A/N: I know I wanted to update sooner, but I finally updated 'So Long' last week (I guess that guest review was the final kick in the ass I needed to work on that story again lol) and I barely had any time to write after that, but I hope you all had a merry Christmas and I wish you all a happy new year!

I really hope, that when the show continues next year, that Bobbi will get some more interaction with the other characters. If I remember correctly, she hasn't even talked to Skye or Fitz so far, no matter how briefly, and was in fact barely in the same room as them. That definitely has to change!

Chapter 14: A Good Man

"Are you getting all of this?" Agent May's voice came over the comm, while Director Coulson and the agents Skye, Morse and Simmons were standing in the former's office, watching the video feed playing on the large screen on the wall that was showing images from the small camera attached to the full hazmat suit May was wearing at the moment.

"Yes, the connection is good and the image is clear. Just don't move too fast," Coulson replied as he kept his eyes on the video.

The specialist had taken the Bus with a small team to south Arizona, after General Talbot had informed them of another attack by Hydra involving the same poison as before, and as Bobbi hadn't been back from her and Hunter's mission in England yet, and Skye and Jemma had been busy working their own assignments, May was running point on this operation by herself without anyone from Coulson's inner circle accompanying her.

General Talbot was actually on site himself this time and the members of SHIELD's science department, who had gone with May were already working together with the military staff to secure the scene and bag any evidence, while the man in charge had just put on a hazmat suit himself and was next to the specialist now as they made their way into the small restaurant that Hydra had attacked. A sign with the slightly faded words "Maggie's Diner" came into view on the screen for a second as May took a look around outside, before Talbot pushed the glass front door open, leading the way into the building.

Even from the outside, they had been able to spot the body of a blond middle-aged woman, who, going by her outfit, had been the waitress of the diner, lying on the floor next to the door, and as they now made their way past her, Talbot looked down at her briefly, his voice neutral, but not entirely concealing his regret and anger.

"Apparently she had been trying to escape when the poison hit, but obviously without much success. One of the locals discovered the scene and when the sheriff got here, her body was blocking the door. Might have actually saved his life, because instead of forcing his way in, he called the feds once he figured out that this might have been a biological or chemical attack. But of course we took the case from them the second I heard about the M.O. I'm sure this was Hydra again and I want to catch the bastards who did this myself," Talbot finished his explanation.

"A diner in the middle of nowhere; honestly, this seems a little too random for a Hydra attack. What proof does he have that it was them?" Coulson now asked over the comm, his voice still slightly sceptical. "Was there any video footage left behind again?" May repeated the questions for the general, causing him to shake his head in response.

"No, nothing like that. But aside from the fact that my guys already told me we're dealing with the same stuff like last night again, we also know who the main target was. And going by our files, he used to be one of yours."

The video feed showed them making their way into the back of the diner now, past the counter, where two dead patrons were lying next to their bar stools, their faces still distorted in pain, and towards the body of a young man with bright blond hair lying on the foor of the aisle between two booths. Just like the rest of the victims, he looked like he had been in agony during his death as well, and going by the tight grip he still had on the strap of his backpack, and his position on the ground, that suggested he had been moving forward when he had been hit by the poison, he, too, had been trying to get away in vain.

But before Talbot focused on the dead body, he pointed at a small black box, a few inches high and about the size of a postcard, standing on the table to their left next to an untouched glass of water.

"That's the device that emitted the poison. We believe that whoever sat at this table placed it here, left, and then triggered it remotely from the outside. The positioning alone makes it pretty obvious that this guy here was the intended target," Talbot noted, looking down at the blond man on the floor, "but of course we also ran background checks on all the other victims, just to be sure. But his was the only one that came back with anything interesting.

His name was Ryan Andrews, former SHIELD agent. He managed to avoid capture by my men after the Triskelion went down, when Hydra was forced into the open, and even though he never appeared on our radar again until today, we're pretty sure he was actually working for them. But going by the mess they made killing him, I'd say he really must have pissed off someone higher up the food chain," the general theorised, obviously not feeling much sympathy for the victim this time, considering his employer.

"I don't know anything about his connection to Hydra, but he definitely was working for SHIELD. I actually recognise him," May suddenly announced, surprising both Talbot and the members of her team listening over the radio.

"He was an analyst in the building while I was in administration. We never spoke and I didn't even know his name, but that hair is very hard to miss," the agent admitted, one eyebrow raised slightly.

"Yeah, and you'd think dyeing that eyesore would have been the first point on his list as he went on the run, but I guess he decided to wait until he was in Mexico. And if he really was just an analyst, he probably barely had a clue what he was doing anyway, so I suppose it's almost impressive that he even got this far," Talbot pointed out, scrutinising the dead young man in front of him for a moment.

Back in Coulson's office, Bobbi was standing with her arms crossed, her eyes narrowed slightly as she watched the video feed thoughtfully.

"Well, if Andrews really was with Hydra, he wasn't one of Whitehall's people, because I've never seen him before and I've had a look at the personnel files of everyone who worked in those offices.

"So maybe we really are dealing with a new player here," Coulson agreed, unconsciously mimicking Bobbi's stance as he continued to look up at the screen in silence.

Agent May now let her eyes wander around the scene once more, until she paused at the table to her right, where the dead analyst had most likely been sitting, going by the half-eaten cheeseburger still lying on a plate there. But it wasn't the food that had attracted her attention, but the two cups of coffee standing on each side of the table.

"Do you have any idea yet who he was talking to?" she asked Talbot, looking up at the general questioningly.

"You mean the second coffee?", he enquired, following the agent's line of sight and prompting her to nod in agreement.

"We have prints, but no match yet in any of our databases. You'll get a copy, of course, maybe your people will be able to find something we missed."

In Coulson's office, Agent Simmons now suddenly spoke up, after having been completely silent so far, almost startling the rest of her team.

"Fingerprints are a good start, but I'd also like to have Agent Andrews. His body, I mean," she explained, slightly flustered by how this had come out. "For testing and to perform a full autopsy myself. Working with samples and now with the data Bobbi and Hunter brought back is great, but if I really want to understand how this poison works, I need to see its effects on a human body firsthand."

General Talbot thought about that request for a moment, after May had conveyed it to him, and in the end he nodded his head in agreement.

"Alright. The way Hydra is going at this, there really isn't any shortage of dead bodies this time, and considering that he was a traitor to SHIELD first, I guess it fits if you get to deal with his remains." He took another long look around the diner at this point, sighing as the full extent of the attack became apparent.

"You know, I've fought enough battles in my life to know that sometimes in war, things get ugly. And I've definitely dealt with my fair share of bad guys, but Hydra, they're really something else. Seven people collateral damage just to kill one man, and as far as we know, his killer was sitting at the table right across from him. He could have shot him, waited for him to leave or use the restroom to avoid witnesses, but no, he wanted to make a point. He wanted to make his death slow and painful and it didn't matter that he was condemning seven innocent people to that same fate as well." The General shook his head at this point, unable to understand the reasoning behind such a level of cruelty.

"Hydra was never known for being merciful, not to civilians or even towards their own people," May replied, looking back down at the dead body next to them. "Did Andrews have anything on him that could tell us why he was killed? Hydra might be ruthless, but even they don't kill their own agents for absolutely no reason."

"We're hoping he did, yes," Talbot replied cryptically as he signalled a member of his team to come over to them. "The only things he had on his person were a ticket for the next bus across the border and a few clothes and some money in his backpack, but the most interesting thing was his laptop we found sitting right here next to his plate on the table," he elaborated as a soldier handed him the device in question, "and we're hoping that an analysis of the data on it will give us a clue as to who exactly we're dealing with and why they committed this massacre," he explained optimistically.

May was already about to reply something to that as Skye's voice over the comm suddenly interrupted her, drawing her attention away from the general.

"Yeah, only that there's no way that Andrews brought that laptop with him," she pointed out decisively. "I don't know if that really is his laptop or not, but it was definitely left there by someone else on purpose. My guess would be on the person he talked to before his death."

Her brow furrowed in surprise, May indicated to the general to wait a second as she turned away from him for a moment, focusing on the voice over the radio.

"What makes you so sure that Andrews didn't have the laptop with him? He was an analyst, so it'd make sense that he would take it with him as he went on the run."

The rest of the team in Coulson's office was obviously sharing the specialist's scepticism as they all looked at the hacker curiously, waiting for her to explain her theory.

"Well, for one, it's too big to fit into his backpack, isn't it, and unless there's a laptop bag there somewhere that we haven't seen yet, how would he have transported it? That's one of the most expensive laptops you can buy, so if he had the time to get some clothes while he was running for his life, it's ridiculous to think that Andrews would have travelled anywhere just holding that thing under his arm or something. And if whatever is on that laptop is really so important, that he would take it with him as he was trying to escape his bosses at Hydra, why would he choose to leave it now, but still take the backpack? No, I think his murderer left this here for us to find, probably also to make a point."

The young agent's train of thought from here was pretty obvious, but she didn't even have to say it, as Coulson continued in her stead, looking at her impressed.

"May, I want you to bring that laptop back here, so Skye can take a look at it. I know Talbot might not want to go for that, but tell him that he'll obviously get access to everything we find, plus the intel Skye already managed to dig up, of course."

Even though they couldn't see the specialist's face at the moment, her voice betrayed clearly how sceptical she was about this order as she finally replied.

"Alright, I'll try to find a way to convince him. I'll get back to you if I should find out anything else interesting." After that, Agent May switched off the camera and deactivated her radio, causing the screen in Coulson's office to go dark and the communication between her and the team to break off. Simmons used this opportunity to excuse herself as well, to return to the lab with the data Bobbi and Hunter had brought back from their mission, promising to keep everyone in the loop concerning her progress, before leaving the blond agent, Skye and Coulson alone in the office.

Once the scientist was gone, Bobbi turned towards Skye next, her interest piqued by what Coulson had just offered General Talbot.

"We have to take out whoever is responsible for this and for what happened in England before they kill again, so please tell me you actually found a new lead while Hunter and I were gone," she almost pleaded, looking at Skye hopefully.

Ever since she had joined Coulson's team, she and the young hacker hadn't really had the opportunity to work together more closely or even to talk, really, but of course they were both professional enough and knew enough about each other's abilities and exploits to quickly establish a mutual respect among them, causing the younger agent to reply quickly, knowing how personal this mission must have become for Bobbi after what had happened during the assignment she had just returned from.

"Well, we initially thought that this poison was new, right, because we've never encountered it before, but Coulson said you guys found out that it's been almost a decade since it was developed, and if it's really been in Hydra's possession for that long, I couldn't believe they just kept it lying around on a shelf somewhere," the hacker explained, looking up at the blond agent.

"But as there obviously weren't any records of anyone having been killed with this poison until last night, I started a wide search for any deaths that had been ruled a heart failure instead, which is the acute cause of death of the poison, but that could have actually been murders committed by Hydra. As this obviously is a very wide search parameter, I started with anyone who had even the remotest connection to SHIELD, and so far, I already found two cases that look like they fit the bill.

The first one was Agent Gary Stapleton, a scientist stationed at the Sandbox, who quit SHIELD pretty unexpectedly, only to die apparently of a heart attack not two weeks later. There was no record of him having any kind of heart condition, and he was only thirty-nine, but his death was still ruled natural with surprisingly little suspicion by anyone. And the second possible victim was a member of SHIELD's special weapon's division, Agent Welker, who requested to be transferred, but died only three days after he had started working at his new post." This second part actually got Bobbi's attention, as it fit perfectly to what she and her ex-husband had found out just a few hours earlier.

"SHIELD's special weapons division, that's who Hunter's father was working for when he created the poison," she pointed out in surprise, turning to face Director Coulson now. "Maybe this is nothing more than a coincidence, but knowing the division's role in the making of that poison, we have to look into this more closely. Did you manage to find anything yet on the man who recruited Dr. Hunter in the first place, Agent Hawkins?" she asked, clearly hoping for a breakthrough in this case.

But no matter how much Coulson would have liked to be able to give her one, he shook his head in response, his frustration showing.

"To be honest, we barely found anything on him. His name does come up in a few files from that time, but there don't seem to exist any personnel records on him or even so much as a picture to confirm his identity. We know that the special weapons division had one of the highest numbers of Hydra sleepers within SHIELD, and that it was one of the first sections to go dark during the uprising, and going by how much trouble somebody must have gone through to wipe Agent Hawkins from SHIELD's records so completely, we're assuming that he has to be a very high-ranking member of Hydra and maybe even a part of the cell that is responsible for the recent attacks. At least his is the only name we can connect directly to the project so far, aside from Robert's, of course," Coulson conceded, sighing briefly, as he was still visibly upset about both his friend's death and the role he had played in creating this horrible poison Hydra was now using to kill its enemies.

Bobbi knew all too well how he was feeling, but at the moment she was still trying not to think too much about everything that had happened and what she had found out over the last few hours, and to concentrate instead on finding whoever was responsible for all of this. And as finding a pattern in Hydra's previous attacks was a good enough start, she tried to make sense of what Skye had managed to find out so far.

"Alright, so Agent Stapleton and Agent Welker were from the Sandbox and special weapons respectively, both divisions of SHIELD where we know Hydra had a lot of agents. Do you think they saw something they shouldn't have or maybe even found out the truth about Hydra and then were killed so they couldn't talk?" she asked, addressing the whole group as she was trying out the idea.

"It's a theory, yes," Coulson agreed, even though he was obviously not convinced, "but, going by the impressive careers both of them had made until that point, and their connections to people we know were Hydra, another is that they were actually Hydra themselves, but for whatever reason, they decided to quit."

"Only that Hydra is not something you retire from that easily," Bobbi continued his line of thought, nodding slowly, understanding dawning on her features as she repeated what Hunter had said to his father only a few hours ago as they had both assumed the former agent had been a loyal follower of the organisation.

"Right," Skye replied to her this time. "Maybe those guys actually grew a conscience or maybe they just didn't get along with the management, we obviously don't know, but we think that for whatever reason, both agents wanted to get out of Hydra, but were killed before they really had the chance to enjoy their new freedom."

"And I'm sure they didn't even see it coming," Bobbi replied sadly, her mind obviously still caught up in what had happened to her ex-father-in-law, despite her best efforts to push the memory away for the moment.

"It was bad, wasn't it?" Skye now suddenly asked, her voice gentle, almost tentative, as she wasn't sure how much she could pry into what had happened, given the fact that she and Bobbi weren't exactly close, but still wanting to know the truth, as she considered at least Hunter a friend and truly cared for him and needed to know if he was alright. "What happened in England, I mean. With Hunter's dad," she elaborated, but a part of her was almost afraid to hear the answer.

"Yeah," Bobbi replied after a brief moment of hesitation, obviously having decided to trust Skye enough to tell her what her ex and she had been through today, "it was." She had already told Coulson earlier about the events of the mission, from Robert Hunter's initial refusal to come back to SHIELD, his confession about his connection to Hydra and his role in designing a new dangerous poison based on the one that had killed his wife and finally to his assassination and the assault team that had stormed the house, forcing her and her ex-husband to flee the scene in a hurry. But so far, she hadn't said much about the details of the scientist's death, or the effect it had had on his son.

"And the truth is, I'm not even sure how Hunter is holding up. I'd like to say he's going to be fine, but honestly, I don't know. Those few sentences he said to you right after we had landed," she began to explain, looking at Coulson now, "that was more than he had said on the entire flight back." Bobbi fell silent for another second, shaking her head and grimacing slightly.

"I wasn't there when it happened. I was waiting downstairs in the living room while Dr. Hunter went to get his research data for us, but Lance went after him, because he thought he could convince him to come with us after all if he just talked to him one more time. I don't know what happened between them before the shot, they were probably arguing again, I just know that when I got into the room… it was bad. Hunter, he… I'm not even sure he really knew what was happening anymore." The agent sighed at the memory of the mercenary's desolate state when she had found him after Hydra's attack, but then she actually managed a half-smile as she continued, shaking her head once more.

"You know, I almost thought Hunter was exaggerating about his bad relationship with his father before we got to his old house, but the truth is, he wasn't. We weren't there very long, only for about an hour, but it was obvious pretty much within seconds that to call things between them 'difficult' would probably have been the understatement of the year.

I mean, you were there when I came back from my undercover stint with Hydra," she said, aiming her words at the director again, "and Hunter and I met again for the first time in almost a year. That was warm and cuddly compared to him meeting his dad again. Honestly, I always thought Hunter and I fight a lot, but you should have seen him trying to spend just five minutes in a room with his father without shouting, it was practically impossible." Her expression had brightened a little at the thought that her ex-husband obviously had the tendency to argue with everyone who was close to him, and that it clearly wasn't her fault that they never seemed to get along easily, but the small smile on her lips vanished again quickly as she continued, a sad look in her eyes.

"But Dr. Hunter… Robert…, I believe he was a good man, despite of what he did and even though he clearly wasn't always a very good father, and I think Lance, he… he actually realised that, too. I'm not sure, but I think now that they were starting to be more honest with each other, there was actually a pretty good chance that they were going to fix things between them. Until Hydra killed Robert right in front of his son, of course," the agent finished, the expression on her face both sad and angry, her hand clenching into a fist unconsciously as she realised just how much her mind was still reeling after what had happened and that she wasn't even able to guess how Hunter had to be feeling right now.

To be continued…