I don't own Agents of SHIELD and never will. No copyright infringement intended.
Author's Note: I'm going to get Jossed in a week but I couldn't get this idea out of my head. Can't wait until 2.14!
Lance's confusion bubbled to the surface as he looked back and forth between Mack and the eagle on the wall. "What the fuck?" he finally sputtered.
'I'll explain everything, just follow me," Mack encouraged.
He glared but followed his (former?) best friend down the hallway until they arrived at a door. Mack knocked and it opened up into a conference room. "Welcome to SHIELD, Hunter."
Lance glared at him and debated punching Mack and then he laid eyes on everyone in the room. He did a double take the instant he noticed Grant Ward. "Again, what the fuck?"
"Hey, cowboy." Grant smirked at him and shrugged. "Despite the circumstances, we are glad you could join us."
His mind swirled in a mixture of confusion, anger, and betrayal. "Again, what the fuck? Anybody want to tell me what's going on?"
Anne Weaver stood up and smiled at him. "We'll be happy to explain if you would please sit. We don't want to have worry about you running from us." She trusted him not to do that, however, based on everything she learned about him from Bobbi.
A still fuming Lance reluctantly lowered himself into a chair and waited for an explanation. "Anybody going to start or am I going to have to wait?"
Grant looked over at him and let out a nervous sigh before launching into the story. "There has been a group hidden deep within SHIELD that always knew of Hydra's existence but stayed quiet in an effort to infiltrate them and find out their darkest secrets. I was recruited by John Garrett when I was a teenager and when I discovered what Hydra was really up to after digging into their history, I was horrified. Fortunately for me, someone stepped in to help and the rest is history." He wanted SHIELD to be better and he trusted Coulson but wasn't so sure he had the right ideas to rebuild the agency.
"So you were a triple agent?" Lance correctly guessed. His anger was starting to drain a little but he still felt betrayed and didn't know if he could ever trust Mack and Bobbi again.
He nodded. "Yes."
"But you murdered Hand and other SHIELD agents…"
"And that's my cue to enter." Victoria strolled in with a smile and grinned at him. "Good to see you again, Hunter. It's been a while."
Lance couldn't help it - his jaw dropped. "You're … you're … what." That's all he could get out before he gave up as anger washed over him again.
"I knew Ward was undercover and that Garrett was the Clairvoyant but I sent in a Life Model Decoy anyway and went into hiding. The Koenigs are also LMDs so that helped a lot. Win win situation for us all. Except for maybe Grant."
Grant smiled sheepishly as Lance's gaze turned back towards him. "I cracked under the pressure and it didn't work out so well for me." He didn't mention that Garrett forcing him to hurt FitzSimmons - people he loved - pushed him completely over the edge after what Christian made him to do Thomas while they were growing up. And speaking of, "I also faked my parents and brother's death as a way to get back into Hydra. They're safe somewhere where I hope I'll never have to see them again." Facing them again had ultimately been terrifying despite everything he had been through and he fell apart after arriving back at the base (thankfully, nobody had been around for that).
"Babe, you want to come out now?" Victoria called.
Lance had a sinking feeling about where this was going and he couldn't take any more faked deaths and betrayals and all that other shit he couldn't process at the moment. He wanted to punch something (someone) and go on a bender. "Fuck you," he hurled at Izzy the instant she joined them.
"I'm sorry, Lance, but you have to understand why we did this. We're building a newer, better SHIELD from the ground up and it's taking a lot of effort. We're hoping you will agree to join us once you've cooled down." Izzy had a feeling he was about to fall apart on them and go get drunk off their highly expensive alcohol.
Kara yawned and then laid her head down on the table. "You want someone to take you back to your room?" Grant questioned as he squatted down next to his friend. Getting Kara help - and her real face back - had been a priority after he recovered from getting shot and they had been able to do exactly that just a few days earlier. Unfortunately, she was still drained from the experience.
She shook her head. "Stop worrying about me, I'm fine," Kara murmured.
"You sure?"
"If you ask me that one more time, I'm going to yell," she warned.
He snorted. "Can't have that."
"Okay, this is sweet and all but will someone explain the whole story to me instead of the cliff notes version?" Lance interrupted.
"That's what I'm here to do." Bobbi grinned at him nervously as she finally entered the conference room.
That's when Lance clammed up and refused to say another word because he couldn't (didn't) even want to look at her, the woman he loved who had betrayed him without a second thought.
"Awkward."
"You're making it even more awkward there, Kara," a laughing Grant whispered to her. He wanted to tell Skye his secret - beg the team for forgiveness - but he was afraid to approach them again, especially after seeing Lance's reaction to Bobbi lying to him. He deserved everything they had done and said to him (despite the group telling him otherwise) and their anger was warranted. He didn't even blame Skye for shooting him and longed to be with the woman he loved again. Who, from what Bobbi said, was going through a rough time after developing powers. He was worried about her and wanted to see how she was doing but she'd never want to see him again. He understood but it still hurt.
"What I'm here for," she mumbled before her eyes closed and she did actually fall asleep right there.
Anne sighed. "We don't like the way Phil Coulson is running his version of SHIELD and we are looking to fix the problem as soon as possible. Are you in?"
Grant shifted uncomfortably at her words as they awaited Lance's answer. "I've just been offered two jobs within a few days for two different SHIELDs. Give me some time to think, or is that too much to ask?"
"Take as much time as you need, Lance," Bobbi encouraged. She sighed and debated with herself for a few seconds about whether or not to keep talking but decided to go with it. "I truly am sorry for lying to you - I wanted to bring you in sooner but Mack convinced me not too and then he jumped the gun." She was still pissed at her friend for choking the man she loved and tying him up.
Mack let out a pained sigh at Bobbi throwing him under the bus but shrugged because he didn't really care that much. He already knew he had most likely ruined his and Lance's relationship for good. "Thanks, Bobbi. Really appreciate it."
Lance would have leapt to her defense but he couldn't bring himself to even care at this point. "Why didn't any of you tell me this sooner?"
"We were trying to protect you." Izzy grabbed Victoria's hand and squeezed it to calm herself down.
"We might have gone about it the right way." Despite the situation, Victoria laughed and couldn't stop.
Everyone stared at her before she finally pulled herself together. "This is a lot to take in so why don't we leave you alone to think?" Anne stood up and the others started following her out.
"I don't know if I can ever forgive you for this or trust you again." Lance wasn't pulling any punches and Mack winced.
Bobbi's eyes filled with her tears despite her best efforts to reign them in. "I understand," she answered, her voice cracking. Fuck, she didn't want to cry.
"I figured this day was coming sooner or later. Come talk to me if and when you're ready." Mack left them alone.
Once the tears started, Bobbi couldn't stop them so she fled and left her ex-husband alone to drown in his thoughts in the conference room.
Meanwhile, after checking to make sure that Kara was feeling okay, Grant left her room and headed towards his own. He regretted not telling Skye the truth because she would have understood and all of this shit wouldn't have happened. She probably would have tried to help in some way. But he knew couldn't think that way. Therapy was something he had just recently begun (Anne, Bobbi, Izzy, and Victoria had insisted and wouldn't leave him alone until he agreed) and he couldn't wait to try to better himself, to be a good man (because knew for a fact that he wasn't). He knew he needed to try to deal with the years of abuse Garrett and his family rained down upon him no matter how much it hurt to talk about. This was helping him and that's all that mattered.
Grant also knew that SHIELD could improve and he wanted to be there when it happened. He also yearned desperately to reunite with his team - his true family - but he didn't think that was a possibility because too much had happened to go back to what they once were (and Bobbi had also admitted that the team was falling apart at the seams and she didn't know how to fix it).
One didn't know of the other's existence (yet) but the two SHIELDs would eventually combine forces and make the agency better, strong, and well-equipped to handle the fiascos aliens (and other Gifteds) brought with them. They'd lead the charge to change the world and take down Hydra for good.