Disclaimer: Yeah, no. I don't own.
Thanks to stargazerdaisy for beta-reading.
The Fine Dimensional Line
By Kylia
Chapter 2: This New World
September 27th, 2015
Motel
Dayton, OH
It was quite fascinating, in a mundane sort of way.
Here she was, in another dimension, and yet, her phone could still connect to cellular data to go onto the web. Actually, for the first time in months she was actually connecting a phone to the data to go online. She hadn't exactly been able to do that when they were on the run from Hydra. Not really all that often anway.
It wasn't as if she was paying for it - no, thanks to one of Fitz's many inventions, they could hack into the cloud just by pressing a button. She didn't pretend to understand how it worked, but it did. And thankfully, dollar bills spent as well here was they did anywhere else.
Kara closed her eyes a moment as she thought of Fitz, thinking back to those moments after they had jumped through the portal. After you forced Grant through the portal. They'd just had to stand there and watch as Fitz destroyed the device - Kara understood exactly why he'd done it. Hydra was right there, and there was no way the two scientists could have escaped before that traitorous bitch could have killed them, or had her goons kill them.
There was nothing you'd have been able to do. Kara had told herself that repeatedly in the last eight hours, but she still didn't believe it. Grant hadn't taken her telling him that all that well either.
And, in what wasn't her proudest moment, Kara had hit Grant on the back of the head just right to knock him out. He'd been nearly screaming at the spot where the hole in space and time had been, trying to get through.
Kara suspected he knew he couldn't, but...
Well, he'd known the two scientists for even longer than she had, and had come to think of them as siblings, a little brother and sister.
Kara was still barely registering that they were really gone, out of their reach, forever. As far as she could tell, there was no way back. No way to save them.
Or are you just rationalizing because it would be suicidal to go after them?
Kara quelled the little voice in her head as soon as it asked the question, knowing it was nonsense. As it stood, the only hope the two of them had, in any capacity, was to find the local version of Fitzsimmons and get them - or some other S.H.I.E.L.D. scientist - to help them make a portal back to where they'd come from.
If it was even possible. If our Fitzsimmons are even still alive.
However, Kara was rapidly realizing that such was easier said than done. It hadn't taken her long, digging through the news, to find out that S.H.I.E.L.D. had fallen here, too. And in the exact same way that it had in her world. Both Hydra and S.H.I.E.L.D. had been declared outlawed organizations, terrorists in the eyes of the governments of the world, and had been driven underground.
But that was where things started to change. Because S.H.I.E.L.D. still existed. She was 100% certain of that - the Helicarrier that had arrived to help the Avengers save the people of Sokovia was proof enough of that. No world government knew how to build them, and Kara was fairly certain that Tony Stark didn't build that one either.
Plus, Hydra was a lot quieter here, than in their world. There was an attack on the U.N., no doubt set up by Hydra, even though supposedly S.H.I.E.L.D. took the credit for it. A few small-scale actions, and of course the attack on Strucker's base in Sokovia, but really, Hydra seemed to be much lower-key in this reality.
Which means S.H.I.E.L.D. is still a threat to them.
Which meant that it was out there, and they could find it.
There were a few other differences here and there, that she could find, but the biggest change between this reality and her own was that no one had ever arrested the Ward Family - Christian and Grant's parents had somehow managed to avoid arrest and Christian had even gone on to serve in the Senate.
Somehow Agent Hand's case against them must have fallen apart. Kara didn't know the details of what Victoria Hand had done to bring the Wards to justice after she'd gotten Grant released from Juvie, but by the time Grant had graduated from S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy, right alongside Kara, the Wards were in prison for not only what they'd done to Grant, Thomas and Rose, but also for the laundry list of financial crimes and corruptions they'd been neck-deep in.
But in this reality, they'd somehow wormed their way into freedom. Agent Hand would not have been happy with that.
At least they'd been free until about nearly a year ago, when the Ward Family home out in the Massachusetts countryside had burned down with Christian inside. By Christian himself, apparently. All three had died in the event.
Couldn't have happened to nicer people.
Which was interesting, but still no more helpful in allowing her to find S.H.I.E.L.D.
She was drawn out of her thoughts and away from her phone by the sound of Grant over on the crappy motel bed. Walking over to him, Grant put a hand over his mouth.
"You've got yourself under control, right? No more shouting at thin air?! The walls in this place are very thin," she gestured around her with her free hand. Grant nodded after a long moment, and Kara pulled away her hand. "I'm not going to apologize for knocking you out, Grant. You were being irrational and you know it."
"I-" Grant started, then he nodded, sitting up. "I think rationality went out the window months ago."
"Well, yeah, probably, but there's no way the two of us can get back to that dimension and rescue Fitzsimmons. Not without help - I mean, I don't know about you, but I can't build one of those devices that rips holes in space and time." Grant nodded slowly, following along with her. "And the two of us can't do it alone anyway," She held up her hand before Grant could say anything, "You know it and I know it. We're good, but we're not that good."
Grant took a deep breath and nodded. "So we need to talk to S.H.I.E.L.D. here. And if it was as simple as walking to the Triskellion, you'd have said so already."
Kara made a noise of confirmation, holding up her phone. "Thanks to more of Fitz's toys, I've been doing some research on this world. A lot of things seem the same - S.H.I.E.L.D. fell, Hydra rose, everyone's been labeled a terrorist. But Sokovia went a hell of a lot better - somehow, a Helicarrier showed up at the last minute and helped the Avengers They all got out alive, and so did most of the civilians. Plus, the President didn't get assassinated by Hydra, and the Paris Metro Attack didn't happen. So S.H.I.E.L.D. is clearly still out there. We just need to find them."
Grant considered for a long moment, "The Playground? That's where it all went wrong. Maybe the Coulson in this dimension wasn't so fucking stupid as to give Skye a second chance, and she couldn't compromise the whole base." The bitter anger in his voice masked what Kara knew was a small ocean's worth of Grant blaming himself for that. He'd been the first one to suggest that Coulson give Skye a second chance. He'd believed Skye, that with Garrett dead, her loyalty to Hydra was gone.
Coulson had made the final call, in the end, but still, Grant blamed himself.
Which is more of Grant just being an idiot than him being right. For someone as smart as he is, he can be an idiot a lot.
"That does seem like the best idea. Even if it goes against the grain to just try walking in through the front door," Kara agreed. "So we head to D.C. and then down into Virginia and hope they believe us? I mean, Hydra does have those nano-masks."
"You said most things went the same, right? Then we can share things only the local versions of us would know," Grant pointed out. He went on: "I mean... I can't imagine the version of me here told anyone else what mother said to me after the verdict was given. You only know because you were right then next to me."
Kara shook her head, "Well, your parents and Christian - they didn't go to prison in this universe. They died last year - according to the old news report I found, Senator Christian Ward burned the house down with them in it."
Grant shook his head, "No. No way in hell. Christian wouldn't commit suicide. He's too sure of himself, always sure he'll get out of everything. He was so sure he'd avoid going to prison even to the last second." Grant got off the bed, shaking his head still further. "And Christian wouldn't have the balls to kill anyone himself, if it was murder and he just didn't escape the fire in time." He blinked and turned back to her, "Wait. Did you say Senator Christian Ward? Jesus Christ, there goes any hope I might have had in the american voter."
"Yep. Senator Ward - and apparently he did a big speech a few weeks before that telling the world that his brother Grant was Hydra." Kara shook her head, scoffing again at the very notion of it. "Scored some major political points for being willing to put country before family and all that. They were even talking about a run for President in 2016." At the notion of President Christian Ward, Kara shuddered.
"Me? Hydra?" Like Kara, Grant scoffed at the very idea, shaking his head.
"So he really did grow into the whole making shit up to cover his ass then." Grant went on. "It had to have been murder then. Probably Hydra, if he was making loud noises about going after them. But that sounds like him - lying, throwing people under the bus..." Grant shook his head. "I'm not going to mourn any version of Christian, but he should be in prison, not dead." He closed his eyes, "We're getting off topic, I'll find something to convince the... local me that I'm really me, not some weird Hydra infiltration attempt or a shapeshifting alien. You'll do the same for you, and then... one way or another, we'll rescue Fitzsimmons - our Fitzsimmons."
"You've had worse plans," Kara nodded, standing up from the chair and slipping her phone into her pocket. "D.C. it is." She considered, "I wonder if I have a dead drop in this Dayton too." The cash and clean I.D. would be helpful, and it was near the Greyhound station, which was their best bet for getting to D.C.
"Only one way to find out."
September 29th, 2015
Metro Station on 12th
Washington D.C.
It was only by sheer chance that they'd seen and recognized Coulson and Hunter.
After waiting for longer than Kara was entirely happy about, and a bus ride that felt like it took fucking forever, they'd arrived in D.C. It was late, and ideally, Kara had been hoping to find a nice, inconspicuous motel for them to hide out in for the night and go to the Playground refreshed and ready to face the likely inquisition. Maybe even Koenigs' precious chair.
So it had been as they were walking down the streets of D.C., both of them wearing hoods to keep their faces hidden from any government surveillance, when she saw them, heading down into the subway.
"I think the universe just cut us a break," Kara muttered in Italian, nudging Grant and gesturing towards them.
By training and instinct, Grant immediately responded in the same language, picking up on her intentions, if not her meaning. "What are you," he followed her gaze as the two men vanished down the stairs.
"Holy shit," then, still in Italian, he cursed again, this time nudging her. Right behind the two agents were a half-dozen men and women, one looking to be in her seventies, walking 'inconspicuously' towards the stairs down into the subway. It only took Kara a second to realize why he was pointing them out - the ever so slight bulges of weapons on several of them...
"Well, saving the local Coulson from a trap seems like a good way to establish our Bona Fides," Kara pointed out, then she switched from Italian back into English. "Let's take a subway ride."
