The Other Side
Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine, but belong to Marvel™.
Note: the lyrics belong to Sirenia™ (band).
Note 2: this story contains spoilers for the first half of S2 – and some strong language (rated M).
Sail away, my little sister,
Sail away to the other side...
Hello, agent May! Remember me? It is I, Shirley, better known nowadays as agent 33 of the Hydra. Remember me?
Oops, sorry for repeating the question – I am guessing that you are a little bit deaf in the ear, since you will not look me in the eye. Get it? Ear, eye? I am making a body parts joke!
...Guess you are not the one for the sense of humour, but then again, you never were – remember, Coelacanth? Yes, Coelacanth – that is what we called you back in the S.H.I.E.L.D. showers...
Oh, you remember me now? You did not remember my name and designation – agent Shirley of S.H.I.E.L.D – but you remember your old, forgotten nickname? Talk about selective memory! Verily, you are a Coelacanth – an old fossil in your head, and an old fish in your vag-
There was a dream that once was mine,
But now it seems it has passed with time...
Ok, this hurt, this really hurt, agent Melinda May! So the old fossil fish still got some tricks left in her – or is it fight? I forgot. No, I actually do not care. No, I actually forgot because I do not care – but I guess I rumble. Where was I?
Oh yes, you have forgotten me. You still remember your old unofficial nickname, but you have forgotten me. Guess we know now where your priorities lie – with S.H.I.E.L.D.
...What is this you say? Don't drag S.H.I.E.L.D. and Coulson into this? What does Nick Fury's sovereign knight has to do with us? Agent May, do not act marasmatic before your time – this has nothing to do with S.H.I.E.L.D. – it has everything to do with us. Agent May, back when we met for the first time after Dr. Whitehall and Mr. Bakshi had shown me the light, you did not even try to act as if S.H.I.E.L.D. had better morals than Hydra – you just jammed a live electric wire into my face and left me to rot.
Agent May, you have stolen my true voice and face – and S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra are only secondary to our conflict.
Where time seems much better
Than this void called life
And we are back to silence again, I see. Got to hand it to you, Melinda May: when you have nothing to say, when your wits fail you – and they fail you often, you old fish fossil, you – you just fall silent and wait for the other side to fill in the gap. That is okay, I do not mind.
What else to say? I once had a face of my own – you stole it and replaced it was a flawed copy of yours. I once had a voice of my own – you stole it and replaced it with something that, where it to be clothes, it would have been found in the back of a second-hand third-world store – and you gave it to me. So generous!
...Oh, now you are trying to speak? Let us listen, what are these words of wisdom? You didn't know? Grant says that you do. Grant Ward is a liar? Maybe, but he has helped me so far, and you didn't – so who is the liar here? Who is my enemy?
I had no face of my own, but a flawed version of yours – Grant gave me mine, not my old one, but not yours either. I had a voice that made my throat ache, as you would not believe – Grant fixed it. And oh, how did he do it!
There is a voice inside my head,
There is a hope, now long since dead
There long since had been a belief into the spring of youth – of eternal youth, so to speak. The Spanish, the French, even the British and their colonial descendants searched for it – and did not find it. S.H.I.E.L.D., on the other hand, did. It was one of its first secrets – and one of the reasons why the Playground was built – to hide and protect it. Even before Grant Ward had joined your organization – find it in the woods he did. Live in the woods not far away from the Playground he had, one of the perks of living in the American southwest it is-
Sorry, a bit of a Yoda-speak here. Do you love Star Wars? Let me guess – you are a Trekkie, I can just see you as a fangirl of Mr. Spock-
...Ooh, that was a close one, you almost knocked me out! Fortunately, I expected this sort of shit from you, and my peripheral vision is back to fully functional on the side where you've jacked that live electric wire way back when.
Now, enough chitchat about secondary topics. Let us talk about you.
Where time seems much better
Than this void called life
What am I to do with you, you wonder. You do not even try to persuade me to stop this and seek redemption, now do you, agent May? You know as well as I do, that I do not care about redemption offered by S.H.I.E.L.D., and frankly, any redemption that S.H.I.E.L.D would offer me is hollow and rotten, no different from the redemption offered by Hydra.
You just left me there, S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Melinda May! Coulson claims that you knew that I was brainwashed, that all that I did for Hydra wasn't my fault – but from what I remember of him from my old days as Shirley – from my days as the old version of Shirley – Coulson was very big on talk; that was the only thing that was remotely big about him.
...Oooh, oh my, did I strike a nerve? I guess I did, since Coulson was the only one in S.H.I.E.L.D that found your face with those fleshless fish lips of yours even remotely cute. The rest unanimously decided that your ass was much prettier than the rest of you – and this brings me to my next point.
My revenge.
I hear you calling from the other side
Oooh, you are taking me seriously now? Well, yes, an open blade in the hands of your interlocutrix while you are incapacitated is always a good reason to pay attention. Agent Melinda May, I am going to rearrange your face!
Yes, I that this is not the style of Hydra or AIM, but more of this Dr. Johnson/Mr. Hyde fellow, I agree, but I do not care. You took away my face, Melinda May, so I am going to take away yours. Period. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and a carved face for a stolen one. Makes sense to me. Old Testament and all.
...What do you mean, I am not even Jewish? Melinda May, you daft bitch, Judaism is not a nationality. It is a religion. I followed it before you stole my face and I will follow it now.
Perverted it, I have? Perhaps so, agent May, perhaps. I do not really know who I was anymore. I was once an agent Shirley of S.H.I.E.L.D., but you destroyed that identity, believe it! You knew who I was – so claims Coulson – and you did not even try to retrieve me. I just wasn't interesting, right? Well, am I interesting now?
Where time seems much better
Than this void called life
And now I am agent 33 of Hydra – or so I was. When Grant Ward tried to restore my voice and my face, he did not succeed exactly as he (or I) had expected, but he did set me free from my old agent 33 of Hydra identity. Now I am a new agent 33 of Hydra – and I do not find it any different from my old stint back at S.H.I.E.L.D.
And I hate you. I really, really hate you. I do not hate anyone else at S.H.I.E.L.D. as much as I have you.
...Was this a final escape attempt or was I just paranoid? No matter, this ends now, your superiority over me! You stole my face and left me helpless. Now I steal yours and we are even.
And what happens next – you escape, you kill me, or not, I do not care. Some things are worth doing, no matter what is the cost. The shoe, lo and behold, is on the other side!
End