Nobody solves a problem like Maria Hill (b_a_n_a_n_a_s) wrote in incompletedata, @ 2017-09-25 21:20:00 |
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Entry tags: | marvel: avengers academy: daisy johnson, marvel: avengers academy: maria hill |
Who: Daisy Johnson & Maria Hill
What: baby SHIELD explores the arena
When: Day 2
Where: Cave H
Warnings: Hunger Games.
Daisy had been amazed by the glowworms in the cave where they were staying. With everything else that was going on around them, she found the glowworms kind of calming. Once they’d gotten themselves mostly settled and done a quick inventory of everything, Daisy just wanted to spend her time not thinking about how they were going to probably die at some point. “Maybe we can keep the glowworms,” she said, voice quiet out of habit now. She didn’t want to get them killed because she didn’t like being quiet.
“Do you think Bucky and Jan are watching?” She paused, glancing around herself to see if she could see any cameras or anything that would prove that they were being filmed right now. She’d never seen or heard of the Hunger Games before they got here and she wasn’t really sure how the whole thing worked, but she knew that they were watching. “Like right now, I mean.” She hadn’t even tried to wrestle a fish yet. Would Bucky be disappointed in her? No. He was probably making up some terrible song about this.
“If we can request things, maybe we can ask someone to have Bucky write us a song about glowworms and fish wrestling.” She tried to think of a funny song title, but she couldn’t.
What they didn't tell you about the Hunger Games was how they got kind of boring. Sure there was the stress of fighting for your life and accidentally or maybe somewhat intentionally killing someone, but Maria was a SHIELD agent (in training) and kind of a fitness nut. She was the sort who had accomplished two hours of training in the gym, breakfast, and Sharon Carter's errands before training had opened for the past two weeks.
Here, that was actually a bad thing. While they'd had a decent haul at the Cornucopia, it wasn't enough to sustain three people for more than a couple days--even pushing it. So there were no 5 am runs or even swims--or push-ups to pass time. There was a lot of idling almost. Lying on the beach while one or the other of them got rest and Maria nursed her injured wrist that she had been trying to not draw attention to.
And that stillness gave a lot of time to think. Which was bad.
"I don't know if I want them to." It was said before her own neuroticism over thought the prospect of being watched by the people back at the Wittgenstein. If they were being watched, then the radio silence from their squad meant too many possible things. It could mean she'd made the wrong call fighting--and killing--the blonde girl and everyone was as disappointed and disgusted by her as she kind of herself. Or it meant they couldn't send anything and the scientists had lied and they really were alone. Or maybe it was strategy to hold off until they needed something. Or the endless possibilities of why they weren't hearing from the outside world were as dizzying as they were maddening.
"But glowworms would make for a good song." She adjusted her backpack beneath her head and looked up at the bugs on the ceiling that moved like crawling stars. They were actually the one thing that actually made this cave kind of alright.
Daisy knew that she didn’t really have anything for anyone to watch. She hadn’t been exactly entertaining. She remembered something about how they were supposed to be entertaining. She wondered if she was bordering on the dull side and would be forced to do something she didn’t want to later. Maybe she’d be killed because she wasn’t out killing people.
Really, she didn’t know what to expect because she’d never really had to kill before. Then again, how many of them actually had? She looked up at the glowworms and sighed. Things were strange. She wasn’t sure how things got to them or whether their squads were able to send anything yet. She just hoped that Sharon would look out for them if she could.
“They would.” She wanted to ask if Maria thought their friends were disappointed in them, if the other Steve was. They weren’t supposed to participate, but then...that was only a sort of loose agreement, something that other people had decided on or decided against. She wasn’t really sure it was feasible in the Hunger Games, though. She didn’t want to know if they were disappointed, though. “What do you think would happen if we poked them?”
Maria didn't generally have time for fun. Though she had time here, lots of it. And the bar for 'fun' had apparently been sufficiently lowered that poking glowworms on a cave ceiling actually sounded like something that could make for entertainment.
With a bit of a groan, Maria shifted in the sand, reaching to her side for the spear she couldn't quite let get out of arm's reach--if she let it out of her hand at all--even in this intimate setting. It had done horrible things in the arena, but it was also the only thing between her and the arena. She had shared her supplies otherwise fairly willingly though they hadn't needed the sutures just yet, and were decent on food, but even the hammer she'd given her friend was a weapon in the right mindset. But the spear was hers. "Maybe they can send us the bed from that hotel…"
She stabbed exploratorily upwards like a blind person would. The glow worms seemed to ripple outwards as she stirred them gently. Okay that was cool.
Daisy was thankful for the hammer. It was better than the rope. Well, the rope could probably be useful if she knew how to use it properly. She made a mental note to ask Nat how to lasso things. She’d definitely been a cowgirl once, so she had to know, right? It was probably the same across worlds. Maybe the other things weren’t, but Nat knowing random things probably was. So she’d ask her how to make a lasso soon. So they could use it if they had to. Or maybe they could hide it under something and then pull it up at the last minute to trip people. In the event that people started to get worse and more murderous than they already were.
She had a moment of pause at the fact that she was actually considering ways to kill people. It probably proved the fact that they were all in danger of doing everything they had said they weren’t going to do. Maybe none of them were really as good as they wanted to be. But she pushed it all off to the side. She would not attack if she didn’t have to.
The glow worms reacted differently than she’d expected. “That was interesting.” She tilted her head slightly. “Can I try?”
Maria looked away from the glowworms to the girl whose side she hadn't really left since they got to the arena. It was weird, the relationships between S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. Collegial yet competitive, they were the sort of people who trained in duplicity. As much as Maria liked Agent Coulson or Jessica Drew or even Natasha, trust was harder pledged. Still, Daisy wasn't part of the team of elite SHIELD recruits fighting for Nick Fury's--approval maybe? It was hard to tell. But there was (usually) a less adversarial relationship than Maria sometimes had with others in Fury's circle.
And she definitely seemed as unprepared to be alone in this arena as Maria was. So Maria nodded and moved her arm, brushing the tendrils of glowworms with the blade of the spear as she moved it over to Daisy. "Sure."
"How do you think they work?" she asked.
Daisy watched the glow worms curiously as the spear brushed the glow worms and they reacted to it. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen them before. I bet if we had our tablets we could look things up and see.” Which would have been nice because now Daisy was curious. How did glow worms work? Did anything outside of poking them make them react?
She used the spear to poke up at the glow worms. The ripple happened again, but also something fell on her face, far too close to her mouth for her to be okay with it. She squirmed, hitting a few other glow worms without meaning to before she handed the spear back to Maria. “Gross gross. Oh, gross.” She really hoped that no one was watching them in this instant. This was embarrassing.
"What?" Maria barely had time to ask. Before she found her spear moving back towards her. Her eyes widened with shock mixed with instinct as she reached out to stop it. Instead she found it pushed into her hands.
And Daisy's face was glowing.
Maria, despite herself, let out a peal of nervous laughter. It was a strange and echoing sound in the arena, but felt good. At least until she felt something wriggling on her forehead.
Maria reached up and swatted it away. Her hand came back with momentarily glowing blue guts. And her own face was overtaken by surprise.
It was in her hair.
The playbook was all but thrown out. What would Nick Fury do didn't really apply to hair care emergencies. She cried out a little louder than she intended, hopefully not enough to wake the spy who would be even less impressed than their teammates at home. "Oh! Ew!"
“One of them almost fell into my mouth,” she said quietly, nose wrinkling. She was really grossed out. It was so not okay. She was sorry to have done the same thing to Maria. “Maybe we should not have poked them,” she said after a moment. She very much was regretting the part where she’d suggested poking them and then the part where she’d done the poking.
“I’m sorry,” she said, wiping at her face. “So gross. This is not okay. Why are bugs so gross?” She’d eaten some of them at the edible bugs and plants thing, but that didn’t mean she was ready for gross worms on her face. Who knew if you could even eat glow worms? They were probably toxic and it could have fallen into her mouth.
Gross. Gross. Gross.
“Maybe we should never poke bugs with a stick again. Probably that will save us. We should probably find something else to do...like get this glow worm off us.”
Maria didn't like to question Fury's judgement, but suddenly an all insect Avengers team seemed like a terrible plan. Or maybe it was still good.
Maria looked at the ceiling already recovering its carpet of blue and wondered--was there a trap in that?
Probably not she reasoned, rubbing her hand on her pant leg a little harder than was strictly necessary because most people here didn't scream like girls when confronted with a few bugs. Damnit Hill.
She shook her head, still not quite feeling like she wasn't crawling with bugs. But that drew her attention to the water lapping a few feet away from them. She did still have a spear and the water wasn't that cold if they kept dry clothes back this time.
"What if we poked fish instead?"
Daisy nodded at Maria’s suggestion. Poking fish seemed much better. It was at least useful and if Nat woke up to them making fish, that was probably a point for them, right? While Maria poked fish with her spear, Daisy could just...wrestle them. Then at least Bucky could be happy that she’d used a skill he’d taught her.
“We’ll probably need to eat anyway and fish should be fine. We learned how to catch and prepare them.” She just wanted to never poke glow worms again. Ugh. She got up off the ground, carefully trying to avoid getting too close to the glow worms. She didn’t want to touch them ever again.
Before getting into the water, Daisy considered the clothes she was wearing. She remembered all the different classes, so she was trying to recall this as she picked what layers to remove so she wouldn’t sink in the water and might have clothes to wear when she got out of the water.