'Agent 'H''
Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine, but belong to Marvel™.
Note: this story is set in S.H.I.E.L.D. comic-verse, rather than TV.
...And so it came to pass that S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Daisy Johnson had finally had some resolution against her father, Calvin 'Cal' Zubo, also known as Mr. Hyde, as well as made some friends in the agency – Phil Coulson and his team: Melinda May, Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons, and so things in her world began to look up...before she got captured. By Hydra.
To be honest, this situation happened because Daisy had grown somewhat cocky and complacent after her recent good fortune, plus it was only six people: one smuggler (probably from Wakanda) and his contacts, presumably some grass-root Hydra supporters. For an agent of Daisy's caliber? Easy pickings, she had actually debated inviting the FitzSimmons to be her audience for this one, (and then maybe they would go to is Mediterranean-style buffet and celebrate), but in the end decided against it: you never know what would go wrong.
In this case the 'what' was the fact that the smuggler's contacts were not just only armed... with AKMs, but Daisy wasn't too impressed by this – she could handle bullets, especially ordinary ones, but they didn't try to open fire: rather they seemed to utilize their guns as spears of sorts (complete with knife-bayonets at the business end), and promptly began to engage in martial combat with her. This was novel enough for Daisy to actually miss a couple of very painful blows to the ribs, and that resulted in her missing a blow to the back of her head, which didn't just stun her, but knock her out as well.
And then... darkness.
And then darkness abated, and Daisy found herself lying on a bed in a strange small room, which was bad, even by S.H.I.E.L.D.'s standards, but that was not the worst part. The worst part that she could not move – she could not feel her neck and her body just did not respond to any of her brain's commands, which meant, in turn, that her neck was most likely broken – or worse. And that meant the end – if her captors went to the trouble of breaking her neck, then they did not intend to keep her around for long, and besides the basic bad connotations of this act, that meant that Daisy would never see any of her new friends again, which was even more sad.
...Abruptly Daisy Johnson realized that while she was being sorry for herself, the door to her right was opening and two people – two men – entered. The one on the right was shorter, but still very wide and thick. Built like a bear or even a boar, there was little of fat in his weight, and those muscular arms of his looked like they carried a very painful punch.
Daisy hated to fight opponents like these: she usually had to resolve to her powers to win, and she did not like to use them like that, it reminded her too much of her father, of whom she still was not very fond of. She would rather use them for good – like saving people from earthquakes and such – but right now she could not use them at all, so this point was moot either.
The 'boar's companion, the one on the left, was a different sort of man: taller and not as brutal-looking; in fact, between his facial features and the feline-style moustache he looked almost handsome...except for his eyes, which were about as dead and opaque as two bricks of coal; Daisy wouldn't like to admit it, but normally she would rather deal with the man on the right, whose small eyes showed the usual (for this situation) lust. Normally Daisy could work with lust – the man with the coal-dead eyes promised her something else that she could deal far worse with – torture and possibly death.
"And here, sir, we have the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent," the man on the right spoke in an excited, oddly high-pitched voice (odd considering for his robust frame). "The men of squad 2 had the dickens of time capturing her, but they did! And we think that she is one of those special agents too!"
"So I see, agent V," the man on the left nods evenly, largely ignoring Daisy for now. "I am quite impressed. Such a green, untested squad too. Tell the men that we will have an assembly in several hours – I need some time to myself."
"But of course, sir!" agent V all but jumps up and down in excitement. "She is quite good-looking, isn't she? Bit skinny on the butt and hips, I suppose, but they can't be all winners, now can they?"
"Yes they are," the other man nods, as he grabs agent V's burly shoulder and firmly leads him out of the room. "And by the way, let's talk inventory..."
The door closes. Daisy is left alone. Well, at least she will not be raped right now...unless, of course, that is what the assembly is for. She has no doubts what will happen to her and tries to be resigned to her fate, but somehow the faces of Coulson and his crew interfere – she feels that she had let them down somehow (besides the generic fact of her being defeated by five mooks with old AKM models, of course).
The door opens. The man with coal-dead eyes walks in – alone this time. Daisy wants to be brave, but she still looks away. The man raises her vest up...and applies an icepack onto her bruised ribs.
"Is this better?" he asks, his voice oddly gentle. "Blink once for yes, twice for no." He then carefully pulls her upwards and begins to examine the bump on the back of her head. "This looks nasty-"
"It is," Daisy instinctively agrees, startling both of them:
"You can talk?"
"I can talk!" Daisy agrees. "I...just can't move."
"Yes, the Wakanda slave collars deliver," her interlocutor agrees, even as he carefully puts a smaller bag of ice onto her bruised head. "What else to expect from Burguri? So what is your name, then?"
"My name is Daisy Johnson," Daisy snaps, (though not very viciously – there is something off in the entire scene, she just is not sure if that is good or bad. "Do you want my rank and serial number too? Scum?" she adds as an afterthought, because of the same strangeness.
"You can call me agent H," the man replies, clearly not impressed by her temper. "I shan't give you my rank or serial number, no. Now what shall I do with you?"
"You shan't do anything – you shouldn't do anything," Daisy retorts. "S.H.I.E.L.D. will find me, my – my friends will find me, and then you'll be sorry!" And then she cringes, aware of how much she sounds like some inexperienced rookie instead. What is wrong with her?
"Oh, we know here what S.H.I.E.L.D. is capable of," 'agent H' agrees. "What matters is that if you think that they will come for you in time, you know? For I am pretty sure that I can make you talk, and for the record? Compliance is rewarded."
"I won't talk," Daisy says determinedly, as she gazes into that handsome face with its emotionless eyes. "You know that you will never break me in time, no matter what tortures you devise on hand – or maybe you will. But I will break rather than talk first."
"Will you?" agent H smiles. On anyone else it would look almost cute; on him, and his emotionless eyes – not so much. "Then maybe I should try a new tactic, yes?" He reaches out – Daisy tends – and begins to rub behind her ears. In some sort of a special way, too, for waves of heat and pleasure begin to spread through Daisy's body. It feels wonderful, she feels desire pooling in the pit of her belly...
"Stop," she gasps, and realizes that the waves have stopped. She feels oddly empty and cold without that – that heat, and that scares her even more. "Please stop."
"Stopped already," agent H agrees, even as he pulls his hands away, palms wide open – 'see ma: no tricks'! "Go on."
"You go on," Daisy says quietly. "Is this what you will do to me?"
"Information deprivation, more of this, maybe some tickling, an occasional sponge bath every two or three days – I can get to you, agent Daisy of S.H.I.E.L.D., I can get to you and I can make you sing. Compliance is rewarded, after all, so all I have to do is to teach you to connect the dots, to associate one with another..."
"Please don't," Daisy says, feeling a new feeling in place of lust in the pit of her belly – defeat. "Please."
"Oh? Why not?" agent H raises an eyebrow, sardonically. "After all, this isn't unlike what I or my people would receive at S.H.I.E.L.D. – at best. At worst it is just good old-fashioned torture and interrogation, or not even that – just a bullet to the head, no? I'm being nice here, I suppose...though if you want to tell me everything already without any reward...I can work with that too..."
Daisy says nothing. She knows now what and whom she is up against, but she cannot fold – not if she wanted to look her fellow agents in the eye ever again.
"Yes, that's what I thought," agent H nodded nonchalantly and got onto his feet in one smooth motion. "Well, I'll see you again soon-"
"Wait," Daisy says desperately. "Please. Sir, agent H - let me go."
There is a pause as her interlocutor stares at her incredulously – the first real emotion she had seen in his face all this time. "Oh?" he says softly. "Why?"
"Because," the right words do not come – there are none. So Daisy takes a deeper breath and says the wrong words, perhaps, but still. "Because. Look. I have just made peace with my father. I have made first new friends at the agency for the first time. I have a shot of living a better life for the first time in a while now. Please do not take it away. I know that you do not care about this sort of thing, but...you have not yet hacked off my legs or my arms or 'customized' me in some other way to be a better love doll for you, so again, I ask you – please. I will not beg, not yet, but as one human being to another – please let me go."
There is silence and bitter hot tears are sliding down Daisy's cheeks as she realizes that she had made a fool of herself for nothing, all that is left now is some mocking laughter and the cliché is complete.
"As one human being to another eh?" agent H grunts as he sits down next to her (in all the excitement Daisy was put into a sitting position, rather like a puppet of some sort – it is a more comfortable position from the one she'd been in before, but she still can't move). "Interesting." His eyes are still dark, but are not emotionless – searching instead. "You offer me nothing yet you ask for everything."
"Yes," Daisy says, chuckling in a humorless way. "Stupid me, eh?"
There is no verbal reply, she just hears the movement, and then something comes off her neck, and she can feel her body, and it is all pins and needles, and she is off her butt, and is actually running around, working out all of her kinks, and-
Something clicks in her head. She is free, she can move, that is great, but-
"Why?" she turns and faces agent H. "What is your game?"
"What is yours?" he shots back. "Tell me, agent Daisy – Johnson of S.H.I.E.L.D., I am listening."
There is a pause and then Daisy promptly sits back down. "I won't," she says quietly. "I won't be a double-agent-"
"I had no intention of you being one," agent H grimaces with a bittersweet smile. 'It's just that maybe your speech had moved something in me, you know?" He pauses, wanting to say something, but then says nothing and waits, instead.
"Really?" Daisy blinks and thinks this over. "I want to believe it, I do," she trails away. She is aware that she is being contrary, she is aware that she behaves in a manner not unlike the one she had tried on her father (which was a good thing, given that Calvin Zubo is Mr. Hyde), which means that she should probably go and see a therapist about her father issues...her thoughts are abruptly cut off when a hand – strong and large and oddly warm grabs her own.
"For the record – you aren't broken, are you?" agent H says as he pulls her along. "Because given how S.H.I.E.L.D. loves its agents to be mass produced-"
"S.H.I.E.L.D. is a great organization!" Daisy hisses fiercely. "We're-"
"Stop," agent H abruptly stops before another small door (and Daisy almost giggles at the realization that the enemy agent is smuggling her out of his own base – it's almost as if they're a couple of naughty teens who need to avoid the parents...then she realizes who the parents in this RP are and the giggles vanish), "just stop. I don't want anything from S.H.I.E.L.D., or from you, for that matter."
"...Yes, you're just helping me from the goodness of your heart," Daisy begins, but a very dark chuckle interrupts her.
"Yes, that would be nice – for you to believe that there is goodness in my heart," agent H agrees. "But if you want to go tit-for-tat, then get a tattoo."
"What?"
"A tattoo," he repeats and pushes her into the room. Only it is not exactly a room, but some sort of a sphere with a sealable door inside a room that fills with water as soon as the sphere's door is sealed – and then the sphere (with Daisy in it), is shot out somewhere else...
/
Somewhere else proves to be somewhere in Wyoming – Daisy does not really like Wyoming. She is an amazing agent, a Gifted, and many things besides, but an outdoorswoman she is not. In small doses, nature is okay; as pristine wilderness – not so much. Still, she is trained, she is capable, she is – she is free. This is the most confusing part; she knew what her fate was to be ever since she was captured...and then, abruptly, she got what had to be the most un-bleeping-believable miracle ever. She was let go.
Daisy is not an idealist, she knows a recruitment attempt when she sees one; she did not see one here, not really. 'Agent H' (or whatever his name is), let her go...in exchange, perhaps, for a favor, or something worse. Maybe another attempt at getting into her pants, with her able and willing.
...Okay, it has worked, sort of. He can be quite handsome, and it has been a while since Daisy had anyone in her life. She can handle him, at least once or twice, easily, and who knows? Maybe she can turn the tables on him? She may not be the great Mockingbird, but she is a sexy, mature woman all the same, yeah?
And so, with a potential love interest under her belt, and with new friends in her life, Daisy Johnson moved onwards.
End.
AN2: And so, Marvel seems to be releasing a new comic series, based on the AoS TV series. Seems is the key word here – the two universes are different; the TV series appear to be taking place in the Ultimate Marvel universe, while the comic appears (so far) to be taking place in the more original version. That part probably bothers only the comic purists; what is more interesting is that Coulson's team, at least in the first 6 issues, consists only of him, May, Fitz and Simmons. Skye, or rather Daisy Johnson, appears only in issue 7, and is more of a colleague to the foursome, instead of a close friend (though this appears to be changing at the end).
As for the villains – Garrett, Ward, Raina, Whitehall, so far they have not appeared, not yet. Creel, actually, did...saving the world (in exchange for parole), so there is a chance for the others yet. (Cal is 'back' to being Mr. Hyde, and for the moment he is not a big fan of Coulson and co either.)
And as for Hellfire...I do not know. He is somewhat similar to Ward, biography-wise, but a) he has been dead since 2011, and b) he is not that similar to Ward, so I am not sure about the two of them being the same man, so for the moment 'agent H' has no fire-based powers (at least no over ones).
END AN2