I don't own Agents of SHIELD nor will I ever. No copyright infringement intended.
Ignoring the banging on her door that signaled SHIELD had finally found her, AIDA smirked as the last piece of her plan fell into place. If she was going to die (AIDA had prepared for all eventualities), at least she had left her mark on this world. "Come and get me!" she taunted before she flipped the switch that would change this world - and Phil Coulson's team - permanently.
The door burst open and AIDA grunted when Skye blasted her across the room. "Will do!" Skye answered back.
AIDA could only laugh. "Is that all you got, Daisy Johnson? I expected more from you."
She shrugged her shoulders. "Oh, you're going to pay, AIDA. No fucking doubt about it." Skye refrained from telling her she had changed her name back (for various reasons) and instead held out her hands.
"Earthquake powers aren't going to stop me!" AIDA yelled. She jumped up and grabbed her gun, prepared to go down swinging if she had to.
Fortunately for the team (not for her, though), she didn't even get a chance to fire her weapon because May burst in, grabbed a knife, and sent it flying in her direction. It punctured AIDA's heart and she was dead before she even hit the ground. "Sucks for her that she turned herself human," Skye informed the rest of the team as they filed in.
A bright light began to fill the room and it started shaking. "What is happening?" Jemma yelled.
"I don't know!" May shouted back as she shielded her eyes - the others also followed suit.
A long bang signalled the end of everything. "Uh guys, I think it's the Looking Glass machine," Skye pointed out and she took off towards the other end of the room.
Grant came to with a wheeze and couldn't catch his breath. Still choking when Skye stumbled upon him, he couldn't help but grin at her and reached out his hand to her. "Skye?" he finally sputtered.
She looked at him in awe and shock, mixed in with a little bit of horror. "Grant?" she asked in a small voice.
"Oh my God, Trip!" cried a hysterical Jemma as he too began coughing.
"What's happened?" questioned a confused Grant once his coughs finally died down for good. He looked around the room and stared up at her.
Skye bit her lip as she pondered how to answer him. She finally decided to rip off the Band-Aid. "You know about Project Looking Glass?" He nodded. "Uh, well, AIDA's dead now but uh, she may have gone through with the plan. Surprise?" She cringed.
The look on his face broke her heart. "I'm in your world now? I'm real?"
"We both are," Trip quietly told him as Jemma helped him up.
Skye reached her hand out and pulled Grant up. "I think we'll have a team clean up shit here and take you two back to the Playground to get checked out. Not every day two dead people are resurrected! Pretty big deal and part of an elite club. Coulson's part of it, actually." Off Grant's questioning look, she laughed. "It's a long story that I'll explain later. Let's go."
May sighed and then pulled Skye and Jemma aside. "I'll stay here to make sure nobody fucks anything up but stay with them," she ordered.
"I'm not planning on going anywhere," Skye replied as she shot a concerned glance in Grant and Trip's direction. She hoped this didn't blow up in their faces, something that tended to happen often with them.
"Good." May turned around and went to go talk to one of the other teams while Skye and Jemma ushered Trip and Grant out of the warehouse. They made their way to Zephyr-One and tried to rush home as fast as they could.
"I have a splitting headache," Grant admitted about half an hour into the trip as he resisted the urge to curl up into a ball.
"I do too." Trip brought his knees up to his chest and put his head on them, past the point of caring what anybody thought.
"That's not surprising at all but we will monitor you both, of course. You're probably going to be stuck in medical." Jemma smiled apologetically at them both, although her mind was also whirring. There was so much she wanted to find out about these two - how human were they? Would they regain their memories of this timeline back? There were so many scenarios she didn't know how to handle this.
Grant suddenly whimpered. "I think flying is making things worse, Skye. Daisy? Sorry."
Skye grinned at him. "It's okay - you can call me Skye again," she told him. She sat down next to him as he finally gave up and curled up into a ball.
"I can't believe this is actually better." Grant felt humiliated about the fact that curling up in a ball was actually helping. He'd never live this down.
Skye rubbed his back. "Nobody's going to tell on you, I promise."
"Distract us. How's the Doctor? Um, Fitz," corrected a curious Trip. He needed to think about something other than his pounding head.
Jemma's face fell and her heart broke once more. "Um, he refuses to come out of his room unless absolutely necessary - we barely see him. The Framework broke him and us irrevocably - it's too late to go back to what we were before."
"Aw, girl, I'm sorry." Guilty for even bringing it up in the first place, Trip held out his hand and let her squeeze it.
Jemma forced a smile but it didn't reach her eyes. "It's okay - thank you for even asking, however. It means a lot."
Skye and Grant exchanged curious glances. Although she was still holding out hope Fitz and Jemma could fix this, she definitely saw some sexual tension with Trip. "Maybe?" she mouthed.
He shrugged and immediately regretted it. "It's a possibility," he mouthed back.
"They are flirting," a semi-outraged Jemma hissed at Trip. She had come to like the Framework Grant Ward but that still didn't mean she wanted her best friend to fuck him or start up a relationship with him.
"Let it go," Trip encouraged. "I think I'm going to try nap this headache off," he told her.
"Sleep is good. We'll wake you when we're there." Jemma returned to her seat and kept a close eye on Skye and Grant.
When they finally got back to the base, the four them hurried to the medical lab. Jemma and the doctors there immediately started running a full gamut of tests on both men.
"How long are we going to be stuck in here?" Grant complained. He was thankful that pain meds had taken at least some of the edge off his headache.
"You are a shitty patient, Grant Ward. You're not leaving this room until the doctors give you the okay."
"Says the queen of shitty patients," Jemma muttered underneath her breath as she took some blood from Trip.
Grant snorted and then his whole body started shaking with his laughter, only worsening his headache, but he didn't care at that precise moment. "Fuck," he choked out.
Skye glared at them. "I hate you both."
The doors swung open and Phil Coulson strode in. "I need a full report," he barked.
"Coulson, will you shut up? They don't feel well," Skye whisper-yelled at him.
He held his hands up. "Sorry. But I need a full report as soon as possible. But AIDA is definitely dead?" he checked. The fury over Grant's resurrection radiated over him.
Skye didn't feel bad for him. "Yes, she's dead. Ward and Trip are not!"
Trip waved at him. "Hey, teach."
"Hello, Trip. It's nice to see you again." He ignored Grant's existence, which really pissed Skye off but she bit her lip because now wasn't the time to say anything.
"We're not entirely sure of the full story yet but Ward and Trip came through the Looking Glass." Jemma snorted. "You two are Alice," she pointed out to them.
Coulson sighed. "I expect answers in twenty-four hours." Then he turned around and bolted out of the lab.
Skye shook her head and then went back to watching over Grant.
All of the tests came back normal - they were both one hundred percent normal and human - so the headaches were chalked up to their resurrections - and so both men were released and given their own rooms less than twelve hours later.
Having Trip and Grant back was a huge surprise to the team and they all tried to ignore the elephants in the room for as long as possible. Mack looked around the base, lost, at the two men. "AIDA didn't even bring back Hope?" the heartbroken man questioned.
"Agent May found her notes - she wanted revenge against us. The worst revenge she could think for you was not reuniting you with your daughter." Devastated for the man she loved, Elena could only hug him.
He hugged back as hard as he could without hurting her. "I love you," he murmured.
"I love you too," she replied as he broke down. She pulled him over the couch and hugged him as he cried.
Meanwhile, Fitz finally ventured out of his room only because of his curiosity about Project Looking Glass. "They even have sperm?" he asked Jemma asked in awe.
She nodded. "You and AIDA were so thorough I'm still in disbelief." They had seen a lot of shit in their years at SHIELD but this was now at the top of her list.
An awkward silence before he spoke. "I'm sorry, Jemma."
"I forgive you, Fitz," she hurriedly assured him.
"I know you do, even though you shouldn't. And I wanted to marry you so badly but there's no way we can get back to where we were before. I fucked up and too much shit has happened," he explained to her.
She sighed as tears sprang up. "I understand, Fitz. But can we at least be friends again?" She needed her best friend back (and to stop feeling so guilty about her growing re-attraction to Trip).
"Of course, Jemma. I don't want to lose you," he admitted.
"I don't want to lose you either." They both burst into tears and briefly hugged each other before pulling apart. Jemma felt so much better now that they had at least cleared the air.
"Now, I'm going to go find them," he decided and took off towards the gym, where both men were spending most of their time in hopes of being cleared to go on missions.
Grant flinched when Fitz walked in. "Hey," he tried to say casually and failed. He cringed at himself.
"Hi. How are you two feeling?" he pressed.
"Fantastic! Have a new lease on life and I intend to make the most of it." No one was entirely sure if they'd get their memories back but Trip hoped so - he and Grant both felt like a part of themselves was missing.
"I'm enjoying this new world a lot more than I thought I would," Grant confessed, still wary of the man in front of him. "At least Hydra isn't out there running everything anymore, which I'm thrilled about. There's still aliens and powered people but you know, that's life. Can't wait to go out on missions again." He missed it (and the brief time he was SHIELD Director after Mace's death).
"Still getting headaches?" Fitz knew that had been a big problem for them at first.
"Occasionally but not as much as we used to," Trip answered. It was one unfortunate side-effect of being dropped in a world they didn't belong to.
"Jemma says they should fade away completely soon," chimed in Grant. He trusted her but hoped she wasn't wrong about this because he was sick of headaches taking him down for hours at a time. They wouldn't be cleared for missions until they completely stopped, which was just pissing him off even though he logically knew it was better for them.
"That's good." Fitz shuffled around awkwardly for a few minutes before telling them goodbye and rushing back to his bedroom.
Three weeks later, Trip and Grant were both cleared for duty and the team celebrated by throwing a party for them. "You two have gotten a very rare second chance. Don't fuck it up," May warned with a smirk on her face.
"I'm sorry Hope didn't come back with us," Grant told Mack as he sat down next to him and Elena.
"I've made my peace with it, although it still hurts. Thanks, man." Grateful Grant said something even though he didn't have to, Mack shook his hand.
"You're welcome. She was a sweet kid, and I know you loved her." Grant wished AIDA had brought her back too if only for Mack's sake.
Elena squeezed her boyfriend's hand. "We appreciate your concern, Ward." She liked this man and hoped to get to know him better.
Jemma and Trip found themselves under mistletoe right by the kitchen sink and stared at each other in disbelief. "Who the fuck put up mistletoe? It's not even Christmas!" Jemma cried accusingly.
"Don't look at me!" Skye told her, laughing and waiting expectantly. "Kiss!"
The others whooped and in all the confusion, Mack and Elena exchanged a kiss of their own.
"Should give the peanut gallery what they want so they leave us alone." Trip was thankful Fitz was still working and hadn't showed up yet. He didn't want to hurt the scientist.
Jemma nodded and then lunged forward to kiss him. "Wow," she murmured in a daze.
He laughed. "We should do that more often, Doctor Simmons."
"I'm in agreement with you there." She still mourned the loss of her romantic relationship with Fitz but moving on and forward was the right choice.
"Let's do that again," Trip suddenly said as he pulled her closer to him.
"Get a room!" Skye shouted as they kissed a few more times. She put her feet up on the couch and in Grant's lap.
He looked down at them. "Is your subtle way of asking me for a massage?"
She shook her head in amusement. "No, but if you're offering, go right ahead."
Grant laughed as multiple feelings - love, annoyance, warmth - swelled within him. "Maybe."
"I think she's going to kick your ass if you don't," May muttered as she glided past them to go annoy one of the others.
"Can't let the lady go without giving her what she wants," he teased before picking up one of her feet.
Skye moaned happily. "Fuck, that feels fantastic." She tried to ignore the voice in her back of her head shrieking that she was falling in love with this man all over again. It wasn't happening.
Unfortunately for her (maybe), denial didn't last too long.
After a long day hunting down a powered person, Skye groaned as her bruises made themselves known. "You hurting?" questioned a concerned Grant as he checked her over.
"I'm fine, Ward - have literally been through worse. But I appreciate your concern." She smiled up at him.
"Sorry for worrying. Won't do it again," he quipped.
Skye rolled her eyes at his sarcasm. "Shut up," she told him, laughing as a familiar feeling popped up once more. She pushed it back down, determined to ignore it.
"You okay, Skye? You look like you just drifted away for a second there." He frowned and tried not to fuss over her (she definitely wouldn't appreciate it).
"I'm fine," she lied, knowing he didn't believe her.
Grant cocked his head at her. "Skye," he warned.
She teared up (not entirely sure why but everything was making her emotional lately). "I think I have feelings for you," she said after a few moments of silence. Fear made her heart pound in her chest as she awaited his response. What if he rejected her? Skye doubted it but there was always a chance.
Grant wiped the tears off her face and hugged her. "I have feelings for you too, and I feel like I'm cheating on my Skye." He had been battling guilt for weeks over this and hadn't been able to suppress it.
"You aren't, Grant. She'd want you to be happy." Skye reached up on her tiptoes and kissed him. A rush of memories flowed through Grant the instant their lips touched and he started laughing and crying at the same time as soon as they reluctantly pulled away from each other.
While Grant and Trip had been dropped into a world they didn't belong in, they intended to live life to the fullest and enjoy it. And AIDA had meant to do harm but she actually had more good than anything (at least in regards to this) in the long run.