AN: This is for all of us that are having an EXTREMELY hard time accepting Ward's death. In reality I still have my fingers crossed (hidden from my best friend, however) that somehow, Daisy's gonna find a way to save him. It's a little to none possibility, but I'll take what I can. Anyways, this is for those of you that are like me, who are still in love with Grant Douglas Ward, and who can't stop thinking about how S.H.I.E.L.D was able to forgive Natasha Romanoff, queen of sins, but not him.
Daisy stepped into her tactical suit, pulling the zipper up and then stretching her amplifiers over her wrists. FitzSimmons had designed them to amplify her gift, hence the name. So far she'd only used them once, and they certainly did their job, as instead of merely knocking her target backwards she'd blown them full across the room.
Looking at herself in the mirror, she sighed. Coulson had been distant lately, his body frequency slightly different. It unnerved her. And he'd been especially tight-lipped about this operation, only telling her the very basics of the plan. Daisy wondered what he was hiding.
She met up with the rest of her team in the plane hangar. Lincoln gave her a warm smile, but the anxiety clawing at her gut prevented her from returning it.
"Okay, everyone knows their position and orders, right?" She asked. A chorus of yes's was heard, so she nodded.
"This needs to go as smoothly as possible, but my gut's telling me we're gonna run into trouble. Keep your eyes open for anything that seems off."
Everybody acknowledged, then they all climbed into a Quinjet, Bobbi sitting in the pilots chair.
Lincoln sat beside Daisy as the plane took off.
"What's wrong? You're tense."
"I don't know. I just have this... Feeling. It's probably nothing, but I can't seem shake it. It's like we're walking into a trap or something."
Her boyfriend tucked a lock of hair behind her ear.
"Don't worry, Coulson's studied the compound, there's been no movement inside for a month. It's gonna be fine."
She nodded, but didn't look convinced, nor did she speak the rest of the ride to Austria.
.
When the aircraft landed, Daisy immediately sensed that something was wrong. There was a hum in the air, like a swarm of insects was hovering just out of sight.
"Guys, we should leave. There's something here, it feels dangerous."
Bobbi looked at her teammate incredulously. "We can't just fly three hours back to base and tell Coulson we did nothing! We should scope the place out, and if you still think we should leave, then we will. But we have to at least look."
Mack agreed with her, as did Lincoln and Hunter. So they moved forward.
The structure was a crumbling Hydra base, raided by none other than Captain America and the Howling Commandos. Coulson's theory was that, hidden somewhere underground, a bunker housed an 0-8-4 of potentially catastrophic power. He wanted it found so that it wouldn't fall into the wrong hands, or at least that's what he'd told them. But as they got closer to the ruins and the hum grew louder, Daisy began to wonder if the Director was hoping to find more than an 0-8-4.
She had Lincoln and Lance behind her as they explored a strange room that looked like it had once been a laboratory. Smashed beakers and test tubes lay everywhere, formulas were scribbled on the chalkboards that covered the walls, and chemistry books lay thrown about, their pages torn and yellowed. The girl looked down at one of the extensive volumes, unable to read the foreign text but noticing faint scratches on the floor that lead back to a desk on the wall.
She nodded to her partners, who stood beside her as she crept up to the wall. The hum was so loud now she could feel it. And then suddenly it stopped.
The hidden door whipped open and a hand reached out, grabbing Daisy and yanking her inside the secret room while closing the door at the same time.
"Shh," an achingly familiar voice whispered, pinning her against the wall in the darkness. She could faintly hear Lincoln and Mack's frantic cries as they tried to open the door. Ward chuckled.
"It can only be opened with a key. Which I have, of course."
Daisy felt her breathing become panicked, as Grant stepped away from her and flicked a switch, activating an old electric light in the center of the room.
"Amazing how this thing still works, isn't it?"
"What are you doing here?" She asked. "How" was what she really wanted to know, as Coulson had said he had been killed on the other planet by "It."
"At first I was looking for a piece of technology that will be of great use to me in the future, but then I decided to see if you would show up. I've been wanting to meet you. Tell me, did you enjoy my singing?"
Now slightly confused as well as frightened, the agent slowly moved her fingertips, anticipating the shockwave to come and hoping it didn't bring the place down on top of her. But nothing happened.
Ward smirked and moved close to her again. Too close. She brought her hands up and tried to use an incapacitating move, but when she struck his chest she was met with a sickening crunch and a give that was not the result of her punch. Her stomach roiled as he closed in on her, grabbing her wrist and pushing her hand to his sternum.
His face wore a neutral expression, while hers was a reflection of the nausea she felt as bones cracked and flesh caved. Her voice quivered as she spoke.
"Your ribs are broken..."
"Oh, more than that. This heart was crushed, slowly and agonizingly, by your fearless leader. It was truly a painful thing to witness, though I can't feel it now. Ward died an excruciating death."
Daisy began to lift her gaze, all of the blood drained from her face. As she looked into his eyes, the tiny sliver of her heart that would always love the man in front of her shattered into a billion micro fragments. The beautiful silver orbs that she'd once been content to stare into for eternity were now dull and lifeless. Though there had once been humanity in them, there was nothing. Grant Ward was dead.
The realization brought a whole new terror to her mind, as a few tears made their way down her cheeks.
"What are you?" She whispered, fear stealing her voice.
Ward gently caressed her face, as she closed her eyes and pressed against the wall.
"I am The Hive."
Daisy could hear Lincoln starting to panic, but her thoughts were too preoccupied by what she had just learned to care very much.
"So now you've met me. Kill me. That has to be your plan, right? What else would you do with me?"
He looked taken aback at this suggestion.
"Kill you? No no no, dearest, you are of the higher race! One day soon, our people will rule this planet! And even if you were not my kin, I don't know that I could kill you. I am limited as my host was, and you... I have had many forms throughout time, but never have I inhabited a being whose feelings for another were so strong that it crippled them. You were Grant Ward's weakness. He loved you more than I've ever felt a being love someone."
Fresh waves of agony flooded her, as his soulless eyes stared into hers. She fell into his arms and tried to ignore the cracking noise that was made when they encircled her. They were so familiar, yet so cold.
She snaked her own arms up his back and pointed her fingers directly at his cerebral cortex, praying that this would work.
Daisy sent an ultra high-frequency current directly into his brain, relieved when he collapsed to the floor. She quickly glanced over the rest of the room, spotting a glowing purple orb carelessly left on the small table. Grabbing it, she sent a warning shock through the door so that Mack and Lincoln could get away, then a much larger current to break down the wall.
The two agents on the other side rejoiced when she stepped through the hole, but she started running and ordered them to follow, so they obeyed.
Yelling into her earpiece, Daisy ordered Bobbi and Hunter to get the plane fired up, as a loud crash sounded behind them in the laboratory.
All five agents made it out to the lawn and were jumping into the plane, when a voice rang out.
"Skye!"
The girl stopped and turned, the name she'd gone by for so many years begging her attention.
Ward stood there, his gun pointed directly at her. For an infinite second she looked once again into his eyes, hoping beyond hope to see a flicker in them. But there was nothing, only emptiness. Suddenly he laughed and tossed the firearm.
"Leave! I can't do it! Just get out of here!"
Coming to her senses, she got in the plane and they took off, a shocked and heavy silence filling the jet the entire way back to base.
.
Daisy was the first one out of the aircraft when it touched down, making her way towards the Director's office with a cold fury in her eyes. Lincoln jumped out after her and started to follow, but Mack put a hand on his shoulder.
"I've seen that look on her face before. Let her cool down for a bit, she'll tell us when she's ready."
The Inhuman watched as his girlfriend stormed away, now noticing a slight tremor in the air.
Daisy, meanwhile, was trying desperately to keep her emotions in check. It wasn't going too well.
She burst into Coulson's office, his eyes widening when he saw who it was.
"What happened? You weren't supposed to be back for another six hours."
She set her jaw, forcing away the sudden memory of Ward's ribs cracking beneath her fingers. Flicking her wrist, she sent a small shockwave towards the coffee cup in Phil's mechanical hand, making it fly backwards and shatter on the wall.
"I want the truth, Phil, and all of it. Now."
His eyebrows furrowed.
"What are you talking about Daisy?"
The agent smirked bitterly, motioning to his empty bionic hand.
"You know, you never told us what happened to your old one, other than it was left on the Hydra planet. Perhaps you left it there on purpose? But wait, why would you do that? Was it that you wouldn't be able to look at it anymore, knowing you killed a man with it for a petty reason like vengeance?"
Their gazes didn't flicker as they stared each other down, but Daisy could feel the frequency of his body change slightly as he realized that she knew. She stepped back and felt her heart break a little more. She had been praying that it wasn't true.
"Phil... Did you kill Grant?" Her voice sounded so small.
"Come on now, who told you this, Daisy?" He asked, still trying to hide it.
A few tears made their way down her face, and she swallowed.
"The compound... He was there, Coulson. He needed the 0-8-4, but he waited for us. He said he wanted to meet me. But it's not him. It's some... creature. It told me you crushed his heart... And I felt it, Coulson. A human hand couldn't have done that."
The blood had drained from the Director's face, and she bit her lip in an attempt to keep from crying.
"You're no better than he was. But at least when he was caught, he didn't lie to me."
She slammed the purple orb on the table, not caring if it blew the place up.
"Here's your 0-8-4."
With that, she turned and sprinted through the base to her bunk, locking the door before leaning against it as sobs began to wrack her body.
She'd convinced herself that she hated Ward. That he deserved to die. But now that he actually was dead, she couldn't stop thinking about all the little moments they'd had together.
A little while later, there was a soft knock on her door. Lincoln.
"Daisy? Do need anything?"
She felt a wave of guilt wash over her as she realized what her behavior looked like, but the heartache was a little too fresh to let him in just yet.
"I just... Kinda want to be alone for a bit. But thank you, Lincoln."
"It's alright. If you want anything, just call. Everyone else took their coms out, but I figured someone should have a way to reach you. You know, just in case."
Daisy swallowed the lump in her throat and thanked him again.
After another hour or so, she stood and headed into the bathroom, splashing her face with cold water. Looking in the mirror, she stared into her own eyes. Though rimmed in red, they were bright and had that signature glow that no one notices until it's missing. Ward's eyes were now missing it.
She splashed her face once more, then brushed her hair and took her amplifiers off her wrists. It was going to take her a while to forgive Coulson, but she wasn't an agent of Phil, she was an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. She had a duty to the world, to protect it. And the thing inhabiting Ward's body was a threat.
Daisy sighed and pulled the communicator out of her ear, her mind cherishing every detail of their last embrace, securing the feeling of his arms around her in her memory.
"Goodbye, Grant," she whispered, her fingers grazing the spot where the Hive had touched her cheek. Though the creature was only using his body, it had retained a bit of Ward, his memories and feelings. The caress had been genuine. He really had loved her.
She unlocked her door.
It's not exactly a happy ending for us SkyeWard shippers, but I needed some closure. This was it. Feel free to follow, favorite, and leave a review! It's all very much appreciated.