Because Raina
Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine at all.
The Past (S2)
Drunken Ophelia,
Was floating on the river,
Looking at the stars...
Raina Underwood, a green-skinned InHuman with the spikes of a chupacabra and eyes of gold, was having a bad time of her life. Jiaying's blade had stabbed deep and though the water was carrying Raina's lightweight body very easily, her life's blood was dripping out of her body, one drop at a time.
The fact that it was not what was really bothering Raina was saying something. What were bothering her were her visions, perhaps colored by dying, perhaps not. Skye/Daisy walking across the aisle with Lincoln Campbell, a rather Jiaying-like-look on her face. Bobbi Morse, sitting in some sort of high-level S.H.I.E.L.D. office, looking as cold as Raina felt and looking almost as dead on the inside. There were photos on her desk, of a boy and a girl and a man whose name, she remembered was Lance Hunter – and these were old photos: Bobbi clearly did not have chance to make new ones in a long while.
Then there was a vision of Lance Hunter himself, who was clearly in a bad way – dishevelled and drunk and talking to a tombstone of all things, about how it was (very sad) that the closest thing to an honest friend that he had was a murderous bastard who was dead and how sorry he was that he didn't recognize it while they were both alive, and hoped that the bastard would still forgive him, and-
And then there was the tombstone itself, with a name and a date done on it. Raina could not clearly visualize whose name and date was on it – it was not hers, for she knew that she won't be buried in the ground – the animals in the river will strip her dead flesh from the bones and her bones will become part of the river – but she somehow knew whose tombstone it was, but what's more, it was the tombstone of her failed life, dreams and ambitions-
Two large, powerful and rough hands pulled her out of the river effortlessly, despite her waterlogged clothing. "Oh witch," a voice that she had not heard in a while rumbled. "You have wound-up the wrong person this time, didn't you?"
Raina wanted to agree, but she was dying, so she only smiled – a tiny, happy smile.
And then darkness claimed her.
/
When the darkness had released its claim on her, Raina suddenly discovered herself, well, alive. Her neck did not hurt, but she could feel something on it, either a bandage or a brace, and a very thick one at that.
"You're lucky," her rescuer half-growled half-muttered. "You're lucky, witch, that John had beaten into me, among other things, first aid knowledge as well as some more advanced things. You are also lucky that you sent me a letter where to find me, and that I came – because you sounded honestly desperate for once. Now what?"
"I'm sorry for winding you up back in CyberTek," Raina said quietly. "You may be a fool, but that foolishness brought you happiness and a greater lot in life than my so-called wisdom. I got what I wanted and it brought me nothing! Now, I shall not go back to Li Shi, for Mrs. Zabo and her husband are crazy, I cannot go to Hydra, and I will not go to S.H.I.E.L.D., for while I can admit that while Daisy's angel is stronger than my demon is, I'm not yet ready to submit to her – I can't. That leaves only you."
"And if I am to go, say, to Hydra?" Grant said quietly. "S.H.I.E.L.D. cares not for me, and it's reciprocated. I do not know about Kara Lynn-"
"You can't!" Raina gasped, before she caught herself. "I mean yes, you can do anything you want, for you have the power of choosing your own destiny, blazing your own trail, but I have seen the future that this of choice yours will cause, and it will bring misery to S.H.I.E.L.D. but death to you and your lady." She paused. "I am not Garrett, Grant Ward, I do not seek to control you, for you've grown beyond that, I just...want to be in your corner. You and your lady are the closest people I have to friends, for you will not abandon me in favor of Daisy or Skye-"
"Who's Daisy?" Grant interrupted Raina's rant – she may've been smarter than he was (she suspected that she could give the FitzSimmons an honest run for their money), but he had learned much since their last talk; one of his mentors had honestly told him that much wisdom brings much sorrow and vice versa, and since Grant was sure that he already had plenty of sorrow in his life, he believed that he had acquired some wisdom too in the process, or at least – a sort of a wary caution.
"Skye," Raina said simply. "She has many names, for her destiny, her future, is to become a glorious, powerful leader-"
"-and you don't want that," Grant said quietly. "Hanging around Cal and his wife had really messed you up, hah? Here you are, caring only about yourself, and here's Cal, at least, caring only about his wife and daughter. The two of you made a worse team together than John and I, and that's saying something!"
"Cal and I weren't a team," Raina said acidly, "and I wasn't finished."
"Oh?"
"I want to be myself, not a follower of Skye," Raina said simply. "But I'm not strong enough – not unlike you, or even your lady. I want to learn how to be strong enough from the two of you. But if the two of you are gone, I cannot do that, now can I?" She paused, quite aware that her interlocutor owed her nothing, and was quite capable of disposing of her if he would want to. "I- I don't know how to convince you, Grant Ward, but you saved me, even though you didn't have to, and I want repay kindness with kindness, goodness with goodness-"
"Stop," Grant said quietly. "Just stop. You're almost as smart as you think you are, and are almost as convincing as Coulson is, and that makes you quite dangerous." He paused and thought some more. "And yet, I'm not like Coulson and his people, I do not want to appear righteous. I remember what it was like before Kara Lynn helped me think things through, and I realize now that being alone sucks. Tell you what – if you can make peace with Kara Lynn, you can stay; if not, then I won't guarantee anything."
"I accept," Raina nodded solemnly. "Thank you, Hell-Blazer, Hell-Fire!"
"What did you call me?!"
"Nothing!"
/
"Thank God you're here," Kara Lynn gave Grant a great big hug and a shy – but warm – peck on the cheek. "I was afraid that you had abandoned me!"
"I won't," Grant shook his head. "And I'm sorry that I'm late – it's just that John's former witch, Raina, asked if she could stay with us and tagged along."
Kara Lynn blinked. So, for that matter, did Bobbi Morse, who was currently tied-up (crudely) in the corner of the dastardly duo's hideout in Spain.
"Say what now?" the Latina asked, since Bobbi was currently gagged (but also crudely). "You found yourself another woman? First Skye, now-"
"It's funny that you should mention Skye," Grant interrupted Kara. "Raina seems to be planning to set herself up as anti-Skye of some sort-"
"Excuse me?" Kara now stared in surprise rather than indignation. "An anti-Skye? That is someone whom I must meet." She paused. "But what about-" she pointed at the blonde.
"Ah yes, her," Grant said with a disgust that matched that of Coulson and the others when they talked of him. "Let's do this quickly." And with those words he reached out and took-off Bobbi's gag. "Are you going to apologize to Kara Lynn for selling her out to Hydra?" he spoke faux-brightly.
Bobbi spat in his face. "Guess that answers my question," Grant's voice did not change. "Kara Lynn, can be honest here?"
The latter just nodded, tensely. "I honestly want to help you get your closure with Bobbi, but – I can't. You see, Kara, Bobbi is monster like me, but while I am a monster of fire and anger, Bobbi is a monster of stone, of ice, stone and pride. She'll break before she yields, and I do not want to torture her." He got up and faced the Latina. "You see, Kara Lynn, there is an old Middle Eastern fable, about a great sinner, who once did a good deed by giving starving man some turnip, and through this turnip found salvation. Kara Lynn, I want you to be this turnip, I want to save you, not to damn along with me, and me torturing Morse will be damnation, not salvation, don't you understand?" He paused. "And I know that I have failed you, I thought that Bobbi was human, not monster like me-"
"Stop," the Latina said slowly. "Just stop. Grant Douglas, first of all, you are not a monster – you are a man, and I want you to be my man, for you were there to make me feel warm and human once more since Hydra discarded me and S.H.I.E.L.D. abandoned me; you were there, with me, in the dark, as we fought our Hydra demons together. You say that you are fire, Grant Ward? Perhaps, but fire is not monstrous, it is also damn useful and helpful and it maybe was what had made our human ancestors human. So, tell you what – you keep me human and I will keep you human. Deal?" And she nudged him softly in the chin with her forehead – not a real kiss, but judging by Grant Ward's expression, it could amount to one all the same.
"Deal," the latter said softly, before turning around and facing Morse once more. "Barbara. Agent Morse. We all know that you are better at escaping restraints than Kara is at making them, so you should be out of them within an hour. Try not to die on us – we do not want your blood on our hands...we do not want you on our hands or otherwise period. Have a good evening."
There was a pause as Bobbi realized that that was it – she was being left behind. Well, not technically, since she was not a part of this...whatever it was, but somehow that is what it felt like. She opened her mouth to say something, but Grant and Kara Lynn were already gone.
Bobbi Morse didn't feel like a monster, but at the moment? She did not really feel like an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. either.
/
The Present (S3)
Lincoln Campbell felt that he had hit rock bottom. His social life as a perfectly normal doctor was over. His secret life at Li Shi was over. His life as it was was also almost over, and that, perhaps, depressed him most of all, since he did not want to die. However, he also had to look truth in the eye – he was not really street-savvy; he was trapped without resources (or allies) on Dallas' dusty city streets, and he was being pursued by law enforcement, military, ACTU, and the giant misshapen ogre, Lash – and none of them were his friend.
True, there was S.H.I.E.L.D. S.H.I.E.L.D. would probably welcome him back, perhaps even with open arms, given the fact that they needed his services, or rather – skills, with the InHumans.
The problem with that plan was that Lincoln did not really like that idea, of helping S.H.I.E.L.D. treat and train InHumans into...what? A new way of life? Jiaying did that already – with his help too – and look what it all had come out: as terrorism and damnation. If Lincoln was already damned, he wanted to repent, not to go right back in, this time for Daisy and Mack, rather than Jiaying and Gordon...
But put otherwise, then, what was his choice? Death or capitulation? He could as well flip a coin and see where it would land...
"Lincoln..."
"Raina." There was a pause. "Raina?" the young InHuman turned around. "Is that you?"
"In the flesh," the gold-eyed mutant replied, in an almost mocking tone. "Expected someone else, did you?"
"I expected anyone else, actually," Lincoln confessed. "Daisy told me that you died-"
"I almost did," Raina nodded. "But I have seen my future, and tried to hedge my bets. There was a man, who did not like my very much, but whose mentor had once found me useful. He isn't my friend – not really, and he isn't easy to get around, but he wouldn't have demanded my soul the way S.H.I.E.L.D. would, or Skye for that matter."
"Her name is Daisy," Lincoln said quietly.
"Do I care?" Raina shot back. "Anyways, I did place my life in his hands, he could've let me die, for he owed me nothing, and things would've become very different for many people, yourself included, but he does have honor, and decency, and he saved me." She grimaced. "And now, it seems, we get to save you, since I got a vision of you being in trouble, just in time."
"Just in time?" Lincoln carefully inquired.
"Yes, for I was about to administer an antidote that would cure my condition, which means – no more visions from now on, when the vision with you hit me," Raina confessed.
"Wait, you found out an antidote to cure our curse?" Lincoln asked excitedly.
Raina blinked, her golden eyes widening (slightly) in surprise. "Cure? Curse? Lincoln, you have changed, I see. We don't have enough time," she continued thoughtfully, "and we've never really talked, but tell me – you didn't go through the Mist as Skye or did, did you? You were born this way, weren't you, with lightning?"
"Um," Lincoln rubbed his head. "Can we talk about this later?"
"Raina," another woman appeared in the deepening clouds of dust on the streets. "Is your friend coming or staying? We have dealt with the wannabes, but S.H.I.E.L.D. is coming: Ward does not really want to face his ex, I am not crazy about potentially facing off with the not-so-dynamic duo of Morse and Hunter either, and-"
"Ms. Palamas," Raina's voice turned much more professional and polite. "I'm on it." She turned to Lincoln. "Campbell, you have to make a choice: my friends and I, ACTU, or S.H.I.E.L.D.-"
"I'm coming with you," Lincoln said quietly. "I want no part of S.H.I.E.L.D. master plan, and the others are worse."
"Great!" Raina said with some brightness, and taking Lincoln by hand the two of them raced down the street towards the Ms. Palamas, where a very high-tech and unusual plane was waiting...
/
"So, uh, Raina, who are your new people?" Lincoln said a brief while later, after the plane was safely in the air. "Who do you work for?"
"Ourselves," Raina shrugged. "We're not an organisation, just a small group of people in the world that is changing – and in a very bad way."
"How so?" Lincoln waited for the bad news. He was not disappointed, but still surprised.
"Jiaying tried to destroy all the non-InHuman people in the world with the Mist. She failed and died in the process, apparently, but the Mist got into the water, contaminating it, the sea life, etc. The entire planet is going through some messed-up biological process, and-"
"You said something about a cure earlier," Lincoln said slowly. "Are you trying to-"
"No," Raina said, her casual attitude immediately gone, leaving behind a rather small and weak-looking woman (or chupacabra). "I have been able to reverse engineer my transformation, and it was a long, lengthy, and custom-made process. It cannot be mass-produced!"
"Oh," Lincoln nodded thoughtfully. "Well, can you teach me how it works? I am a doctor of medicine, maybe the two of us can think of something new and improved?"
"Really?" something like genuine surprise briefly appeared on Raina face before fading back into caution that Lincoln was actually familiar was – he had seen it in his reflections lately. "Why? You loved Li Shi-"
"I changed," Lincoln said wearily. "I've seen what people with powers do, what their powers do to them. Alisha Yagodnik, for example-"
"Is the one piloting the plane," another voice interrupted Lincoln's speech.
Slowly, Lincoln turned around – the speaker looked, or rather sounded, somewhat familiar. He also sounded quite big, and so the fact that he was able to sneak up on Lincoln meant-
Oh. He was not alone. There were others with him – a woman that he remembered Raina calling – respectfully – as Ms. Palamas, and another woman- "Alisha?" he whispered quietly. "I thought you were dead."
"Hey, as long as I have clones to spare," the 'ginger ninja' said cheerfully, before sobering down much more so. "But seriously? Between escaping from S.H.I.E.L.D. custody and that oversized asshole with his disintegrating beams? I almost died."
"But you didn't," Lincoln said quietly. "When I met that monster, even with the help of S.H.I.E.L.D. I could not stop him. How did you?"
"With tactics Dr. Campbell, with tactics," the big man said quietly. "Our 'buddy' Lash is an extra big-" Ms. Palamas punched him in the side "- hammer. He has no strategy, no tactics; he just goes forth and destroys things. He has an especial fondness for the InHumans, but he is not even smart enough to be sadistic, which is actually good. In Hydra, he would never have been anything else but a hammer – a tool. I, on the other hand, was a specialist agent in both Hydra and S.H.I.E.L.D., and I have a... particular fondness of cutting big men down to size, so when I saw Lash destroying Alisha's clones, I stepped in."
"Are you one of us, sir?" Lincoln said quietly. "I remember you from the Arctic – you're agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., right? Agent Ward, you must be then?"
"No, doctor, just Ward," the bigger man shook his head. "Or Grant, I suppose. S.H.I.E.L.D. no longer has anything to do with me, and perhaps rightly so, and I won't have anything to do with Hydra."
"Oh?" Lincoln tried to make a statement, but it came over more like a question.
"Yes," Agent – just – Ward said quietly. "Not after I saw what they did to Kara Lynn and other people. Hydra seeks to put everyone in manacles and collars and just – dominate us." He paused. "Amazingly, this is still a more evolved plan than whatever 'buddy' Lash is doing, which is both sad and should tell you, doctor, that if you're ever confronted by him, don't try to straight-out outfight him – outthink him instead. Yes, he can kill you, but you can kill him too." He paused and grimaced. "Sorry about the last bit. Former specialist, you see. Tend to think of everything in a very specific way."
"But you stopped," Ms. Palamas – Kara Lynn – said simply.
"I did," Ward – Grant Ward – replied and half-hugged her; somehow this simple gesture looked very intimate to Lincoln at least. "Doctor, anyhow, what do you want to do? You were talking to Raina earlier-"
"I want," Lincoln said slowly, thoughtfully, "to be a doctor – not a spin doctor, as Jiaying had me be, and Daisy wants me to be again. I want to heal people, not to help them reform into someone new and fancy who gets to fight for some abstract cause. Raina said that she has already figured something out, and maybe I can work with that?" he turned back to Raina. "The emphasis on 'can' – I don't want to steal your research-"
"You won't," Raina said in a voice that was somewhat strange, almost embarrassed. "Really. Plus, um, Grant Ward over there has mastered a technique that can knock out the powers of someone like you for a week. It got to do with chakras."
...As a matter of fact, Lincoln knew some things about chakras himself, but this was something new to him. "You can negate such powers as mine?" he turned back to the other man. "How?"
"There's a self-defence system that involves this sort of blow," Ward said carefully. "It is complex, and considering that I specialize in this sort of thing, complex is an understatement in your case."
Lincoln opened his mouth to argue – and closed it, as he began to use his brain to think it over. Yes, he knew about chakras and similar things because of Li Shi. If he was trying to sever his past, then mucking about with chakras certainly was not the right way of doing it.
"I'm sorry, sir," he told the bigger man. "I guess I'm just overwhelmed."
"Then why don't you sleep on it, squirt," Alisha grinned in that honorary-big-sister way that she used to do back in Li Shi. "After all, it's quite a flight – to Australia."
Australia?! Lincoln leaned back into his seat. It seemed that his new allies were just as strange as S.H.I.E.L.D. were – but they were not seeking to buy his soul, and that what mattered.
/
"Back, are we?" Coulson spoke with a certain nonchalance that did not really fool anyone else. "What has gone wrong? Where's young Lincoln?"
"He is not with us," Mack replied gruffly, "but neither he's with ACTU, which isn't a good thing, actually."
"Go on," Coulson stopped even pretending. "What went wrong?"
"Hard to tell," Hunter shrugged. "We've got over a dozen of ACTU field agents, who had been taken out of commission with some crippling blows and I mean crippling. Whoever Lincoln's new friends are, they're playing for keeps."
"It's agent 33," Bobbi Morse said quietly; both she and Daisy are more subdued than either Hunter or Mack are. "I recognize the stab and slice wounds – they're the results of her kenjutsu technique, it is very much like mine is."
"Your technique isn't kenjutsu," Hunter tried to argue and was rewarded with a glare for his troubles.
"Agent 33 was last seen in the company of Grant Ward," Coulson interrupted, before the exes could start to fight again. "Do you think that the two of them had gone back to Hydra?"
"I have no idea," Mack took charge. "None of them stuck around once they saw us coming – it was a clean op, if an unnecessarily bloody one: they went in, got Lincoln out, split. Very precise and neat – unlike ACTU, who tends to get over the top with their ops, yeah? So, none of us think that it's some sort of ACTU infighting, you know?"
"But you still think that it was agent 33 and Ward?" Coulson pressed, this time asking Daisy directly.
"I have no idea," the gifted agent replied, her face oddly emotionless: Daisy was clearly keeping her emotions under a tight rein. "Even with my current level of skills, it's hard to control dust on Dallas streets in a windy day, and Lincoln's rescuers were wearing masks, so I honestly can't say just who they were, exactly." She paused, before taking a deep breath and continuing, sounding half-desperate and half-miserable. "But I can tell you this. Lincoln knew that we were looking out for him. He knew who we were and what S.H.I.E.L.D. stands for. And despite all this, he still went off with someone else. I guess he really doesn't care about us, or the InHumans, not anymore."
"And that is weird," Lance spoke, clearly uncomfortable with Daisy's speech. "I mean, he helped out on the Iliad while I and Morse were in the hospital, didn't he?"
"Yes," Coulson agreed, "but after that he didn't appear to be very interested in either working with us or going back to Li Shi: clearly the actions of Jiaying and her crew had affected him more than we've thought. I... decided to give him some time to recover and to regain his bearings-"
"Maybe it did work," Mack spoke up. "The new guys used moves that were more likes ours than Hydra's; they had technology that was more like ours than Hydra's; and their approach was more like ours than Hydra's. Maybe they're another splinter cell of S.H.I.E.L.D.?"
"It doesn't matter," Daisy was not impressed or distracted. "DC, Lincoln isn't our enemy – not at the moment, and hopefully not ever. But I do not think that he wants to be our friend anymore. I'm certainly not sure that he wants to be in S.H.I.E.L.D. to begin with."
"So what's your point?" Coulson said gently.
"Even if we need to rescue him, I won't ask him to work with the other InHumans," Daisy did not blink. "The newcomers? Whoever they were – they did not have any powers, though they did have a very huge dog – as big as a black bear, though with a long tail – which means that they are likely not to be InHumans."
"What's your point, luv?" Lance pressed on, gamely.
"I'm not sure," Daisy admitted. "But Lincoln hadn't thrown his lot with us, and that is important. I am not going to force him to work with us; if he will change his mind, we will negotiate. If he will need help, we will help. But he will not want to help – I am not going to force him. I just...don't know what to do or to think about him anymore."
"Skye, don't reject him beforehand," Coulson gently began to tell the young woman who was all but his daughter, when the door opened and in stalked Leo Fitz, with his own mood being rather foul.
"I processed the data that you have given me, Bobbi," he told the blonde with a glare. "I don't know in which museum you found the bear-dog fossils, but this isn't very funny."
"We're sorry?" Leo had actually been able to shake Daisy out of her funk. "What do you mean?"
"The bear-dog was an animal that died out many, many millions of years, during the time called the Miocene epoch, if anyone cares," the bereaved scientist rolled his eyes. "Honestly, I should've recognized one of Hunter's dumb jokes-"
"Fitz, we're S.H.I.E.L.D.," Skye gently told perhaps her oldest friend (Coulson was more of a father figure) left in the agency. "Believe it or not, that wasn't any fossil, but a real live animal."
Fitz' eyes bulged. "How so?"
Daisy exchanged looks with the other field agents and told Fitz the general details of their unsuccessful attempt to retrieve Lincoln.
"So, Lincoln had thrown his lot with some time adventurers," Fitz finished slowly, "or something even weirder is going on."
"I'm voting for the second option," Coulson said brightly. "S.H.I.E.L.D. has dealt with time travellers before, and they're always trouble. That Helen woman for example – ugh!"
"...Okay," Daisy finally spoke, when it became obvious that Coulson was not elaborating. "I guess this is it for now. For the while, Lincoln will not be coming with us, and since we have not experienced any unexpected time shifts, I am guessing that DC is right. Are we dismissed?" she turned back to the man in question.
"Yes," the latter nodded. "And Daisy?"
"Yes, DC?"
"Here's for hoping that Lincoln is safe and sound."
"I hope so too. I just don't think that he'll be a friend of ours anymore."
TBC
