More Bobbi-Hunter banter coming your way... :)


TWO

Identity and Change

"Hey, what're you looking at, love?" Arms slipped around her waist and Bobbi stiffened momentarily before relaxing as the familiar scent of his aftershave enveloped her. "I hate how you get when you come back from that place," Hunter told her, releasing her midsection and moving his fingers up to her shoulders and beginning the knead her muscles. "So uptight." When she didn't say anything, he added, close enough to her ear to feel his warm breath, "And quiet."

"Sorry," Bobbi said, closing her eyes and leaning into his touch. Her hands absentmindedly folded up the well-worn picture she had been looking at. "Do you know...does the name Grant Ward mean anything to you?"

"No," Hunter said immediately. His forehead creased. "Wait. Maybe. I don't know."

Her lips quirked upward ever so slightly. "A very conclusive answer, thank you."

"Who is he?"

"An agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. One of the Patriot's men, apparently."

"Grant Ward, agent of S.H.I.E.L.D...does ring a bell, actually." Bobbi twisted in her seat on the bed to look at him. "A very small bell," Hunter covered. "Very far away. Can't even hear it, really."

"What is it, Hunter," Bobbi said in a flat voice.

"Well...I don't know. The name makes me think of Izzy."

She rolled her shoulders, scooting away from him on the bed with a frown. "You can mention her name in my presence, Hunter. It's been years."

"One year, eleven months, actually," Hunter said, pressing a kiss into her hair near the top of her head and sitting down next to her. She turned to face him.

"Why do you know that?"

"Anniversary's coming up," he gave a small shrug. "I wanted to make sure you were okay on the day, maybe do something special. Commemorative."

Bobbi reached for him, wrapping her arms around him. "Thank you."

"For what, remembering our old friend? That's not—"

"For reminding me why I love you," Bobbi told him, feeling a single tear run down her cheek and wet his shirt. "And the other thing." She pulled away, wiping her face furiously with her sleeves. "Wait. Hunter. Grant Ward—not Izzy, Vic." Bobbi hurriedly pulled open the picture she had been staring at just a few minutes before, focused this time not on the dark-haired force of nature to eight-years-ago-Bobbi's left but on the red-streaked strategist and tactician on her right. The smartest agent in S.H.I.E.L.D. when it came to ops or organizational matters, who had died making sure the organization made it underground without a trace. "Victoria was his SO. He was her first cadet."

Hunter let her process that for a couple of seconds, then asked, "So, you going to tell me why Grant Ward is coming up in the first place or what?"

"He called me today, asking for sanctuary with the project for his girlfriend, Skye."

"Not too out of the ord—" Her look shut him up.

"She hasn't gone through Terrigenesis, doesn't even know she's Inhuman. And...she's an agent of HYDRA."

"I take it back. Very out of the ordinary." Hunter ran a hand over his short-cut hair. "You told him no?"

"Of course. Too much risk to the project."

"But he's Vic's first protégé!"

She flashed him a look. "Well I didn't know that then, when he called me out of the blue."

"But you can get ahold of him again, if he's one of the Patriot's men. You can make this right by Vic."

"And do what, bring a HYDRA agent straight to the only organized shelter for changed Inhumans in this hemisphere?" She stared at him, hard, not really angry at him but at the world in general for providing her such impossible decisions. "I already lost one today, Hunter. Her name was Savannah. She was eight." He opened his mouth to say something else, probably to apologize, but she headed him off. "I'm going to go check on her brother."

"Bob."

She turned back—she owed him that much. But he just shook his head, motioning for her to leave.


Medical was nothing special, not after years of high-tech, state of the art S.H.I.E.L.D. wards. Theirs was just a slightly larger than normal cabin, five beds and a desk for the Inhuman on duty that night. Usually Lavinia, since she had some prior first aid training that had been added onto by various ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. agents over the years. It wasn't a lot, but they made do. Somehow.

Today, however, there were only two people in Medical, both of them patients—the two Bobbi had rescued earlier that day. The woman looked better, a few bandages on her arms and tape across the cut on her head. She sat on a chair next to the boy's bed and jumped as the door opened before recognizing Bobbi. "Where's…"

"She looked asleep on her feet," the woman replied softly. "I said I'd watch him." Glancing down, Bobbi saw her hand was interlaced with his.

"How is he?" Bobbi asked.

"Just fell asleep." She patted the quilts covering his thin frame. "Couldn't put these on him until the fire stopped."

"I understand," she murmured.

"The doctor…isn't sure he'll survive this much trauma so soon after the Change."

Bobbi nodded stiffly. "I've seen it before."

"His sister...there's no hope of…?"

"No," Bobbi said with finality. "Inhumans don't come back from that place once they're taken."

"Where are they—where would we have been taken?" the woman asked, voice trembling.

"It's better that you don't know." Bobbi looked down at the boy's sleeping form. "It's better that he doesn't know." After another moment, she turned away. "You should try to get some rest too, if you can. I'll be back—" Her sentence was cut short by a strange gurgling sound from inside the boy's throat, and a second later he was thrashing about on the bed. His eyes were open and bloodshot, spinning around in circles to stare at nothing as his mouth choked out a stream of scarlet. "Get Lavinia," Bobbi ordered, immobilizing the boy's shoulders as best she could. Crimson spattered her chin and neck with one particularly loud gargle. The woman ran out the door. "Stay with me," Bobbi told him fiercely, but the rational part of her mind knew it was probably too late.

It was probably only seconds later that Lavinia was at her side, administering a last-ditch shot of the post-Terrigenesis stabilizing serum that they'd been giving him in small amounts since his arrival. The boy convulsed, once, twice, and then was still. Too still.

"I'm sorry," Lavinia said softly, pulling back the quilts and unfolding a blank white sheet.

"There was nothing you could have done," Bobbi told her before realizing that she had not been speaking to her at all, but the woman standing white-faced at his bedside. Lavinia draped the sheet gently over his body, covering his face last with a gentle billow of white.

Lavinia glanced at the woman, then looked at Bobbi. "I can handle this. You…" She gestured towards the door of Medical.

"Come with me," Bobbi said, her hand closing gently around the woman's wrist. With a small amount of pulling, she led her outside where a cold, crisp breeze was whipping across the mountaintop. Gooseflesh appeared up and down the woman's bare arms and she crossed them, mouth pressed in a tight, miserable line that Bobbi understood to have nothing to do with the chill. "There's a bunk set up for you just down that path," she gestured. "Clothes, toiletries. Everything you need to get set up here. Your roommate will help you settle in; she's been here for a few months now."

"Okay," the woman whispered, hands white and clenched. "I just...with him, I just thought I might have a reason for being here. For being rescued."

"You do," Bobbi told her. "You do because you deserve a life. You do because you will have a role here, when you're ready for it—without helping each other and doing our fair share, this sanctuary couldn't exist."

The woman nodded numbly. "I understand."

"Good. When you're ready, talk to Joey. He can give you something to do."


"Bob, your face." Hunter launched to his feet and toward her with concern, papers haphazardly shoved onto the small table next to the armchair he'd been sitting in.

"Those the receipts from the supply run?" Bobbi asked tiredly.

"Yeah, we're eighty-six cents below our original budget, but Bob—"

"Eighty-six cents," she repeated with an edge of sarcasm to her voice. "We're really doing well moving the funds we need for construction out of consumption expenditure." It wasn't a jab at him and he knew it. "Also, you should take the new intake on your next supply run so she can pick up a few things herself, make her feel human again."

"Not a lot she can buy for eighty-six cents," Hunter quipped. He looked at her, a hard glint in his eyes. "Bobbi, you have dried blood all over you."

"I know," she murmured. He crossed over to the sink before she could take a step towards it, wetting their dark blue washcloth and coming back to her. He gently pushed her into the seat he had occupied before she came in, and Bobbi sank into it. She vaguely registered that the chair was still warm.

"I heard about the boy," Hunter told her as he dabbed at her chin with the damp cloth. "I'm sorry, Bob. Did you go around like this all afternoon?"

"I didn't think about it," Bobbi admitted. "How bad is that, that I wouldn't even notice blood dried to my skin for hours? How used to it must I be?" She swallowed, hard, as Hunter's dabbing moved south to the curve of her neck. "It reminds me of how Natasha used to talk about it...like swimming in a constant sea of blood. Except she was referring to the blood she'd spilled...I just can't escape other people spilling it."

He set the cloth aside, hands moving to grasp her shoulders around the base of her neck, pressing lightly. "A lot more blood would be spilled without you, Bob."

She met his eyes, and he took that correctly as the initiation for a quick kiss. "You too. Come on, let's get ready for bed."

"I've been ready for hours," he joked, grasping her hand and helping her up. "You really should look into whoever manages your schedule; they might be having you work unpaid overtime."

"Ha ha," Bobbi deadpanned, but grateful for the levity nonetheless.

"Did you even remember to eat dinner?" Hunter asked.

One side of her lips twitched upward. "No. But how else do you think we get eighty-six cents below budget?"

"Tomorrow morning I'm forcing you to have a proper breakfast." He was rolling his eyes, but she knew he was completely serious as well. And right, for once in his life.

"As long as you don't cook it yourself," she replied, stepping into the bathroom to brush her teeth.

"Hey! I can make eggs," he fired back.

"Undercooked eggs that run the risk of salmonella. I also seem to remember a hotel in Charleston where our cover almost got blown when you set off the fire alarm with some very blackened bacon?"

"What about my pancakes?" Hunter challenged, pulling off his shirt to leave him in just his sleeping shorts. "Remember our undercover op in Leeds? I would have won first place if the vampire cult hadn't chosen that moment to attempt their blood sacrifice."

"Those aren't pancakes," Bobbi scoffed, putting her toothbrush away and coming out of the bathroom. "They're neither thick nor fluffy nor stackable."

He huffed, a noise that sounded suspiciously like "Americans." She smiled, pulling out bedclothes from her drawer—a rattier Star Wars tee she'd had since her Academy days and a looser pair of leggings. "Speaking of undercover, get in here," Hunter said, once again in his normal voice and this time from in the bed. "I swear the nights are getting colder."

"That is generally how winter works," Bobbi smirked, pulling the clothes on before switching off the light. She lifted the covers on her side of the bed and slipped underneath, scooting over until she could wrap her left arm around his bare midsection. His arm shifted automatically to wrap around her, allowing Bobbi to rest her head on juncture between his arm and chest. Underneath her ear, his heart beat steadily, its familiar rhythm already fading away some of the horrors of the day. "If you're so cold, why are you sleeping with your shirt off?" Bobbi pointed out in a mumble against his chest.

"Because then I have an excuse to pull you closer," he replied, and a light pressure on top of her head told her he'd placed a kiss in her hair.

Her fingertip traced a nonsensical pattern on the soft skin of his stomach. "You don't need an excuse for that."

"Besides, I know you like it," Hunter whispered. "I have very nice abs."

"Mmm," Bobbi said noncommittally, smiling in the dark where she knew he couldn't see her. "'Love you."

"Love you too, Bob."


"Hunter...I think we have to do it." Bobbi's voice was low and hard, still slightly blurred with sleep from where she sat perched on the edge of their bed.

"Mmph?" The Hunter-shaped lump under the covers shifted, reaching for her out of habit or in response, she wasn't sure.

"Hunter," she said again with more force.

"'M awake," he said vaguely. Long pause. "Have to do what, exactly?"

"Take in Skye."

"Who's Skye?"

"Ward's girlfriend. The Inhuman HYDRA agent."

"Who's Ward?" She turned around, glaring. "Kidding, love." He pushed himself up on his elbows. "Okay, so what's the plan?"

Caught by surprise, Bobbi opened her mouth and then stopped. "Shouldn't you be trying to talk me out of this? Ask me why I changed my mind?"

"Doesn't matter why. I trust you to have made the right decision." He gave her a small smile. "So, what's the plan?"

"I have to call Ward," she said, reaching out to clasp his arm and run her thumb across it softly, a silent thank-you for his earlier words. "And you can start setting up containment?"

"You got it," Hunter replied. He kissed the back of her hand and then slid his legs out of the bed, standing up with a stretch and a yawn.

Bobbi made the call after Hunter had left, pacing the limited space in their quarters as she was wont to do while making phone calls. As soon as he picked up, she said, "Falcons fly faster than eagles."

"The west wind outstrips them both."

"Agent Ward," she greeted him calmly.

"Agent Morse," Ward's relieved-sounding voice came through the phone. There was a slight wind noise behind him, and the hum of an engine. Driving, if Bobbi had to guess.

"I'm not an agent anymore," she reminded him.

"Sorry, I just…" He gave a small, choked laugh—more of a huff of breath, really. "I guess I hoped any amount of familiarity and common ground would help convince you. Have you...reconsidered my request?"

"I have," Bobbi said carefully. "We'll have to plan an extraction. Since she's HYDRA, it may be more of a kidnapping. I'll need a few days to prep a place to hold her on my end. We're not normally in the business of taking prisoners."

"That's fine," Ward said in a curt, clipped voice. Despite his best efforts, she could hear the strained emotion within. "Thank you. Although I have to warn you, I won't be much help. She's kind of mad at me right now."

"Why?"

"She asked me to move in with her. I...couldn't say yes. Not when I was hiding so much of my life from her. So much of her life." He was less able to hide it now, not that he had been doing particularly well before.

"You know that if she comes here, you won't be able to come with her?"

"I know. All that matters is she's safe. I'm going to keep fighting to take HYDRA down, and once that happens, Skye and I can be reunited." He paused. "If I can ask...what made you change your mind?"

"Because Victoria Hand was a close friend of mine," Bobbi said. "And she would never have done it." She ended the call, sucking in a deep breath. "But she would have wanted to."


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