Over the next 2 weeks, Phil and Melinda gave time to the kids to take in what they learned. They told them in more depth about SHIELD and the work that they did. The kids became divided on the matter. Deke and Jemma understood their parents' reasoning and Mack, while grumpy about the whole lying thing, was willing to forgive. Yo-Yo, Daisy, and Fitz on the other hand, didn't see things that way. They felt betrayed. Daisy most of all. The three of them became withdrawn, only interacted with the rest of the family when absolutely necessary. For Coulson and May, this was a nightmare, but they gave them space. Fitz and Yo-Yo were ranting to each other a lot about how unfair it all was and everything. Sometimes it felt like they themselves weren't sure what they were mad about. But slowly they mellowed out. Daisy on the other hand didn't. Two people, in particular, noticed that she was angrier than usual. These were Mike Peterson and Robbie Reyes. It was hard not to notice. Other than the constant, easily irritable state Daisy was in for two weeks, she was also closed off. She had much less fun with any activity or conversation with either of the boys. And she didn't tell either of them what was up.
—
Robbie was rather surprised when Mike walked up to him in between two classes. The boy looked up at his rival waiting for whatever he wanted. Mike gestured for them to go out to the hall. While outside there were more people, it still made sense. In the classroom, it was quieter and it was a more enclosed space. In the hall, on the other hand, people were constantly moving and it was noisy. So whatever Peterson wanted, it was safer to say in the hall. After they exited the classroom and stepped away, mike Turned to Robbie, stating why he wanted to talk.
"You need to talk to Daisy," he stated. Some anger toward Robbie was simmering in his voice, which Robbie picked up on, but he also sensed that Mike's concern for Daisy was his driving force at the moment.
"You'd trust me with that? Why not you talk to her?" Robbie asked.
"I may not like you, but Daisy does. Better than anyone else in the school. If she's going to tell anyone what is going on with her, it will be you."
Robbie nodded slightly. Frankly, he didn't get why Daisy liked him so much, but if it meant she would confide in him with what's been troubling her, he took it.
That day, their physics teacher had called in sick at the last possible minute, and the substitute they managed to send was so knowledgeable in physics that she was an art teacher. The two miracles combined resulted in a lesson where the class was allowed to spend it however they wanted with the only rule being that they were quiet. They were of course not fully quiet, but the teacher managed to demand enough respect so that the noise that they made didn't surpass any noise they would otherwise make during a class. Daisy immediately pulled out her phone and started scrolling through social media. She was sitting with Mike that day but didn't really engage in any conversations. Mike didn't push. So now they just sat in silence. That's when Diasy's mindless scrolling was interrupted by a chat head popping up on the side of her screen. The red bubble marking messages quickly went from '1' to '2'. Daisy recognized Robbie's profile picture and was curious what he wanted in the middle of class. She opened the chat and saw a link, followed by a message that read 'You said you'd check it out'. She opened the link which took her to a website where she could watch The Owl House, a cartoon Robbie had mentioned before. Daisy did actually say she'd check out the series. Seeing the poster, it seemed silly. But at the moment she had nothing better to do so she fished her earbuds out of her bag and started playing the first episode. It was charming. The characters were fun and much more relatable than most heroes of the media. The show then reached its halfway point and the tone grew somewhat more serious. Previously the episode had been the main character, Luz, discovering the magical other world and some wacky hijinks. Then Luz realized that her new companions, Eda and King, were weirdos like her. Then the episode progressed and one part in particular caught Daisy's attention. "King and I don't have much in this world, other than each other. So if that dumb crown is important to him, it's important to me. Besides. Us weirdos have to stick together, ya know." the crazy lady with the owl theme said to the girl. Daisy at that point shifted her gaze to the chat head still on her screen and the black charger on it. Robbie was cruel to use a cartoon to try and get her to talk to him. She knew what this was about. She didn't exactly hide her recent behavior. She finished the episode and saw why Robbie liked the series. Other than being fun and colorful and interesting, it clearly had a strong motive of weirdos, outcasts, acceptance, and looking beyond appearances. She closed the website for the moment, then wrote to Robbie, letting him know that she got his not-so-subtle hint and that they could talk after school. Robbie wrote back saying:
"I don't mean to push, and you don't have to tell me anything you don't want"
"I just wanna know you're okay"
"And let you know that I'm here if you do want to talk"
"And I'm pretty sure Peterson is the sme"
"*same"
Daisy and Robbie, after school, went out to their spot in the backyard, for once not with the sole purpose of pissing Bobbi off.
"Just so you know, there's nothing to be worried about," Daisy said right as they reached the spot. "It's just that there's some drama that went down at home and I'm pretty pissed at my parents right now. That's all."
Robbie nodded wordlessly. Daisy studied his face.
"That's it? No pushing for answers?"
"It's clearly not my place."
"Your eyes are betraying you, Reyes."
"'It's not my place' doesn't mean I can't be curious about it. Especially that you never really talked about your parents."
Daisy paused and looked away, pretending to check if Bobbi was coming to bust them yet.
"Ours is a complicated family." She then looked back at Robbie. "You don't talk about your family either."
"Ours is a tragic family," Robbie responded copying her answer.
"And that's not even taking into consideration our powers."
"I think it's an understatement that we have some issues."
Silence set in for a minute. During that minute, Bobbi arrived to bust their party. Daisy and Robbie both decided to go home.
—
Daisy took a breath and walked downstairs where her parents were getting ready to leave for work. "At least I know where they're going," Daisy thought. May and Coulson, in their effort to regain their kids' trust, started being honest about where they were at all times. If they were given a new mission, the kids knew where and what it was.
Daisy caught them just in time before they were about to let the kids know that they were going.
"Mom, Dad," she addressed them. May and Coulson looked at her with surprise in their eyes as she has not addressed them this directly since they came clean about SHIELD.
"Yeah?"
"Can I go over to a friend's place after school?" Daisy asked. She may have been pissed, but to go to someone's place without letting her parents know first seemed much to even her rule-breaker ass.
"This friend's parents know you'd be going over?" Coulson asked. Daisy just nodded.
"And we will do our homework and I'll be home before 10. I know the rules."
May and Coulson shared a look before turning back to Daisy.
"Yeah, you can go," May concluded.
—
It had been a few days since Daisy watched the Owl House pilot and it was now Friday. During the week, she watched the second and third episodes and after some nagging, she managed to convince Robbie to get together at either his or her place so that they could watch some episodes together. Seeing as how Daisy still had parent drama going on, they agreed that Robbie's place would be better. Once they arrived, they were immediately greeted by Robbie's uncle.
"You must be Daisy," Eli said to the girl.
"Thanks for having me, Mr Morrow!" Daisy said politely.
"Eli is fine. And it's our pleasure."
A boy, a few years younger than Robbie, appeared in the doorway. He was sitting in a wheelchair and smiled warmly at Daisy. Daisy assumed that he was Robbie's brother.
"Hey!" he greeted the newcomer.
"This is Gabe. My brother." Robbie informed his friend. "Gabe, this is Daisy."
"It's nice to meet you, Daisy! I heard a lot about you." Gabe said with a smile. Daisy raised her eyebrows with amusement as she glanced at Robbie who looked somewhat embarrassed at his brother's remark.
—
After a bit of chatting with Gabe and Eli, Daisy and Robbie retreated to Robbie's room. As promised to the adults, they did their schoolwork. At least they would be free of it on the weekend. After they were done with that, Robbie set up his computer to watch Owl House, during which he failed to cover his excitement. The episode they would be watching was titled The Intruder. Daisy absolutely couldn't understand what Robbie must've loved about it so much. It was only the fourth episode of the first season, exciting stuff didn't usually happen that early on. Silence set in as the episode started. It started casually. The main character, Luz, and her new friend, King, had some fun interaction before they realized that it was going to rain. Despite the warning from King, Luz went outside only to see the first drop of rain completely destroy a flower. Eda, the ultimate strangest mother figure in the history of media, ran toward the house, dragged Luz along and the two of them crashed into a pile of objects inside the house. Then the intro started.
Over the course of the episode, several things happened that Daisy did not expect. For starters, the episode laid down the foundations of a stable magic system. Then the story turned into a mystery situation as something turned off the lights, busted the door, and knocked out the house demon, Hooty. In all honesty, that bird-tube freaked Daisy out a little. As Luz and King checked on their which-mom, they found her gone. The two of them quickly got separated too. When they found each other again, King already knew that the previously assumed demon did not cause their problem. In fact, it was Eda herself that did all the damage. She had turned into some sort of feathery monster with black eyes. When the creature busted through the door and faced the kids, Daisy heard Robbie suck air in. She looked discretely over at him and saw hurt in his eyes. She then realized why he must've liked this specific episode. He related to Eda and her transformation into that monster. Daisy looked back at the screen to see what happened next. She kind of hoped this development in the character's story would provide her some opportunity to help Robbie with his inner demon.
The monster problem had an interesting solve. Luz found her own way to do magic, as she could not do magic the same way witches did, and used a light spell to disorient the monster. The next they saw, it had turned back to Eda. Eda explained to Luz and King that she was cursed and that owl-like monster was the reason they referred to her as the Owl Lady.
—
Daisy and Robbie watched several more episodes together. They had some intrusions from Gabe who also stuck around for one of the episodes. At the end of the day, Daisy thanked Eli for his hospitality and got a ride home. Once home, Coulson greeted her and asked if her afternoon was good. She just responded with a "Yeah," and went to her room. There, she thought about Eda and her curse again, as well as its similarity to Robbie and the Ghost Rider. Unfortunately for Robbie, there was no magic elixir to help him, like there was for Eda. But maybe there didn't need to be.