Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. fic: SSDD
Story Title: SSDD
Fandom(s): Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Whumptober 2024 Day 5: Sunburn
Rating: G
Word Count: 1,509
Summary: In which Daisy and Robbie get stuck in rural Utah.
Author’s notes: Premise is in reference to 4x05 when Daisy says, “[Getting off the plane] would put you in rural Utah. You think you're pissed off now ...”
“Don’t say it. Don’t you dare say it.”
“I wasn’t gonna say anything.”
They walk for another two minutes beneath the blazing sun.
“But you did rag on rural Utah, and now we’re -”
“- stuck in rural Utah. Yes, I’m aware of the irony, Reyes. Can’t believe you won’t just jump us somewhere.”
“I can’t. I told you, I need my chain for that, and they took it.”
“Some all-powerful demon you’ve got inside you, can’t even make a portal without a prop.”
“You’re one to talk. What do you call your gauntlets? Without those, you’d break your arms.”
“Those aren’t props, they’re … accessories. Like your jacket.”
“My jacket is for effect. Or was.”
“Aren’t you fancy.”
“Whatever. We can’t change where we are, so can we just be civil?”
“That depends on how big this stupid desert is. Do you know where exactly they dropped us?”
“No. We should probably keep walking east. Otherwise, if we’re already west of Salt Lake, we’ll hit more desert in Nevada and be even worse off than we are now.”
“Yeah, and if we’re east of Salt Lake, we’ll get a whole lot of nothing until Colorado. I know my geography, too.”
“I never said you - look, it sucks either way. I’m just saying we might have better luck going east.”
“And if you’re wrong?”
“I don’t know, I’ll make it up to you.”
“By doing what?”
“I’m sure you’ll come up with something. You’ve got plenty of time.”
“Understatement.”
As the hours pass and they come across no signs of refuge, Daisy wonders whether the Rider really needs that specific prop to portal-jump, or whether any conduit would do. Could he make a dried-up stick work? Or an animal bone? It wouldn’t carry the same panache as a spiked hellfire chain, but it’d do the job. Then again, if that were possible, the Rider would’ve done it by now. Whatever misgivings she may have with him and Robbie at the moment, she doesn’t think he’d prolong this on purpose.
The only benefit is that the sun finally has begun to dip. The temperature falls quicker than Daisy had expected, almost enough to allow her to enjoy the breathtaking sunset, and the sweat cools against her skin. She would kill for a glass of water right about now. Some trail mix wouldn’t hurt either. She’s got another two days or so for the former and three weeks for the latter, though, she’ll be fine.
She will not die in goddamn rural Utah.
The desert is as unforgiving at night as it was during the day. The goons had not been considerate enough to let her keep her jacket any more than they’d let Robbie keep his (a loss she estimates accounts for about eighty percent of his upset with their present situation), which she hadn’t minded much while trekking through high noon but would very much like now. And despite being joined by someone who can start his own fire, the place is so barren as to lack any fuel for said fire, so it’s all stupidly pointless to begin with.
“Are you sure you don’t -”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
She’d refused his offer to lie next to her for the warmth back when it was a reasonable temperature. Pride is all that keeps her from recanting now; other than being not in a desert, she can’t imagine anything better than what amounts to electric blanket.
Whatever. It’s not like she was going to get much sleep anyway on a bed of salt and sand.
Day Two is more of the same. Only worse, because there’s still no water, and she can see her skin start to redden. Under nicer circumstances, she could be leisurely working on a tan. Instead, she’ll be on her way to winning a lobster impersonation contest, with the added fun of a tank top-shaped void in the center of it.
It marginally helps for Night Two, though. The burn radiating heat from beneath her skin makes for an almost pleasant evening temperature. She does her best to focus on that part. The alternative is focusing on how sweat-sticky her jeans are, how she’s going on a third day of the same underwear, how her left boot keeps coming untied, how there is still no sign of civilization on the horizon, and how Robbie remains completely unaffected by their environment.
Other than the concern written in the furrow of his brow, that is.
Day Three blows.
At least Maveth hadn’t had the summer sun Simmons needed to contend with.
Daisy can see the blisters forming on her shoulders and is having trouble recalling a time when her mouth wasn’t dry.
The stars twinkling in the night sky are pretty, though.
She doesn’t register much of Day Four. After the second time her legs give out from under her, Robbie scoops her up and the rest of her consciousness is composed of heat and mirages.
She wakes on Day Five propped up in an unfamiliar bed with feeble rays of sunrise filtering through coarse linen curtains. On the nightstand sits a cup of water that she eagerly downs in one swallow, beside it a bowl of damp rags. She attempts to get out of bed to figure out where the hell she is, only to be speared with pain. She looks down to see her skin is worse off than she remembered: dark red, peppered with pustules, and the feeling of being stretched too tight. It stands out starkly against her unburnt torso where her shirt had been, of which she is currently bereft, along with her bra.
After that particular discovery, she finds she’s not alone in the room; her grunt of pain, it seems, had alerted Robbie, who had been sleeping on the floor. “Welcome back. How are you feeling?”
“Like shit.” Despite the water, her throat feels like sandpaper. “What happened?”
“Couple hours after you passed out, I found this place. Told the guy and his wife we were hiking and got lost. They said we can stay as long as we need.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, you’re uh … you were in pretty bad shape. I thought you were dead when I got here. So did they.”
She does feel like death. She tries to maneuver into a more comfortable position, and gets another stab of pain for her efforts.
“Don’t move,” says Robbie unhelpfully.
She’s only been awake for a few minutes and already she’s sick of this. “Did you call anyone?”
“Yeah, shouldn’t be long now. S.H.I.E.L.D. couldn’t get here right away. Believe it or not, they don’t have a base in the middle of the desert.”
“Middle of this desert, maybe. Where are we?”
“I asked the same thing. There’s not much out here.” Robbie reaches into his back pocket, pulls out a state map, and points a few inches west of Salt Lake City.
You won, then, she thinks, heading east was best. She decides not to mention it.
“Did Simmons give a prognosis?” Daisy asks with another glance down at her blistered arms.
“No, she said she’d need to see you first,” Robbie says. He nods toward the nightstand. “Compresses and painkillers in the meantime. No touching the blisters in case they burst.”
She flicks the edge of the comforter that’s drawn up over her chest. “So was getting me half-naked your idea?”
“What? No, that - no.”
“It’s too bad you’re not sunburned too,” Daisy laughs, “it’d hide that blush of yours.”
“I swear, I was outside when Mrs. Emerson -”
“Would you relax? You’re many things, but a peeping tom isn’t one of them. I trust my virtue is safe.” Half because of the pink tinge to his cheeks and half because she really can’t do it by herself, she adds, “I could use the help, though, with the compresses.”
“With the … Simmons should be here soon, she could do it better.”
“It’s not rocket science.”
Following another moment of deliberation, he nods and helps turn her onto her stomach. She bites her tongue against the discomfort. Gentler than she expected, Robbie brushes aside her hair and nudges down the sheet, then grabs one of the damp rags and squeezes out the excess water.
“Might be a little cold,” he says, and places it over one of her shoulders. It’s cool, and the towel’s scratchy, but to her instant relief it leeches away some of the heat. Robbie pauses to ask, “Is that okay?”
“Yeah, definitely okay.”
He continues, placing another towel and then another until her back and shoulders are covered. It’s the best she’s felt in days. Once he’s done, he comments, “You know, this is gonna itch like crazy once it starts to heal.”
She’d been trying very hard not to think about that part, or about all the peeling that’s coming her way.
Instead, she focuses on how Robbie hasn’t moved from his spot beside her, and, wishing she could see his face, she smirks, “Good thing I know a guy who can rub me down.”
Fandom(s): Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Whumptober 2024 Day 5: Sunburn
Rating: G
Word Count: 1,509
Summary: In which Daisy and Robbie get stuck in rural Utah.
Author’s notes: Premise is in reference to 4x05 when Daisy says, “[Getting off the plane] would put you in rural Utah. You think you're pissed off now ...”
“Don’t say it. Don’t you dare say it.”
“I wasn’t gonna say anything.”
They walk for another two minutes beneath the blazing sun.
“But you did rag on rural Utah, and now we’re -”
“- stuck in rural Utah. Yes, I’m aware of the irony, Reyes. Can’t believe you won’t just jump us somewhere.”
“I can’t. I told you, I need my chain for that, and they took it.”
“Some all-powerful demon you’ve got inside you, can’t even make a portal without a prop.”
“You’re one to talk. What do you call your gauntlets? Without those, you’d break your arms.”
“Those aren’t props, they’re … accessories. Like your jacket.”
“My jacket is for effect. Or was.”
“Aren’t you fancy.”
“Whatever. We can’t change where we are, so can we just be civil?”
“That depends on how big this stupid desert is. Do you know where exactly they dropped us?”
“No. We should probably keep walking east. Otherwise, if we’re already west of Salt Lake, we’ll hit more desert in Nevada and be even worse off than we are now.”
“Yeah, and if we’re east of Salt Lake, we’ll get a whole lot of nothing until Colorado. I know my geography, too.”
“I never said you - look, it sucks either way. I’m just saying we might have better luck going east.”
“And if you’re wrong?”
“I don’t know, I’ll make it up to you.”
“By doing what?”
“I’m sure you’ll come up with something. You’ve got plenty of time.”
“Understatement.”
As the hours pass and they come across no signs of refuge, Daisy wonders whether the Rider really needs that specific prop to portal-jump, or whether any conduit would do. Could he make a dried-up stick work? Or an animal bone? It wouldn’t carry the same panache as a spiked hellfire chain, but it’d do the job. Then again, if that were possible, the Rider would’ve done it by now. Whatever misgivings she may have with him and Robbie at the moment, she doesn’t think he’d prolong this on purpose.
The only benefit is that the sun finally has begun to dip. The temperature falls quicker than Daisy had expected, almost enough to allow her to enjoy the breathtaking sunset, and the sweat cools against her skin. She would kill for a glass of water right about now. Some trail mix wouldn’t hurt either. She’s got another two days or so for the former and three weeks for the latter, though, she’ll be fine.
She will not die in goddamn rural Utah.
The desert is as unforgiving at night as it was during the day. The goons had not been considerate enough to let her keep her jacket any more than they’d let Robbie keep his (a loss she estimates accounts for about eighty percent of his upset with their present situation), which she hadn’t minded much while trekking through high noon but would very much like now. And despite being joined by someone who can start his own fire, the place is so barren as to lack any fuel for said fire, so it’s all stupidly pointless to begin with.
“Are you sure you don’t -”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
She’d refused his offer to lie next to her for the warmth back when it was a reasonable temperature. Pride is all that keeps her from recanting now; other than being not in a desert, she can’t imagine anything better than what amounts to electric blanket.
Whatever. It’s not like she was going to get much sleep anyway on a bed of salt and sand.
Day Two is more of the same. Only worse, because there’s still no water, and she can see her skin start to redden. Under nicer circumstances, she could be leisurely working on a tan. Instead, she’ll be on her way to winning a lobster impersonation contest, with the added fun of a tank top-shaped void in the center of it.
It marginally helps for Night Two, though. The burn radiating heat from beneath her skin makes for an almost pleasant evening temperature. She does her best to focus on that part. The alternative is focusing on how sweat-sticky her jeans are, how she’s going on a third day of the same underwear, how her left boot keeps coming untied, how there is still no sign of civilization on the horizon, and how Robbie remains completely unaffected by their environment.
Other than the concern written in the furrow of his brow, that is.
Day Three blows.
At least Maveth hadn’t had the summer sun Simmons needed to contend with.
Daisy can see the blisters forming on her shoulders and is having trouble recalling a time when her mouth wasn’t dry.
The stars twinkling in the night sky are pretty, though.
She doesn’t register much of Day Four. After the second time her legs give out from under her, Robbie scoops her up and the rest of her consciousness is composed of heat and mirages.
She wakes on Day Five propped up in an unfamiliar bed with feeble rays of sunrise filtering through coarse linen curtains. On the nightstand sits a cup of water that she eagerly downs in one swallow, beside it a bowl of damp rags. She attempts to get out of bed to figure out where the hell she is, only to be speared with pain. She looks down to see her skin is worse off than she remembered: dark red, peppered with pustules, and the feeling of being stretched too tight. It stands out starkly against her unburnt torso where her shirt had been, of which she is currently bereft, along with her bra.
After that particular discovery, she finds she’s not alone in the room; her grunt of pain, it seems, had alerted Robbie, who had been sleeping on the floor. “Welcome back. How are you feeling?”
“Like shit.” Despite the water, her throat feels like sandpaper. “What happened?”
“Couple hours after you passed out, I found this place. Told the guy and his wife we were hiking and got lost. They said we can stay as long as we need.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, you’re uh … you were in pretty bad shape. I thought you were dead when I got here. So did they.”
She does feel like death. She tries to maneuver into a more comfortable position, and gets another stab of pain for her efforts.
“Don’t move,” says Robbie unhelpfully.
She’s only been awake for a few minutes and already she’s sick of this. “Did you call anyone?”
“Yeah, shouldn’t be long now. S.H.I.E.L.D. couldn’t get here right away. Believe it or not, they don’t have a base in the middle of the desert.”
“Middle of this desert, maybe. Where are we?”
“I asked the same thing. There’s not much out here.” Robbie reaches into his back pocket, pulls out a state map, and points a few inches west of Salt Lake City.
You won, then, she thinks, heading east was best. She decides not to mention it.
“Did Simmons give a prognosis?” Daisy asks with another glance down at her blistered arms.
“No, she said she’d need to see you first,” Robbie says. He nods toward the nightstand. “Compresses and painkillers in the meantime. No touching the blisters in case they burst.”
She flicks the edge of the comforter that’s drawn up over her chest. “So was getting me half-naked your idea?”
“What? No, that - no.”
“It’s too bad you’re not sunburned too,” Daisy laughs, “it’d hide that blush of yours.”
“I swear, I was outside when Mrs. Emerson -”
“Would you relax? You’re many things, but a peeping tom isn’t one of them. I trust my virtue is safe.” Half because of the pink tinge to his cheeks and half because she really can’t do it by herself, she adds, “I could use the help, though, with the compresses.”
“With the … Simmons should be here soon, she could do it better.”
“It’s not rocket science.”
Following another moment of deliberation, he nods and helps turn her onto her stomach. She bites her tongue against the discomfort. Gentler than she expected, Robbie brushes aside her hair and nudges down the sheet, then grabs one of the damp rags and squeezes out the excess water.
“Might be a little cold,” he says, and places it over one of her shoulders. It’s cool, and the towel’s scratchy, but to her instant relief it leeches away some of the heat. Robbie pauses to ask, “Is that okay?”
“Yeah, definitely okay.”
He continues, placing another towel and then another until her back and shoulders are covered. It’s the best she’s felt in days. Once he’s done, he comments, “You know, this is gonna itch like crazy once it starts to heal.”
She’d been trying very hard not to think about that part, or about all the peeling that’s coming her way.
Instead, she focuses on how Robbie hasn’t moved from his spot beside her, and, wishing she could see his face, she smirks, “Good thing I know a guy who can rub me down.”