Disclaimer: Look at AoS. Now look at the AoS fics I've written. Do I look like I own the show?
Author's Note: This is a Skyeward fic, though it will take a while for things to get there. It's also a bit unusual - ish, as far as Skyeward fics go, though not as unusual as some. If you hate Ward, hate Skyeward, this probably isn't the fic for you, though maybe you'll like this one, maybe you won't. Equally, if you're a Ward/Skyeward fan who hates the rest of or most of the rest of the cast - I absolutely understand where you're coming from, but this really isn't the fic for you. If you're a Ward fan who hates Skye - well, then this is in no way shape or form the fic for you, and you might want to just hit the back button and leave completely.
And now that I've given you that up front warning, that caveat emptor, if you're still interested in the fic, read on! If not, don't read, because hey, why would you read what you don't think you'll like?
Thanks extended to Stargazerdaisy for beta-reading. I also blame her for this fic entirely, because I was talking to her when the idea invaded my brain. :P
The Fine Dimensional Line
By Kylia
Chapter 1: Desperate Escape
September 26th, 2015
Abandoned Warehouse
City Limits, Dayton, OH
"Shit." Kara lowered the binoculars and turned to Grant, the expression on her face the grimmest he'd seen yet - and that was saying a lot, given the last year. "It's Hydra."
Grant Ward shook his head, "Of course it's Hydra. Who the hell else would it be? Even the government has given up on hunting down what's left of S.H.I.E.L.D." Five black vans, each one carrying at least four Hydra goons - ex military, highly trained mercenaries, every last one of them.
"I told Fitzsimmons we should have left yesterday," Grant growled, his hand going to his gun. "The Mines should take out the first two vans - give us enough time to -" before he could finish his thought, the sound of helicopters roared overhead - a low speeding whistle and-
"DOWN!" Kara grabbed his arm even as he realized what was coming, pulling him back into the warehouse as they dropped to the floor, heat blossoming out behind them when all three cars blew up - taking their best chance for escape.
It's over. Grant didn't really notice the thought in his head for a split second, but then he did.
It's over.
Months of running from Hydra, ever since the Playground was taken, ever since Coulson, Victoria, May, Hunter, Morse and Mack were killed. As far as Grant knew, the four of them might even be the last of S.H.I.E.L.D. anywhere in the world.
And now it was over. Hydra had found them, and this time they were done acting covertly. They'd blown up any chance the four of them had of escape, any chance they'd get out alive.
"Grant! Come on!" Kara grabbed his arm again, pulling him up as she shouted over the sound of the Helicopter's landing. "We need to fall back! Fitzsimmons!"
Grant shook his head violently when she mentioned the two scientists, dropping back into full specialist mode. He still had a mission. That mission was going to kill him, but if he was going to die, it was to die protecting people. He'd go down fighting.
"Go, I'm right behind you," Grant pulled his gun out, running after Kara as she opened a door, hurrying down stairs into a basement that wasn't on any available blueprint. "We need to block the doors, lay more mines-"
"Grant, there's no point. If they're willing to be this public about it, bring in fucking attack helicopters - not cloaked quinjets - then there's going to be too many of them for us to fight, even for a few minutes. There's only one chance we have, and I say we take it!"
"No - Kara - that's - even if Fitz's crazy idea actually could work, he said they were months away from trying it!"
"Yeah, well at this point I'd rather take the chance than just die pointlessly if we have another option. So what do you say, Grant, want to visit another world?" Reaching what looked like a black wall, Kara broke open a hidden panel and placed her palm on the scanner.
It had been a mad, desperate plan, but these were made desperate times. In the fight from the Playground, the had managed to recover two things from the attacking Hydra forces - the Tesseract-powered gun they'd first found in Peru what felt like a lifetime ago, and a data-drive that mentioned a number of esoteric experiments Hydra had been running.
Experiments that included interdimensional travel - at least theoretically. Grant didn't understand all the science behind it, but he understood the idea - a world that was still Earth, but where anywhere could be different. Where choices that were made were made differently.
A world where Hydra hadn't won.
It was a crazy, desperate gamble, but Fitz was convinced that with the Tesseract Fuel Cell, they could make it work. Rip open the fabric of the universe and jump into another reality.
And everything that Grant had seen working for S.H.I.E.L.D. had him willing to believe it was worth a try - there was nowhere on this world the could hide from Hydra. Not for long. And while the governments of the world weren't actively hunting S.H.I.E.L.D. any more, all four of them were wanted men and women.
And none of them had the resources to make new identities, to vanish. Not without compromising themselves to Hydra.
When you're between a rock and a hard place, jumping off a cliff and into the ocean below starts to look like the best third option.
Finally, Grant had really appreciated that piece of advice Victoria had given him.
It was an insane idea - he'd said as much then...
But it was all the choice they had. And so...
As the wall started to slide open, Grant hurried through into the hidden "lab", a collection of tables, cheap and stolen equipment and computers. It was a far cry from the lab in the playground, the bare stone walls one more sign of how little the four of them had really "lived" in the warehouse that had been their home for the last two months.
"Hydra's here, and they blew up the cars," Grant closed the wall as soon as Kara was inside.
The two scientists had come a long time since their first excursions into the field, and barely showed any visible reaction to the news.
"Right." Simmons said softly. "How many?"
"Five vans, though maybe the landmines will get a few of them. But they brought attack helicopters, so god knows how many they have in those."
"Well," Fitz pressed a few keys on one of the computers, "they'll have to worry about more than just landmines. At least for a few minutes." He turned away from the computer and picked up a gun, holding it in both hands. His grip was inexpert, but not inexperienced - neither he nor Simmons had bloodless hands now. Grant wished he could mourn that change, but he hadn't had the chance to mourn anything in months. The loss of friends, of mentors, of an idea... the loss of Fitzsimmons's innocence ranked well below those on his list of priorities.
"Weaponized Dwarfs aren't going to hold Hydra off for long," Kara pointed out. "I'd rather not die here if we can help it, so why don't we try turning on that device you two have been working on."
"We - we can't! It's not ready!" Simmons protested, even as she too got ready to fight, putting on a tactical vest and grabbing a gun of her own. "Even if it can sheer open the dimensions and actually create a stable portal, the exotic radiation bombardment would kill us all in seconds! The stabilization bracelets aren't -"
"At this point, Simmons, there's no reason to not try it." Kara interrupted, snapping at the biochemist. "Dying in a matter seconds sounds better than being captured by Hydra. You heard what they told Skye. Faustus Method for all of us, if they get us alive."
"One way or another, that's not going to happen," Fitz said grimly. The sound of gunfire above them put a deadline on their argument. The dwarves were firing and being fired at, but those drones could only last so long. Minutes at best.
God help me I actually kind if like those little guys by this point. They'd saved his life more than once, covered their escape...
And now they were being destroyed for good, just to buy them a little time.
"Well, let's try to avoid the suicide capsules option if we can," Grant finally said. "Simmons, pass out those bracelets and let's hope they work. Fitz, can that device of yours actually be turned on at all?"
"You mean the device that you said was a crazy idea that would probably never work?" Even as he snarked, Fitz was fiddling with a metal box the size of a dog, pressing buttons and fiddling with dials.
"Fitz," Grant half-growled out, tensing a little as he heard the sound of the gunfire getting closer.
"What?" The scientists didn't even look up from his adjustments.
"Now is NOT the time to say I told you so, alright?" Grant tightened his grip on his gun, accepting a metal bracelet from Simmons that, in theory, should stop them from dying of whatever weird science particles happened when they ripped open the space-time continuum. He slipped it over his wrist, wishing they had any choice but this.
Wishing... they had anything else left.
Wishing...
Even now, even as the end was finally impending, Grant still - as he always was - found himself wishing for the one thing he'd tried to stop wishing for over a year.
Skye...
The gunfire stopped abruptly, and Grant saw Kara tense up, readying herself for the eventually breakdown of the wall, for Hydra's assault. This wasn't exactly a secure bunker.
"Fine, but I reserve the right to say I told you so for the next year when this works," Fitz muttered, finally pressing one final button.
A stream of pulsating blue light emitted from the device, crashing into a section of the stone walls. There was a screeching sound, like steel nails on a chalkboard that had been made of out of tune instruments that set his teeth vibrating for a few moments, and then...
There was a - a hole, in the wall.
There was no other way to describe it. One moment there was a bare, grey, stone wall, and the next there was an opening, the other side showing what looked like a public park at night - trees and bushes, a well maintained dirt path, a park bench.
"Holy shit," Kara's words echoed his thoughts as a sudden pounding built up in his head - despite everything, despite the situation, Grant grunted in pain as a headache like none he'd ever felt ripped through his head. Clutching at his temples, Grant heard everyone else make pained noises as well.
Forcing himself to focus on the situation, Grant pulled his hands away from his head and straightened up, looking at the hole again, the... dimensional rift.
"Well, it works," Grant said after a moment, as the pain subsided to a dull throb, beating at the insides of his skull.
"Barely," Fitz said after a moment to catch his bearings, looking at the readings on the machine. "This is going to need constant calibrations," already he was pressing more buttons on the device.
The shouts of Hydra soldiers on the other side of the wall reached them - and a familiar voice echoed through, barking indistinct orders. The three of them that had been on the bus all tensed, though each for their own reasons.
"There's no time, Fitz, Simmons, go! We'll cover you," Kara barked the orders, already sweeping microscopes and beakers off a table, preparing to overturn it as makeshift and probably not very effective cover.
"No, you, both of you! Go!" Fitz gestured to the rift. "Simmons, I need your help with these calibrations or the whole thing will collapse!"
"Fitz, now is not the time to be a hero. Go! Go!" Grant moved to grab the engineer by his shirt and just hurl him bodily through the rift, but was stopped short by an iron glare from the scotsman.
"Ward, I'm not playing a hero. This rift is incredibly unstable, and if we stop calibrating it, the whole thing collapses and we're stuck here, all four of us." Even as he spoke he was still fiddling with the device. "We'll be right behind you, but if we go first you won't be able to get through at all!"
"I'm not leaving you two behind-" Grant started, but Kara interrupted him, pushing him towards the portal with a shove right between his shoulder blades.
"More escaping, less arguing!" Staggering forwards, Grant half-fell, half walked through the portal, Kara immediately behind him, right as the wall-door suddenly shattered, raining dust and tiny bits of stone on them
Stumbling through the rift, arriving in the park, Ward found his footing and turned around - in the air in front of the two of them was a hole, just like in the warehouse - the dust cleared and Grant saw her, for the first time in months, her arm held out in front of her, the air shimmering in front of her. She opened her mouth, said something to the two scientists who were pointing guns at her and the array of heavily armed and armored Hydra soldiers behind her, but her words didn't carry through the rift.
"FITZ!" Grant yelled, "SIMMONS!" But they couldn't hear him anymore than he could hear them. The two scientists weren't moving, then -
"NO!" It was a futile scream - even as the words ripped out from his throat, Fitz turned his gun on the device, firing three shots into it before anyone else in the room reacted.
The rift flickered once, twice -
And vanished, Grant's last sight being Skye sending Fitz and Simmons flying into the walls with a wave of her hand.