Author's note: Thank you all so much! I hope this chapter won't disappoint.
To bhut: it's not completely like that, mostly I took one point from canon and changed it and tried to imagine what consequences would be and that's what I came up with.
It was brought to my attention that I'm not good with proper use of articles. I'm sorry for it but I have hard time distinguishing when you should use them and how (English is my third language). I'm trying to do better, I promise.
I hope you will enjoy fourth chapter.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything but probably plot :) - if you recognize something, it's probably not mine. All rights belong to their owners.
Cross-posted at Archive of our own - works/5596210
Thank you for reading!
Chapter 4
As he would find out later the only thing that saved him was that he put his uniform jacket on again after strapping on vest to avoid attracting attention on the city's streets.
Rifle round shattered armor plate of his jacket and just stopped in too thin for this kind of firepower vest.
Still he ended up with two broken ribs, very impressive bruising, fracture and vomiting with a side serving of doubled vision.
The alternative being Jemma dead – because she wasn't wearing vest at all – Grant already cursed himself for an hour straight – he didn't mind his injuries.
Although, that required serious "what the fuck?" to SHIELD. They couldn't possibly believe that Jemma voluntarily signed up for Hydra membership after she was kidnapped and brainwashed. Didn't Grant tell about the Faustus Method agent Fitz?
Maybe they haven't seen her face and consequently haven't recognized her? Grant admitted that for entirety of the firefight he was between SHIELD agents and Jemma. And she dragged Gill around – asset which SHIELD knew about – as any good little Hydra soldier would have done.
He just hoped that nobody noticed him being compromised. Especially Daniel fucking Whitehall. It as much could have been Grant unquestioningly following orders not putting Jemma's safety before the mission...
He was going to enjoy bed rest while it lasted because if Whitehall suspected for even a second that Grant thrown off his brainwashing efforts, he would put him through his torture device again and Grant would have to fake being broken and made compliant again. Last time was horrible enough. More so than previous ones years ago.
Why did John leave him here?
Why?
ooo
Grant heard Jemma's steps coming to his bed some time ago but still she didn't speak up so he waited and feigned sleep.
Finally she tried to sit in a chair as silently as possible – which is to say, not at all – and stayed quiet again. Grant almost groaned – was she afraid of waking him up?
"Jemma," he didn't want to startle her but she yelped and almost fell on the floor.
He sat without thinking and was rewarded with sharp stabs of pain and couldn't hold moan.
Jemma scrambled to him:
"Are you alright? I'm so sorry, I wanted to visit but doctors wouldn't let me and I was afraid they weren't telling me that something has happened…"
"Stop, Jemma, breath." Grant wanted to laugh, badly. But his ribs would certainly protest.
Jemma abruptly halted her worries and sheepishly sat back.
"I'm fine," at her pointed glance Grant winced. "I'll be fine."
She skeptically looked him over and then lowered her eyes starting to fidget with the hem of her shirt.
"I…I only wanted to thank you." She looked up and Grant was shocked to see that she was holding back tears. "I never expected anyone to…risk their lives for me."
Grant felt surreal. He was just doing his job – and underperforming – he placed her safety above the mission. Thank God, Whitehall didn't interpret it as such.
"Jemma, I made you a promise, remember?"
She jerkily nodded and hastily wiped at escaped tear.
"I just don't want anything to happen to you." She flushed and averted her gaze. Grant felt his heart lurch inside like it did the first time he nearly fell down from twenty stories up.
"You're my first real friend…" She bit her lip trailing off as if afraid she said too much. Grant felt something strange rising in his chest.
"You're too."She turned her face to him and Grant stopped breathing waiting for her response.
Then he almost convinced himself it was stupid and pathetic she flashed him the most brilliant smile he ever seen from her.
He supposed that's how she must have looked before Whitehall broke her into compliant and frightful kitten.
That's how she must have looked when she smiled at Leo Fitz.
Jemma bashfully tucked one of locks and launched at something about biometric sensors and Deoxyribo-something.
Grant listened to her chatter and suddenly realized what this something slowly curling up around his heart was. It was long-long-familiar acquaintance, intimate tenant, whom Grant didn't recognize because for years he felt it only directed at Christian and their parents.
Hate.
ooo
After being banished from active duty for additional two weeks (at least!) – accompanied with unending stream of advice and exhortation from Jemma – he closed door to his apartment and not bothering to undress fell on bed.
His ribs expressed their displeasure but Grant roughly rolled and induced another wave of pain. Sharp and vicious it reminded him that this wasn't a dream or hallucination caused by Whitehall and he wasn't strapped before TV screen again.
He waited and waited and waited. Driving himself as close to anxiety attack as he could because Whitehall should have noticed.
He didn't do anything and Grant felt desire to curl up in ball and not leave his bed – and apartment – ever.
World was stopping to make any sense. John threw him away as tiresome toy, Raina was looking at him with sympathy – yes, he was pretty damn sure of it, Whitehall didn't notice he was compromised and no longer brainwashed – admittedly, the last time it was spectacularly uncontrollable and whole lab knew the second he shook off programming – and him…he was spinning.
He wanted John to come back and give him direction again, he wanted John to take him away from Hydra and Jemma with her skittish tics and likeable attitude, he just wanted John back.
Didn't he deserve at least proper goodbye if John didn't need him anymore?
After what he, Grant, did for him?!
He jumped from the bed and grabbing a lamp from a desk hurled it at the wall. Pain cut through him but he barely noticed.
He overturned the table, repeatedly hit chair against it until it scattered with slivers and springs, tore mattress from the bed and ripped at the sheets and pillows causing feathers to fill the room.
He tried to break bed frame but caught his leg on bottom and overbalancing went down to the floor.
As he lay there he thought that he was lucky he didn't hurt himself further.
If someone did watch him he gave Whitehall reason to brainwash him anew.
Great.
ooo
In three days nobody came to drag him out kicking and screaming to re-education. Grant was in equal measure annoyed and relieved.
Faced with prospect of bouncing off the walls for next ten days he actually felt fear for his sanity.
So he pulled painstakingly expropriated mission objectives of Scarlotti for next weeks and tried to convince himself what bad idea it was to go and spy on powered-people-acquisition in hope of seeing her again.
Sure, she was smart-ass…smart and funny and fierce and breathtaki…
Wait, what?
No, no, no. Hot, yes, attractive, yes…beautiful, ye…
What?
Oh, no. He was screwed. More so than he already was.
ooo
He spent additional four days arguing with himself but the truth was he didn't want things solely for his own enjoyment all that much. Even though that started to change since that meeting with FitzSimmons it still wasn't often: sparring with Bobbi, spending time with Jemma…
Wanting to see that hacker. Sorry, hacktivist.
Point was – he feared that if he didn't act on his immediate desires they would vanish and he will go back to numbness. And it was scaring him. He wanted to…want.
God, he made no sense at all.
John would be so disappointed…fuck John.
He can go and fuck himself. With all his important stuff and secret projects that Grant wasn't allowed to know about and participate in.
Yes, that's it. He, Grant, will go and do whatever he wants. Maybe then they drag him to Hydra's HQ Whitehall would call John to say how much of a failure Grant became and John would regret leaving him all alone.
ooo
Grant circled his apartment block ten times, wasted hours shaking imaginable tails and finally arrived at his destination having made a detour through two states with two days to spare.
Yes, he was paranoid. So sue him – he knew who he was dealing with and he didn't want to bring attention to Skye even more than she already did on her own.
Scarlotti and his gang were pathetic enough that Grant wanted to stroll right to them and remedy their training – this they called making sure they weren't watched?
But Grant wasn't here to better Hydra agents. He preferred them little better than the SHIELD ones and whole lot worse than him.
"Eighth floor! Non-lethal force only!"
Grant adjusted his rifle's scope and listened in on Hydra's progress. It was going not so hot.
Apparently teleporter came alone – after all he was here just to grab woman and her son and get away. Grant felt little let down – so much worrying whether to come or not and she wasn't even there?
Then he saw her.
Running from a café block away, stuffing her laptop in a bag, right in the open.
Why he liked her, again?
She ran into the building at full speed not stopping.
No, really, there must be some another reason why she caught his attention. It couldn't have been stupid recklessness.
Grant was tense but Scarlotti's people were preoccupied with their main objective – who was putting up one hell of a fight.
She came out of the doors with second objective and his mother and not even looking for cover started running.
No, clearly, he lost his mind. There was no other explanation.
He took out two agents that Scarlotti had presence of mind and ability to spare from apprehension-gone-wrong but one more ducked and seconds later all four figures were out of his sight.
Grant didn't waste time for cursing himself. He grabbed a helmet, thrown the rifle there it was – he was professional, not militant – and tore down the stairs.
Dropping bike at the entrance to the lane he was just in time to see Skye releasing magazine from Glock in her hands.
For a moment the whole alley was frozen.
Then Grant shot Hydra agent before he remembered he had not empty gun in his hands. Taser disks took care of the rest of present.
Grant was starting to understand why Romanoff liked them and her bracelets so much. He just never had any reason to leave someone alive before.
Now, how was he going to drag away three people on motorcycle?
ooo
Grant was pleased to see that while her attempt at feigning sleep was still terrible, it was better than at their previous meeting.
She was learning. It was relief, seriously.
Time to see, how fast she was at learning.
"I still know that you're awake, Skye."
She straightened in her chair and with huff crossed her hands:
"Why am I not bound and gagged?"
"Wow, not even going to get to know me better first?" Grant made a show of looking her up and down. "I mean, I wouldn't say no, but I thought you…"
She jumped up and snatched the gun from the table at her right – so she did pay attention to her surroundings, how cute:
"Give me one reason to not shoot you!" She looked really hot then worked up.
Focus, Grant.
"You're the one who suggested the BDSM in the first place? I'm pretty flexible at my preferences, if you want to…"
And the magazine dropped on the carpet.
"…Or I could have said that you really suck at handling weapons."
She actually stomped her foot and picked up offending piece of plastic and put it back in. She didn't release the magazine again. She just looked at the gun like it personally insulted her.
"It's a Glock, you know."
She whipped her head up interrupting her pouting inspection of the weapon and confusedly blinked at him.
"Let me guess, this gun isn't yours, is it?"
"No," she mulishly admitted. "I knocked it out from another Hydra tool bag's hand."
Grant was torn between annoyed at being compared to someone on whom untrained unprofessional got a drop on and pleasantly surprised that she did it.
"Glocks don't have traditional safeties; it's basically grab-and-shoot kind of gun."
"Then how people don't shoot themselves?" Her open suspicion that he was pulling one over her hurt. A little. It was basic information and she could verify it easily. Can't she give his lying abilities a little more credit?
"There's trigger safety, pin and drop safeties…And you don't understand a word I'm saying, do you?" Grant wanted to sigh. Very much.
"Yep," she bounced on her balls and waved gun. Grant wanted to groan. It was loaded with dummy rounds, yes. But it was terrible habit to instill.
"How about a deal? You disassemble and reassemble this gun in…two minutes and I will let you go." She suspiciously stared at him. "And tell you there I've stashed your new friends."
She clenched her jaw but stayed quiet.
"Come on, if I brought them to Hydra's HQ, I would have brought you, too. And if I decided to hold you for nefarious purposes, I wouldn't have been playing this game – you do realize that I'm stronger, faster and better trained." Grant said his next words as unthreateningly as he could manage. "If I wanted to, I would have already done something to you. But I'm not going to, I promise."
Skye was pale and if looks could kill…but she regained control of her emotions soon enough:
"Two minutes?"
"Yes," Grant let himself smile. "I suggest achieving it fast – I don't remember if I left water in their reach or not."
She just eviscerated him with her glare and released the magazine from weapon in her hands.
