fondly at both of them, and looked happily around the house that they were sitting in. It was exactly the kind of place that she always dreamed of living in as a child. Family pictures covered the walls and scribbled art work covered the refrigerator. A little sandy-haired mop-top boy ran by her. Clint didn't have any pictures from his childhood, but she was sure that if he did, this little guy would be his doppelganger. She reached out and grabbed him, pulling him onto her lap. He wriggled and writhed in her arms playfully as she found his tiny face and planted an enormous zerbert right on his cheek.

"Auntie Dasee, 'TOP it! Icky!" He wiped his face and giggled before finally breaking free of her and running out of the room.

"Sounds like you did the right thing, Nat," Laura, the woman who had become Clint's wife four years ago, laughed. "I wish you were around when we met. It took him two months to ask me out on a date, and that was with me flirting and dropping hints pretty regularly. Even though he kept showing up in my office for the most random reasons, I wasn't 100% sure that he was interested, or I'd have asked him out myself."

"What can I say? When it comes to women, I'm clueless. At least I came to my senses eventually!" He shrugged defensively.

"Yes, and we are glad that you did, Clint." Laura and Skye had become very close over the years and she was glad to see Laura and Clint so happy together, even if Clint's job with the Avengers sometimes kept him away for weeks at a time.

Although Daisy and Clint had, what could best be described as a reoccurring relationship throughout school, they realized fairly quickly as adults that they were better off as friends. Clint wanted to play super spy but still have the family and white picket fence waiting for him at the end of the day, and while Daisy wanted those things too one day, she wasn't in any rush. She was fully committed to Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. They remained close friends and even worked together on a few occasions.

S.H.I.E.L.D turned out to be a pretty crazy ride. For a while, she worked mostly for Director Fury until Loki decided to come back down to earth and bring an alien invasion with him. Daisy always considered Loki a friend, even when some of his school behavior was questionable, but there was no forgiving the death and destruction that his childish temper tantrum caused. Mind controlling Clint and forcing him to do terrible things just added to the mess that he left in his wake, and gave her yet another reason to be glad that he was far away in Asgard.

In the aftermath of that, Fury tasked Coulson with forming a team to deal with alien technology, artifacts and the people who were affected by them. Daisy was one of the first members along with Melinda May, Fitz, Simmons, and Grant Ward. It was a good team, even with Ward on it. He still had his issues, but he was a good agent and managed to work well with the team for the most part. They had a pretty successful run together until a sunny day in April when things started going crazy and Daisy managed to decode a message being sent through S.H.I.E.L.D computers signaling HYDRA operatives within S.H.I.E.L.D. Everything fell apart around them.

Discovering that HYDRA had been operating within S.H.I.E.L.D, and that Nick Fury was dead, was a shock. They watched footage of the Helicarriers falling from the sky in D.C. and discovered that it was more than a small group of people involved in this HYDRA uprising. After hacking into the security system, she found a recorded video of Steve Rogers being attacked in an elevator by members of the S.T.R.I.K.E. team, many of whom she went to school with, and some she considered friends. It was devastating, but it made her more determined than ever to do whatever it took to help destroy HYRDA once and for all.