Will lead them for what seemed like ages across the terrain. It was beautiful, in a way. The landscape seemed picturesque, despite the desolate feel to it.
The three walked ahead of the others, Fitz and Laura on either side of Will to catch him if he fell.
"Can you run?" Fitz asked in a quiet voice.
"I don't know, why?" Will replied.
"Ward works for the same people who brought you over here." Fitz tried to explain. "They've been sending people over for centuries."
"Sacrifices…" Will muttered.
"Their real agenda is to find the creature and bring it back." Laura said.
"Ward found a way to bring it back?" Will asked hastily, a glimpse of fear in his eyes.
"No, I did. To get Simmons back. Ward's just the Hydra idiot who hijacked it." Fitz said.
"Hydra… that's an old name." Will said, a hint of confusion in his voice.
"Yeah, they're still at it." Laura said.
"Cut off one head, and… blah blah blah blah blah…" Fitz muttered, in an attempt to be funny. "I didn't know I was doing something they'd been working on for centuries."
There was a small pause, before Will spoke up. "You're bleeding." He said, pointing to a cut on Fitz's head that he had insisted Laura did not patch up.
"Yeah, so are you." Fitz stated, pointing to Will's leg. "I've already run a dozen scenarios in my head, wondering what it would be like when we finally met… there's a lot more blood, and I never considered the smell…"
"Fitz!" Laura half scolded.
"I can see why Jemma loves you." Will said.
"The good news is, Ward needs us alive." Laura hastily changed the subject. "Fitz is the only one who can read the data and get us to the extraction point. We just have to try and find a way to lose him before we get to the exit."
"Follow my lead." Will whispered to the two.
They stopped dead, and were immediately approached by Ward. "What's the hold up?" he asked.
"There's no hold up, we just need to make it through that canyon." He explained, pointing towards the most dangerous canyon Laura had ever seen in her life.
"Are you sure?" Ward asked nervously.
"That's the only way to make it in time."
Ward nodded slowly. "Alright… lead on."
It took a little over an hour to get across the precarious canyon. When they were across, Ward made Will walk beside him for a while, so Laura and Fitz walked ahead, exchanging small talk and attempting to make jokes about their situation.
After a while, the winds started to pick up, whipping Laura's hair around her face more than ever as she tried to shelter her eyes and glasses.
"It's gonna be a bad one!" Will shouted. Fitz ad Laura stopped to wait for him, and Fitz tried to hand over his goggles. "I'm used to it."
"Simmons told me about an area called the no-fly zone… you're leading us there, aren't you?" Laura asked, pulling on her goggles.
"We're already in it. Stay close." Will said, placing a hand on Fitz's shoulder.
The winds started picking up even more, and the entirety of the small group took shelter behind a large rock.
"I don't have time for this!" Ward shouted at them from his position.
From where Fitz and Laura sat, Will suddenly emerged from behind another rock, holding a knife. He nodded at them, and Fitz turned to the soldier next to him.
"Hey, I think we took a wrong turn! This is-" but the rest of his sentence did not matter, as Laura had already put a bullet in his thigh, and Will had knocked him unconscious.
Fitz looked up at him, alarmed.
"You said they were going to kill us… you got a better idea?"
"Is your leg gonna be okay?" asked Fitz. They were so close to the portal now. According to Fitz's tablet, it was less than half a mile.
"I don't really feel it." Will admitted. "The portal's just over this rise."
"It's gonna be close, but I think we're gonna make it." Fitz told them.
Laura let out a small sigh of relief, as images of being reunited with Jamie flashed through her mind.
"Jemma's going to be really happy to see you." Fitz said forcibly.
"This must be really difficult for you." Will guessed sympathetically.
"Getting you off this godforsaken planet is all that matters." Fitz said.
They approached the top of a cliff, and risked a look over the top. Below was the wasteland of a once great city, with skyscrapers still barely standing in the distance and not a soul in sight.
"Jemma never told me there was an ancient civilisation here!" Fitz exclaimed, walking forwards a few paces to get a better look.
"She never saw it. We're still in the no fly zone." He explained as both Fitz and Laura took out their phones to take pictures. Will continued on without them, and after thirty seconds of taking more photos and a selfie, they ran to catch up.
"What else do you know about the ancient city?" Laura asked as she caught up. "What happened to it?"
Will didn't got the chance to answer, however, because he tripped over something Laura couldn't quite see, and fell.
"Whoa, whoa… let me fix that." Fitz said, helping Will to a rock so he could sit down.
"There used to be nine cities on this planet. The beings who lived there were very advanced. But, they feared change, they were easily divided. They warred among themselves, destroyed their entire race.
"You seem to know a lot about them." Laura asked curiously, standing away from the other two for a second and folding her arms.
"They had a chance to become something great, something beautiful, but… in the end…"
"How do you know so much abo…" fitz's sentence was cut off as he pushed up Wills trouser leg to reveal a wound so deep they could see half of his bone.
"Because I was there." Will said simply.
"You're not Will." Fitz exclaimed.
"No. Will died saving Jemma… from me."
Fitz reached behind him for his bag at the same time as Laura felt her body start to heat up. Will walked forwards, unaware of Laura approaching him from behind with her palms on fire, and kicked Fitz down the ledge.
Distracted, Laura let her fires burn out, as she shouted out, hoping to get a response.
Fitz got up and ran, Will giving chase, and Laura equally giving chase to him. In a matter of seconds, Will tackled Fitz to the ground, and was pounding his fists into Fitz's stomach. Laura backed away, trying to get a better angle so that she could try and hit Will with some firepower. Fitz stumbled away for a few seconds, and Laura grabbed her chance; sending two balls of fire into Will's stomach, temporarily knocking him out.
From above, Laura saw two men fighting on the ledge they had just come down from. As they slowly made their way towards them, Laura recognised them as Coulson and Ward… Coulson? How the hell did he get here?
As they watched, only Fitz noticed Will struggle to his feet and stagger towards the portal that had opened a few feet from where they were without them noticing. He reached behind him once again, and emptied all the bullets of a gun lying nearby into Will's back. He just kept walking towards the portal.
"How the hell?" Laura breathed, watching Will continue, albeit slower, towards that damn portal. Fitz didn't answer, and frantically rummaged around in his bag for something that Laura couldn't see. He suddenly pulled out a flare gun and pointed it at Will.
"On my count, you use your powers to make the amount of power going towards him from the gun ten times stronger, got it?" Fitz asked, aiming the gun at Will. Laura nodded, and quickly heated up her body and started to create balls of fire in her palms.
"GO!" Fitz shouted, and shot the gun. Laura threw both of her fireballs at the same time, and controlled them so they joined with the bullet from the gun, and hit Will squarely on the back. He fell, his body starting to burn away like paper and ash, until he was almost unrecognisable as a human being.
"COULSON! THE PORTAL'S CLOSING!" Fitz shouted at Coulson on the ledge, who was standing over Ward.
"What's he doing?" Laura muttered under her breath at Fitz, who looked her, equally confused, and shook his head.
"IT'S FINSISHED! LEAVE HIM, LET'S GO!" Fitz shouted again.
"COULSON, COME ON! WE HAVE TO GO!" Laura joined in.
There was silence from Coulson, and Laura's jaw dropped when he saw Ward go limp and Coulson get up and walk away from his body.
Coulson started to run towards them and the portal, and shouted at them to run as well. Laura ran. Faster than she had ever run in her whole life. Thoughts of seeing Jamie again, and Bucky, hell, even her goddamn father crossed her mind as she got closer and closer to the portal, the jumped in, ready to go to sleep.
She was greeted with Mack and Daisy on the other side, Daisy clinging onto Mack, barely conscious, and both holding machine guns. Seconds later, Fitz and Coulson joined, and the five jumped into a containment pod, and were flown safely away from the castle.
As soon as she got out of the pod, Laura was greeted with a one-armed hug from a man with a metal arm with a toddler perched on the other. She beamed as soon as she saw her son, and took him out of Bucky's arms, stood him up on the ground and gave him the biggest hug she could manage without falling asleep.
"You okay?" Bucky asked her, pulling her into a proper hug as well.
"I will be." Laura answered truthfully. "Once I've had a shower, a cup of tea and a damn good nap."
