Disclaimer: No, I don't own Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. I think the MSF kind of proved that rather conclusively.

Thanks to Riley Holden/Colormeblue for beta-reading this chapter

Out of the Shadows and Into the Light

By Alkeni

Chapter 3: Carl Creel

Warehouse, Alexandria, Virginia

September 23rd, 2014

"We've got ears on them, the package is in the open." Skye was doing her best to stay professional, and she was succeeding but, on the inside, a little part of her was all but squealing with excitement at it all, dropping down on the rope, everything so awesomely cloak-and-dagger.

"Wait until they make the deal, then engage." Grant responded over the radio. "No premature moves." Out in the field, Grant was all business, the ultimate robot-specialist that she'd initially thought was all there was to him when they'd first met. She knew better now, knew just what he was like, who he really was, but in the field, he always stayed the perfect operative. Compartmentalized.

There were reasons why Skye didn't think she was ever going to be a full on specialist. A lot of them. She just... she didn't see herself having such an easy to flip on-off switch. But she didn't need to have it to do her job.

Like this one. A former S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent had put the word out on the black market, selling some kind of high-level intel, something valuable that Coulson figured it would be a bad idea for Hydra to get their hands on. If it hadn't been for Agent Hartley and her contacts in the criminal world, they might not have even heard about this sale, so they were running point as would-be buyers.

"I know, Grant." He'd drilled the plan into her enough times on the way here. Still, the fact that he was having her take this position in the plan was proof he trusted her abilities and her willingness to work with the plan. And she'd earned this position too, for that matter. Of course, it helps that he's such a good S.O.

Over the radio, she heard Grant and Trip talking:

"Trip, do we have a visual?"

"Now we do." The other specialist replied. Skye focused her attention on the sale happening in front of her.

"That's what I'm selling." The former agent dropped a file folder of some kind on the crate that rested between Hartley, Hunter and Idaho, and himself and his bodyguards – Grant had said they had the look of 'generic muscle', and she had to agree with him there. "I'm sure you'd like to see some credentials." The agent handed over a S.H.I.E.L.D. I.D. badge, and Hartley read the name off.

"Agent Browning, for ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. you seem awfully indifferent to who we are." Hartley observed, probably trying to get a feel for just how far this Browning had fallen. It was hard for Skye to muster up any sympathy for the man or the fact that he was likely to end up shuttled off to the Fridge – which still remained under Agent Hand's control – when this was done. She could respect not joining up with the new S.H.I.E.L.D. Coulson was forming. She could even get joining a still existing government agency, like the FBI, even selling out to the private sector. But diving right into the criminal underworld and selling S.H.I.E.L.D. intel, without a care who got it? That was a bridge too far.

"What you are is the highest bidder." Browning replied flatly. "Whether you're in it for profit or the highest bidder doesn't concern me. Not anymore."

"That's what we want to hear." Hartley replied with a smirk.

Idaho set a briefcase on the crate, and opened it showing the money within, but before Browning could get more than a glimpse, Hunter closed it up and leaned in, getting in Browning's face.

"The mystery I'd like to solve is why should we be paying you so much? This looks like a box. Sorry, a picture of a box." Hunter clarified. He stepped back, hand on the case. "A picture of a box you don't have."

"The government has it," Browning replied coolly, "along with thousands of other assets they seized from S.H.I.E.L.D. and they don't know what to make of half of them." He closed the folder. "I worked in a S.H.I.E.L.D. containment facility that had hundreds of boxes just like this. But this was the only one that had a level ten classified file dedicated to it." Skye heard Trip inhale sharply over the radio, and she was sharing the sentiment. From what Coulson and Grant had told her, almost everything was level 9 or lower. Level ten meant only one thing. Director Fury's eyes only. The really heavy stuff, the craziest of the crazy that S.H.I.E.L.D. dealt with.

The joke/rumor in S.H.I.E.L.D. had apparently been that level ten was so classified that even Fury didn't even know what half of it was, that there were a whole series of metaphorical 'break glass in case of emergency' protocols and rules in place for some of the level ten files. That those protocols were – at least technically – the only way for someone to find out about those super-secret files.

Of course, no one knew the truth of that one way or the other.

"You're selling us a needle in a haystack." Hartley pointed out, her tone skeptical. Skye wondered if she and Hunter were playing it too strong – were they going to ruin the deal?

"Finding the haystack is up to you." Browning retorted. "I know your reputation, I'm sure you'll be fine. What I don't appreciate is you changing the terms on me now."

Skye tensed. She didn't like the new note in Browning's voice. She readied herself to move the second things went south, if they did.

"We're asking for clarification Browning." Hartley replied. She gestured past him to his muscle. "You're the one who changed the terms by bringing more than the two guards we agreed upon."

Wait, he was only supposed to have two guards? And no one told me this? This was not going to end well, she could just feel it.

"I only brought two guards." Browning's evident confusion didn't have long to simmer, as the third man suddenly rushed at the table, knocking Browning's muscle out of the way, grabbing the former agent's neck and snapping it with a single, powerful motion. Hartley and her team opened fire but the bullets just seemed to bounce off of him.

Shit. There was nothing else for it. Someone else was involved – the real Hydra?

It didn't matter who it was but, before she could get down to back them up – before Grant or Trip could get down there – the attacker had already grabbed the file and was on the move, running and then out the window, jumping straight through it as if the glass was of no concern to him. Skye had her gun out, but before she could use it to take out the other bodyguard, Grant had taken him out, one bullet right in the back of the head as he tried to stand, the man dropping to the ground as life left his body.

"What the hell are you three doing here?" Hartley demanded, walking towards them as she lowered her gun.

"Who was that?" Idaho demanded, gesturing wildly at the broken window.

"Another interested party, I'd say." Grant answered, lowering his gun.

"That's what you call a party?" Idaho rolled his eyes.

Trip was already by the window and Skye was following him. "He's gone." The specialist observed. "Twenty five foot drop."

"This was an undercover op. Want to explain why you were shadowing us?" Hartley was looking to Grant but Skye gave the answer:

"We were your backup... which you needed." Skye looked to the dead bodies, nodding at them to get her point across.

Hunter, who hadn't said anything yet, nudged Browning's body with his foot. "Yeah, so did he." There was nothing to say to that. Hunter was right, but it was more of his flippant irrelevance. Funny in small doses, but it started to grate on her after a while. She watched Hartley call Coulson, filling him in on the new development – with the target dead and the intel lost, the question was what to do now?

Hartley lowered the phone after she got her answer. "Go Dark." She told them. Skye grimaced. It made sense – people could be nearby, watching them. Going back to the Playground now... it wasn't the best idea. But going dark was a risky proposition itself, from her own limited experience and everything else Grant had told her.

Hanger, The Playground

September 24th, 2014

"Our black market contacts were the only reason he didn't think we were S.H.I.E.L.D." Idaho pointed out, still harping on the fact that Grant, Skye and Trip had been shadowing him during the op.

"Coulson knows Hartley." Skye pointed out for the millionth time. "She's the only one on your team who he trusts."

"But why'd you break silhouette protocol?" Hartley asked. Finally, a question we haven't been asked yet. But the answer was simple, and Skye gave it, inadvertently speaking in unison with Grant and Trip.

"He ordered us to." When she realized the three of them had spoken in unison, Skye chuckled for just a moment, Grant smiling in amusement and Trip just laughing for a moment.

"We can't maintain a solid cover when agents are tailing us!" Hunter complained, following behind them as they walked towards the Hanger exit.

"And we couldn't be sure you wouldn't run off with the money, Hunter. You're a mercenary – at least Idaho was S.H.I.E.L.D." Skye trusted Hunter to not switch sides in the middle of a fight, sure – he didn't seem quite that sort of mercenary – but he was still in this for the money, nothing more, nothing less.

"And we still have no idea how that freak show found us." Idaho shook his head. "Because right now we're at square freaking one with regards to who or whatever he is and who he's working for."

Grant shook his head. "I think we can assume that he's Hydra. Browning put the word out into the criminal underworld – he probably found out the same way Hartley's contacts did."

"Browning wanted to reach as many potential buyers as possible." Hartley agreed. "When you do that, you alert just as many potential thieves. He said we were the highest bidder, which means he had other bidders – put the word out wide."

"And he paid for that mistake." May said, approaching them as they walked out of the hanger. "Ward, Coulson wants you for debrief."

"I figured." Grant nodded. "Have Koenig throw him up on the big screen when we get to the lounge -"

"He's in his office." May interrupted.

"That's a chance of pace." Hunter observed, and Skye had to agree. Though he'd been popping in and out of the base ever since they'd moved in, he'd been gone even more often in the last month and change - starting around the same time Simmons had gone off to visit her family, having decided she needed some time away from S.H.I.E.L.D., to get away from everything, to figure out...

Skye wasn't sure if she really believed that. Grant hadn't told her what it was that he'd been working with Simmons on, but they'd spent a lot of time in Vault D in the week before she'd left. If Grant were Miles, she might have been suspicious, but... well, Grant wasn't like Miles, and that wasn't like Simmons either. She and Fitz just have to freaking get their heads out of their asses and realize they both love eachother...

Maybe Simmons really had left for the reasons she'd said, but Skye wasn't sure. She hadn't voiced her theory to Fitz just in case she was wrong. And she wasn't going to press Grant, as much as she wanted to know – and knew that Grant would tell her if she asked...

"Just Agent Ward." May said, raising a hand. Hunter rolled his eyes.

"Well, tell him I'd like to voice my opinion too!" Grant ignored the Englishman and looked over to Skye. Skye ignored the rest of what he said too.

"Training room, one hour." Grant told her, his tone professional but his expression softer – they weren't on mission now. He gave her a soft smile for a moment, silently congratulating her again for her work on the mission.

"One hour." Skye agreed, taking his hand for a moment, then letting her arm drop before Grant followed May to Coulson's office.

Coulson's Office, The Playground

September 24th, 2014

Ward didn't have a watch or he'd have checked it as he waited for May to finish up with Coulson. Their conversation, whatever it was about, was clearly over when May walked out of the room, a slightly grimmer than usual expression on her face.

"That good?" May didn't respond, she just turned and walked down the hall. Ward walked into the office, the printed photos from the surveillance cameras in hand. Those few glimpses of the file were all they had to go on. All they knew about whatever it was that Browning had been selling intel on.

"Nice to see you back at base sir." Ward said, setting the photographs on the Director's desk. "Did your flight get delayed?" For whatever reason, on some of his recruiting trips, Coulson insisted on continuing to fly on a regular airline, rather than the bus or the quinjet – both had working cloaking devices now. There was no reason not to use them, as far as he could figure.

"Not this time. I just got caught up in London. But not being delayed was about the only good thing about the flight. I hate flying coach." Coulson picked up the photos. "What are these?"

"All we have on the intel that Browning was selling. It wasn't tech, just a level ten file. We didn't get the file." Coulson looked up, raising an eyebrow.

"Hydra?"

"Probably. And possibly gifted... and I think I might know who." It was a risk, telling this much to Coulson, but he'd figured out a way to tell Coulson the essentials about Carl Creel without the full truth coming out. "You don't have to fly coach, so why do you?"

Coulson dropped the pictures on the desk. "Cloak or not, the Bus and the quinjet are both unwieldy, to a degree. They leave a footprint. There's something to be said for hiding in the mass movement of people that is air travel, for some work at least." He shook his head, "Anyway. You have a theory on our bulletproof man?"

"I do. We picked up some metal shavings from the site. We thought they might have been pieces of some kind of new Hydra tech... but on the way here, they... turned into flesh." And hadn't that been an unsettling transition to see. Even after everything he'd seen working for S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra, it had been... off, seeing the metal turn into a chunk of flesh like that.

"Flesh?" Coulson's face looked a lot like Trip's, or Hunters had been when they watched it happen – a mixture of disgust and 'what the hell are we seeing'.

"Flesh. I could be wrong, but I think... well, Carl Creel might not be as dead as he's supposed to be."

"Creel?" Coulson's brow furrowed. "Name sounds familiar."

"A gifted that Garrett was sent to evaluate. He told me the story – more than once. You know how he liked to do that. Creel was a boxer, could change the makeup of his body based on what he touched – he liked to turn his fists to steel under his gloves. Garrett said that Creel was crossed off but..."

"Anything Garrett did is suspect." Coulson finished. "He falsified reports about Cybertek, he could do the same about powered people. One more thing to follow up on. Known Hydra agents were all over the place and there's so many we still don't know what side they were on." Coulson nodded. "It's something to follow up on." He looked down on the pictures, then frowned again. Ward looked at the one he was staring at.

"Sir?"

"S.S.R. I just read about this. In Fury's files." Would make sense. Level 10 file... Coulson punched a button on his phone. "Koenig, cancel my flight."

"What did Fury's files say about it? I mean, obviously it's an 0-8-4, says it right on the box..." What had Coulson so spooked?

"It's not just 'an' 0-8-4." Coulson replied. "It's the 0-8-4. The first one. The place the designation comes from. Fury didn't know much about it, but he knew a lot about the trail of death that followed it. If Hydra gets their hands on it... We need to know where Creel is. We need this file. And more importantly, we need Hydra to not have it."

I have an idea on that... More than an idea. He couldn't tell Coulson. Not without... not without everything coming to light. But Skye knew – he'd told her about the white noise when he'd told her so many other things he knew about Hydra. She'd know how to get that information to Coulson, something she could pick up on or something.

"Skye's taking the flesh down to the lab... maybe we'll get lucky."

"Maybe." Coulson frowned. "Anything else?"

"Hunter's complaining, but that's nothing new. Hartley isn't happy we went in as her backup, especially without telling her." And why on earth hadn't they been allowed to tell her? That was just... pointless. It put her and her team and the whole mission at risk for no reason.

"I suspected as much might happen." Coulson nodded. "All right. Dismissed."

Skye's Bedroom, The Playground

September 24th, 2014

"Creel liked hurting people? Sounds like Garrett must've loved him." Skye said softly. Ward nodded.

"He did. Thought Creel was a real 'character'." They were having this conversation here because it was one of the few places safe for them to do so. He'd had Skye go a few rounds on the training mat but he couldn't talk about the things he knew, the Hydra intel, in there. And so here they were now. "I told you about him – I don't know who he reports to now, though. There's more than a few Heads operating in the United States and he could be working for any of them or one I don't know about."

"Grant, you've told me a lot about what Garrett got up to. And its all on my encrypted Hard Drive. I go through it when I have time, but it's a lot of to stuff to sort through." Skye pointed out. "So... is there anything else about Creel to know, then?"

Ward shook his head. "Not really. That's everything, what I can share with everyone else, and what else I know. But there might be a way to figure out where he is, what he's going to do next. The white noise."

Skye blinked. "Does that mean something different for Hydra than it normally does?"

Ward reminded her: "The white noise between S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Quantum Key Distribution Channels. The way that Hydra kept in contact with assets outside of S.H.I.E.L.D. If you don't know to look for the messages in the noise, they're completely undetectable. S.H.I.E.L.D. might be gone, but those frequencies are still there... and so is that white noise." He let out a breath. "I think it's time to bring this intel to Coulson's attention somehow, if we can. If this 0-8-4 is as bad as he seems to think it is..."

"Grant... you've never told me about this before." Skye said, shaking her head, voice soft.

Of course I did. "Yeah – like you said, I told you a lot of things. I told you everything." He hadn't kept anything back. He'd had no motive to. Skye deserved the truth, every truth. And that intel he'd given her could help bring down Hydra, which was his enemy, because Skye was here, with S.H.I.E.L.D., fighting them. Hydra was a threat to Fitz and Simmons, people he had also come to value. He didn't care about S.H.I.E.L.D. as a whole, but he did care about Skye and, to a lesser extent, the rest of the team. And Hydra was a threat to them. So Hydra was the enemy.

"No, Grant, you didn't. And you probably haven't told me everything." She held up a hand, and he bit back his response, "I don't think you're keeping anything back on purpose, Grant, but you were part of Hydra for ten years. Every day. There's no way you can tell me everything about that time. But if you had told me about this before... it's a little time-sensitive. If Hydra is still using those frequencies, then we could have picked up on all kinds of transmissions. I would have found a way bring it to his attention before now." Skye reached over to his hand and took it in hers, running her thumb across his palm.

Ward let out a breath. What she said made sense. There could be things he hadn't thought to tell her... things he'd... internalized, gotten used to? Possibly, anyway... if he really hadn't told her...

"All right."

Skye put her shoulder on his, scooting in closer to him. He put his free arm around her back. "I'm sure there're other things you'll remember – find something out that jogs a memory, or...something like that..." She closed her eyes. "I'll have to figure out how to get the info to Coulson... probably something similar to what I've done before." She squeezed his hand, then let go of it. Skye took her head off of his shoulder and then wrapped her arms around him.

Ward hadn't been expecting a hug but he responded to it almost instinctively, putting his own arms around her and tucking her head under his chin, letting her rest against his chest. Skye almost burrowed into him.

"I hate thinking about your time in Hydra." Skye said softly, her voice barely above a murmur. "Because that's not you. Not you now, never the real you. You're a good man – you've proved that. You're doing the right things now."

I'm doing the things that help keep you safe. Ward still... he still didn't really get it. What made the things he'd done for S.H.I.E.L.D. 'right' and the things he'd done for Hydra 'wrong?" He knew for some things, but it wasn't always that simple...

At the end of the day, Skye was his metric for right and wrong. She was good. Not just good in a simplistic sense. She was good. What she viewed as right... as a rule... it was probably right. The same for what she saw as wrong. He was still prepared to do the wrong thing to keep her safe, always would be. But he was trying to learn from Skye's metrics...

"I'm not a good man, Skye." Ward told her just as quietly. "That's not going to change. I've done too much, before and after joining Hydra for that to change."

"Your past doesn't define you, Grant. You're doing the right things now. You're a good man – you're trying to be a better person than you were." She pulled away from him, but only far enough to kiss him. "And I'll keep telling you that until you believe it." Skye told him once she'd pulled away from his lips.