Disclaimer: I don't own Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Note 1: No flashback this chapter. I may add more in later chapters, but I think we're all eager to see the story move forward.
Note 2: Just for the record, the 'revelations' about Hydra's supersekrit cult that were revealed in 3x08 – not a thing in this fic. Hydra is still into the 'take over the world because order through strength etc' stuff. None of this 'weird thousands of years worshiping a being on the other side of the monolith' nonsense. It wasn't a terrible plot point, but its far too out there for the purposes of this fic. Indeed, Season 3 (or anything Ward-related post 2x19) isn't really being taken into account for this fic but I will mine it for the occasional character to use or plot point or whatever.
Thanks to LisaMichelle25 and Riley Holden/Colormeblue for beta-reading.
Enough Good Left After All
By Alkeni
Chapter 9: The Aurora Initiative
Cafe, Downtown Indianapolis
May 8th, 2019
Kara knew Grant was agitated, but she had to give it to him that he showed no visible signs of it. The cafe wasn't very full but it had the air of a place that was never really full. Maybe a third of the tables were occupied, but that was still enough people for Grant to be on full emotional control.
Kara was also concerned, but probably not as much as Grant. Because his daughter was back at the apartment, and there was someone staying with her for the hour or so this would take at most, hopefully. Some teenaged girl that lived down the hall from Grant. Rachel was friends with the girl's younger brother, so Grant knew the girl and her family. Knew... but Grant didn't trust Rachel with anyone else, as he'd said yesterday.
But leaving her alone with anyone he didn't trust enough – a list that included everyone but Kara, according to Grant – was something Grant hated to do. She'd suggested taking her with them, letting the little girl pull on Coulson's heartstrings, but Grant nixed the idea.
"I'm not letting Coulson anywhere near her. And I'm not going to use her as a prop." She could respect that desire, even if she didn't think it was the smartest move. If Skye hadn't seen Rachel, she'd have moved forward with the 'arrest him' strategy.
But we do have Coulson's word... And she trusted Coulson's word. And she could understand Grant not wanting to use his daughter as a prop. Because she wasn't a one. He cared about her. He loved her. She wasn't some thing he could just use to keep himself out of prison.
Kara sipped at her green tea latte, watching the door, then checked the watch on Grant's wrist. 11:59. They should be here soon... she looked back up at the sound of the bell by the door ringing and sure enough, Coulson was walking in. He was wearing his usual suit and tie, complete with the sunglasses, though at least he took those off as he walked in.
Coulson she'd expected. What she hadn't expected was for Skye to be right behind him. Kara could see the gun – probably an ICER – concealed on Skye, and the gun that Coulson also had concealed. Neither she nor Grant had come to this meeting unarmed either, so she couldn't hold that against them.
But what the hell is she doing here?
The two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents looked around the cafe, checking the whole area, then made their way over to the table Grant had selected. They sat with their backs to the wall, clear view of the room, and it was obscured from the windows by several other tables and some armchairs around coffee table that had magazines on it. The best they could do in this place.
Paranoid? Maybe. But professional paranoia was something they taught you at the Ops Academy.
"Ward." Coulson nodded, sitting down across from the other man, then he looked over at Kara. "Agent Palamas." Coulson's greeting was warm, inviting. Almost friendly. Like hell.
"Coulson." Grant said with a nod of his own. "Skye." Still in love with Skye or not, Ward's tone was terse, without inflection.
"Ward. Kara." Skye said in turn to each of them. Skye's tone was icy and annoyed. At least it wasn't angry. Well, I did ditch her on a mission to hang out with the guy she both loves and hates.
"Oh please, just... what is she doing here, Coulson?" Kara drummed her fingers on the table for a moment, then sipped at her latte again.
"The same reason you're here. Backup. The questions I have are for Ward. But you're here because he's your friend and because you're here to back him up. Skye's here because she's the Agent on hand and I can't trust Ward completely. And I'm sure that's mutual."
True enough.
"Then ask your questions, Coulson." Grant demanded. "I want this over with as soon as possible."
"Eager to get home to your daughter, I take it?" Coulson asked, taking a folded sheet of paper out of his suit jacket.
"Yes, actually. But Rachel isn't a subject for discussion. I'm not answering any questions about her." Now there was inflection. Grant could have kept the emotions under control but he wasn't. He was letting them know Rachel was dangerous ground – the way he enunciated the words, the way he gritted his teeth.
Coulson raised an eyebrow but was otherwise unfazed. It was one of the things that made Coulson so good as Director. It was hard to get a rise out of him. Including now, apparently.
"All right. She's off the table. But here's what is." Coulson dropped the paper on the table and Kara watched Grant pick it up and unfold it. A level 9 document? Unredacted? Kara looked over at it. It was details on the shut down of some unspecific scientific project. The "Aurora Initiative". But her eyes gravitated to two things: the date, and the name of the overseeing agent when it was shut down. John Garrett. And seven years ago.
What the hell? That's what Coulson wanted to know about? And it was level nine. Seven years ago... Grant was level six. Sure, Garrett wouldn't have cared about the clearance levels, but still...
This? And apparently, Grant shared her sentiments.
"This? This is what you want to know about? A dead-end project that Garrett oversaw for a bit before it got shut down? Seven years ago? The Aurora Initiative was a complete failure." Grant dropped the paper. "It was an insane idea to begin with." Kara looked at him as he spoke. There was something... Grant wasn't lying. But there was something.
"So you do know about it. Good. I figured John Garrett wouldn't care about the official clearance level." Coulson picked up the paper and folded it back up, slipping it into his jacket.
"A lot of us in Hydra knew about it. At least once you got past the grunts. It was part of Strucker's obsession." Strucker's obsession? From everything Kara knew, Strucker had been obsessed with powered people. More particularly, with controlling them. With using them as a way to take over. It clicked in Kara's mind. Maybe. Hydra 4.0. has a lot of powered people. Does Coulson think this might be involved? "But he shut it down once S.H.I.E.L.D. got Loki's staff and he started messing around with that." Grant gestured widely. "And we both know how that turned out."
"See? You already know more than I do." Coulson pointed out calmly. "From what little I could gather from the files Fury left me, I knew it got shut down. I figured it was really Hydra's doing since the whole thing was all Hydra personnel, but I didn't know why. So it just wasn't working fast enough for Strucker's tastes?"
Grant shook his head quickly – too quickly? "No. It was a complete failure. It wasn't working at all. As soon as he had a more viable option, he took it and shut the Aurora Initiative down."
Yes, but what exactly is it? What is this whole thing about and why do you want to know about it Coulson? Before Kara could ask, Skye gave voice to the questions beating at the inside of Kara's skull:
"Okay, can someone tell me what the hell this 'Aurora Initiative' was?" Skye gestured to Kara. "It's pretty clear that Kara is just as in the dark as I am."
"Don't use me as your prop!" Kara protested, then... "But yes, I'd appreciate some enlightenment." She looked to Grant.
"Ward? Do you want to take this?" Coulson inclined his head a little, raising an eyebrow again. "You know more about it than I do."
"The Aurora Initiative was Hydra's attempt to manufacture powered people though genetic manipulation. I don't know the details, but the idea was to figure out how the DNA of people on the Index worked and then apply that to non-powered people. Not a single subject got powers and most of them died." Grant grimaced. "Garrett showed me one of the bodies once..." He let his voice trail off in disgust.
"And you stayed with Hydra." Skye shook her head. "With Garrett."
"And you know why, Skye." Kara cut in. "Can the self-superior attitude." Skye knew enough anyway. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Grant react to that, and she realized she might have wanted to watch her words. Or... really...
I should have told him yesterday that I told Skye some of what I knew about what Garrett did to you. It just... hadn't really come up yet. Amongst everything else.
"But it was a failure. And I wasn't involved. I only know what Garrett told me, which wasn't much." Grant said, ignoring her side conversation with Skye for the moment. I'll be hearing about it later, I'm sure.
"You still you know more than anyone else, Ward." Coulson replied. "Every agent and scientist who was involved is dead now, even Arthur and Rebecca Haselrun." Those were two names that Kara recognized. Because Grant had just mentioned them to her yesterday.
Rachel's parents were involved. No wonder Grant was bothered...
Hydra had killed the Haselruns, and the kill team had been tryingt to steal their files. Their research?
Hydra 4.0. isn't bringing powered people into itself. It's making them.
"You think Hydra restarted the Aurora Initiative." Kara stated, looking at Coulson. "You think that's why Hydra has all those powered people working for it now. People who aren't Inhumans. You think they made it work."
"I do." Coulson confirmed. "And that's why I need to know everything you know about it. I need to know if you know anyone who was working on it who might still be alive. If you know anything about their avenues of research."
Grant shook his head. "I don't know more than what I've told you, Coulson. I know it was a thing. I know they were trying to make powered people. I saw a body – the body that had half collapsed into goo because the DNA became unstable in a matter of hours. Or something like that. And I know it got shut down for being a failure." His tone was firm, icy and she could feel the tension mounting around him.
Didn't you look at any of the Haselruns' research? It was possible – but if Grant knew something more, he'd say it, right? Why didn't he tell me about this? Well... because there hadn't been time, and because as he said, the Aurora Initiative had been a failure. He probably didn't imagine it was relevant.
Kara wanted to ask him questions, about if there was anything relevant he remembered from the file he found about the kill team going after the Haselruns that started him heading to their place. Or if he remembered anything from the day he took out that Hydra Kill team and found Rachel. But she couldn't ask them in front of Coulson. She wouldn't betray Grant's trust like that.
Coulson didn't need to know about Rachel's parentage. It wasn't relevant.
"Ward, innocent people are dying because Hydra has a new weapon. That doesn't mean nothing to you. When you came back for Kara, even though you knew I was there waiting for you, I knew there was still a spark of good left in you buried under everything. Letting Kara stay with S.H.I.E.L.D., where we could help her only proved that. You didn't believe in Hydra's ideals. Took me a while to get that, but I did, eventually." Coulson brought both his hands onto the table, interlacing his fingers as he clasped his hands together. "Help me and you'll never have to worry about me or S.H.I.E.L.D. again. You've been looking over your shoulder for years now, Ward. Help me stop Hydra and you won't even have to worry about them."
"How many times has S.H.I.E.L.D. stopped Hydra, Coulson? They always come back. It's what they do." Grant was terse and direct as he spoke. "And I seem to recall you promising me I'd never have to look over my shoulder again last time I helped you and yet here you are." Grant pointed out coldly. "No, I don't believe in Hydra's ideals. So glad you finally got that. Little late, but there we go."
"I didn't chase you for four years, Ward. I could have looked harder for you but I didn't. Kara's right, you've done nothing to attract our attention, nothing to get on our radar." Coulson raised a hand. "You want this to be over, fine. Tell me what you know. Even if it isn't much, it'll be more than I have."
"I've told you what I know." Grant said. "They were trying to make powered people. They'd try to isolate what they thought made a powered person tick and then change a normal person's genes to match. Or something like that. It was a slow process to even get the genetic manipulation right. That was one of Garrett's big complaints. And then... most of the time, it didn't take. The changes were too... I don't know what the technical term is. But their new or changed DNA wouldn't take and went 'unstable'. I don't know the details. Their bodies ended up... well, there's no better word for it than goo. Not completely but close. A handful made it through alive but not with powers."
"Sounds like bad science-fiction." Skye muttered quietly, though not so quiet that she wasn't heard. Despite the gravity of the situation, Kara laughed.
"You joined up with S.H.I.E.L.D. how long ago? Half of what we do reads like bad science-fiction." She looked at Coulson. "So if you're right, Hydra's figured out a way to... make it work. The powers and the not dying. I can only hope it still takes them a long time or we'll see a whole army of empowered Hydra next time we go into the field."
"Just a couple is bad enough." Skye agreed. She let out a breath.
"That's all I've got for you Coulson. If everyone else is dead..." Grant gestured to Coulson. "That sheet. Show me again." Coulson raised an eyebrow, both at the request and at the expression of dawning recognition on Grant's face, but Kara watched as Coulson handed over the paper again and Grant unfolded it. "This sheet doesn't mention Dr. Frist."
"Dr. Frist?"
"Marcus Joachim Frist. One of Strucker's people, originally. They had a falling out when he couldn't get results. That's when the Haselruns were brought in. Unlike Frist, they didn't believe. I don't even know if they knew about Hydra at all. They just wanted to pursue scientific discovery."
"By experimenting on people." Skye spat. "Still fucking evil."
"All the test subjects were willing. Hydra didn't want powered people they didn't have the allegiance of." Ward corrected her coldly. "Frist didn't leave Hydra, but he went out to the fringes after Strucker replaced him. But he made it through the fall of the Triskellion."
"How do you know that?" Coulson's question wasn't hostile. Just a question. Kara wondered the same – though there were a number of possible explanations she could think of.
"When I was with Whitehall for a few weeks... before... San Juan," Ward spared Skye a look that Kara couldn't quite read. "I overheard part of a conversation Whitehall had on the phone with him. Frist was trying to convince Whitehall that he should move against Strucker, I think. Whitehall was too obsessed with his Obelisk and unlocking its secrets to care about it in the short term. So he was alive then at least. I don't know if he still is. But if he is... and some faction of Hydra has restarted the Aurora Initiative? He's the one behind it. Or he's involved. That's most likely. At the very least, he'll know more than I do." Grant stood up, looking over and down at Coulson. "And no, I don't know where he is, or how to find him."
"It's something to go on." Coulson nodded. "All right. If that's all you know-" Coulson shrugged. "A deal is a deal. Don't do anything to get on our radar and you're a free man. Raise your daughter." Kara watched as the Director looked over at her. "Agent Palamas, I expect you back at the Playground for a new assignment once your vacation time is done. But how you spend your time when you're not on the job is of no concern to myself or S.H.I.E.L.D."
"Glad to hear it. See you in two and a half weeks." Kara finished off her latte and set the empty mug back on the table.
"Good." Grant said, in response to Coulson's words. He looked over at Skye, and Kara could see... just the slightest hint of regret in his eyes. Seeing her again hadn't helped. Of course it wouldn't. When he spoke again, there was the slightest note of genuine warmth. "Skye."
"Ward." Skye said in turn, and Kara could hear the tiniest crack in her voice, the tiniest hint of the feelings Skye still had for Grant. Kara couldn't help but shake her head just a little. You're fucking idiots. How was moving on so hard for them? Even right here, right now...
There's no chance for them. So why? Kara suppressed the sigh of exasperation she wanted to let out and followed Grant out of the cafe as he left without another word. Only when they were safely inside of his car did she speak.
"Rachel's parents were in charge of this... Aurora Initiative? You didn't mention they were Hydra." Kara watched as Grant started up the car and pulled out of the parallel parking spot he'd been in. She wasn't accusing him. There wasn't an accusation to be made here, really.
"I don't think they were. I told Coulson everything I know about the Aurora Initiative. Like I said, they just wanted to pursue scientific research. Garrett never said anything, but..." He shook his head. "I'd mostly forgotten about them when I found out about the Kill Team going for them. Mostly I was just going after the team, not to save the targets. And until today, I pretty much had forgotten about Frist. I've had other things to deal with, worry about." He shook his head and let out a breath.
"I didn't mention their connection to the Aurora Initiative because it wasn't relevant. Like I told Coulson, it was a failure and it was shut down. The fact that Rachel is the Haselruns' daughter was irrelevant to Coulson's questions."
"I figured." Kara looked ahead onto the road, then back over at Grant. "Do you think this Dr. Frist is the one who ordered the hit on Arthur and Rebecca Haselrun?"
"If he's behind this new version of the Aurora Initiative, then yes, almost certainly." Grant agreed. "Probably hoped to get hold of any records or research they may have kept from the Initiative, or anything they'd done since it had ended. Even without all that, he's clearly managed to get it working."
"Did they even have more research?" There was just something about Grant's tone, expression. He was keeping something back. She'd thought it was just the connection between Rachel and the Aurora Initiative that he was keeping from Coulson. But there was something else. "Grant. What else is there?"
"I told Coulson everything I knew about the Aurora Initiative. But there's something else. It's not really something you can just drop into casual conversation. I'll tell you when we get back to my apartment." Grant focused on the road, gripping the wheel tight.
What could it be? A few possibilities crossed her mind, but she rejected them all out of hand as too outlandish. "You were going to tell me though?" She was guessing that from his tone, but she wanted to be sure.
"Yes." Grant confirmed. "Just like I said... a little more than what you can just slip into conversation. It hasn't even been a day yet."
"No, it hasn't." Kara agreed. "All right." She smiled a little, "So... how does it feel to have the specter of S.H.I.E.L.D. not hanging over you anymore?"
"I'll believe it's not hanging over me when I'm dead." Grant replied. "Coulson doesn't run the entire agency. He proved that four years ago. Could happen again. And if he stops being Director..." He shook his head. "No. I'll be watching my back the rest of my life." He let out a long breath. "I've earned that much and more after everything I've done."
Outside Daniel Martel's Apartment Building, Indianapolis
May 8th, 2019
Kara saw them first.
Police cars, three of them, outside of the apartment building. Even though they could be for anything, her throat clenched immediately, wondering if something had happened to Rachel.
A fan of kids or not, it was hard not to like that little girl. And what it would do to Grant if something-
No. There's ten floors. But she could see the way Grant's hands tightened around the wheel even more as he pulled into a parking space. He was parked and getting out of the driver's seat even before shutting the car down. Hurrying with her own seatbelt, Kara followed after him, moving as quickly as she could.
"Grant, there's a whole apartment building." Nothing could have happened. It had nothing to do with Rachel. All thoughts of whatever it was that Grant was intending to tell her – which had dominated her thoughts during the mostly silent drive back -
"I know." Grant didn't slow down his pace walking though. "But until I'm there- I don't take chances with her safety." Grant made it into the lobby, but was greeted by the sight of three uniformed police officers and several stunned looking people she could only guess were other residents of the apartment.
"What happened?" Kara watched Grant get the attention of one and ask the question he needed – she needed too – an answer to.
"Oh," the elderly woman said emotionally, holding onto her handbag tightly. "It's horrible. They're saying that someone broke into the Fergusons' apartment and killed them all! Even the children!"
"The Fergusons'..." Grant's expression hardened into expressionlessness. "In 4E. That means Rachel-" He swallowed moving towards the elevator with even more speed, and Kara raced after him. She got inside the elevator and watched it close behind her.
"The Fergusons?"
"Neighbors. I don't know them very well." Kara watched in amazement as Grant pressed the button for the fourth floor a second time. "Pass them in the halls, say hi, I know their names. But that's about it. But if someone – Rachel was right next door. She could've heard..." Grant was out of the elevator just about as soon as it opened. The doorway to apartment 4E was covered with police tape, but Kara more or less ignored it and the two more cops standing outside of the open door. She followed Grant into Apartment 4C – his apartment, closing the door behind her.
Kara couldn't guess what that would be like for the girl. Sure, she could not really register it – did she even know what the sound of a gunshot represented... but what if there were screams? Or if they hadn't used guns?
The apartment was just fine. But...
There was no Rachel. And no sounds coming from her bedroom. And no sign of the very temporary babysitter.
"Rachel? Rachel!" Grant raced down the little hallway into Rachel's room, and Kara huried after, peering into Grant's room – no sign of her – as she went. No sign of anyone else.
And there was no sign of her in her bedroom. And her stuffed ponies and unicorns... strewn all over the room, all out of place. Rachel had had specific places for all of them. And her 'favorite' one, a blue unicorn she'd named Albert...
Kara couldn't see that one at all.
