A/N: I took this chapter down for a while to work on it again, and while the changes are only rather small, I definitely like it better now.
Chapter 29: Spared
"I'm afraid this is going to hurt for a while," Agent Simmons announced sympathetically, as she finished wrapping a tight bandage around Trip's chest to stabilise his two cracked ribs. "Of course I could give you some medication against the worst pain for now," she offered, but the specialist shook his head, even though he obviously quickly regretted the sudden movement.
"Nah, Doc, I'm good," he replied with a weak lopsided grin, but continued in a more serious tone as he noticed Jemma's sceptical expression. "Honestly, I'm just glad I'll live, 'cause that's a hell of a lot more than I expected when things started to go south out there." He broke off for a moment to readjust the ice pack he was pressing against one side of his face, and then heaved a heavy sigh before he went on.
"That big Hydra guy who took me out, he could have killed me. Could have killed her, too," he added, tilting his head slightly in Skye's direction, who was sitting cross-legged on a revolving chair next to his bed in the infirmary section of the lab, "he even looked like he really wanted to, but for some reason he didn't."
"He had no problem killing Nina, though," Skye pointed out in a sad tone as she was looking down at her hands in her lap. Unlike Trip, she had already been discharged from Jemma's care, but had decided to stick around until her partner on this latest mission had been treated as well.
A few feet beside her, right next to the doorway to the rest of the lab, Fitz was standing silently, knowing that he wasn't really of much use in this situation, but wanting to stay close to his team mates anyway, after seeing them injured.
"Yeah, Hydra really went through with their threat big time," Trip agreed with the young woman. "Any word on Hunter and Bobbi yet?" he asked, looking from Jemma to Skye and Fitz and back again.
"Well, Agent May took the Bus to pick them up a while ago, so they should be back here soon," the scientist replied. "Going by what Talbot's people reported, I only know that the two have been somehow incapacitated as well, but that they didn't sustain any life-threatening injuries. And, well, that the young man they had been sent to protect didn't make it."
"Three tries, three failures," Skye muttered glumly, summing up the team's futile efforts to save Coulson's informants. "And I don't even want to count how many of Talbot's men were killed trying to help us."
"Eighteen so far," the director's voice suddenly came through the door from the main part of the lab, where he had just walked in, startling the three agents. "Plus one critically injured and another MIA, also presumed dead," Coulson counted, the look on his face tired and weary as he spoke.
"Damn," Trip replied as he looked over at his boss, not really knowing what else to say under the circumstances.
"Yeah…", Coulson agreed with a slight nod, at an equal loss for words in light of the sheer magnitude of the disaster the team's latest mission had turned into.
"That is horrible," Jemma pointed out with an appalled look on her face, "and it shows how lucky we were that we haven't lost any of our own agents as well."
"You really think this was luck?" Fitz objected quietly, indicating Skye and Trip and their injuries. "You really think Hydra couldn't have… couldn't have killed them if they had wanted to?" His eyes met Jemma's and for a moment the two scientists just looked at each other in silence, the awkwardness of their current relationship more than palpable, but before either of them could say anything else, Skye chimed in, supporting the engineer's argument.
"Honestly, Jemma, I think Fitz is right. This wasn't luck," she pointed out grudgingly. "As Trip said, that Hydra guy could have killed us, but he didn't. We were spared and it was so obvious that I was almost surprised Talbot didn't have his men lock us up on the spot once everything was over," she admitted, her brow furrowed in a mixture of frustration and confusion.
"He must have been furious after losing so many of his people, while none of our agents got killed, and I don't understand it, either. How come that even though fifteen of our informants and eighteen of General Talbot's men are dead, we're still alive?" she wondered, glancing over at Trip briefly before focusing on Coulson. "Hydra is clearly not afraid to cause a massacre, so why the hell didn't they kill Trip or me when they had the chance? It doesn't make sense. I mean, they're Hydra, so why would they leave any SHIELD agents they encounter alive?"
Her question was directed at Coulson, obviously, but it was Hunter who answered her as he, May and Bobbi suddenly appeared in the doorway to the lab.
"Because their leader is a bloody sick bastard, who wanted to prove a point, that's why."
All eyes in the room immediately fell on the mercenary at first, but when they became aware of the gurney he and Agent May were pushing forward between them, with Bobbi lying on top of it, seemingly unconscious, Simmons jumped into action right away to tend to her newest patient. She headed out of the infirmary section and into the main part of the lab, leaving Trip, Skye and Fitz behind, who continued to watch the scene in concern.
"Oh, God, do you think she's…" Skye began addressing the two men in the room with her, only to trail off, her gaze remaining fixed on Bobbi's unmoving form.
"I don't know. But it definitely looks like she's gonna need this room more than I do," Trip replied as he swung his legs over the side of the med bed and slowly got back to his feet. Skye obviously wasn't happy about his decision, but as she couldn't exactly argue against the taller agent's observation, she stood up, too, and helped him get out of the room, Fitz following them, while Coulson's and Simmons' attention was completely focused on the newcomers.
"What happened?" the bio-chemist asked curtly as she approached the small group, her gaze quickly shifting from Hunter and May, who were standing on either side of the gurney, to Bobbi, who was completely motionless and apparently the only one who had been injured. She immediately took note of the field bandage wrapped tightly around the specialist's leg, but as it didn't completely explain her current state, Simmons fixated Hunter with an inquiring expression.
"Has she lost a lot of blood? How long has she been unconscious?" she asked in quick succession, not wanting to waste even a second to start treating her friend.
"Actually, I don't think she is," May replied in Hunter's stead, as he was completely focused on Bobbi at the moment, barely paying attention to what was going on around him.
Jemma paused at the reply, as she had no idea what May was trying to say.
"What?"
"She's not unconscious," the specialist elaborated, before addressing the man on the other side of the gurney, trying to get him to focus again. "Hunter!"
The harsh tone finally caused the mercenary to glance up from his ex-wife, and as he obviously noticed the scientist's confused look, he quickly explained what had happened.
"Agent May is right. I know it doesn't look like it, but trust me, Bobbi is wide awake. We had a run-in with Hydra out there, and Hawkins used some kind of ICER on both of us. The effect on me already broke on the flight back, but I think Bob's finally starting to snap out of it, too," he pointed out, indicating her hand he was gently holding in his.
Surprised by this new information, Jemma focus back on the blond woman once more and took a closer look at her, this time noticing a slight twitching of her fingers and eyelids. She quickly produced a penlight from one of her pockets and checked both of Bobbi's pupils, noticing a delayed reaction.
"Hawkins?" Coulson suddenly asked as he stepped closer to the small group, sounding entirely thunderstruck by the announcement that the illusive former SHIELD agent had finally revealed himself. "He was there?"
"Yeah, he was," Hunter replied, focusing back on Bobbi, his hold on her hand tightening as he thought back to their encounter with the Hydra operative. "And the next time I see him, I'll kill him," the mercenary declared solemnly, but before he could say anything else, Simmons suddenly interrupted him, entirely focused on her patient's condition right now and effectively overruling Coulson's interests.
"And you say an ICER did this?" she asked, effectively disrupting the tension in the atmosphere. She briefly glanced up at Hunter as she put her penlight away again and then began pushing Bobbi's gurney towards the infirmary part of the lab, while Director Coulson turned to Agent May instead to get a quick debrief on what had happened.
Hunter quickly helped her move his ex-wife into the small room, and even though he nodded at Fitz, Skye and Trip in a short greeting, he basically continued to ignore everything around him aside from Bobbi and Simmons.
"It worked differently from our guns, as I was only paralysed and not knock out, but it felt pretty similar. I bet it contains the same stuff we use in our ICERs, too."
"You mean dendrotoxin?" Simmons asked, looking up at him and prompting another small nod from Hunter. As she continued to check Bobbi for any other injuries than the obvious one to her leg, the scientist called a few members of her staff over to help her move the paralysed woman onto the bed, quickly making the room feel extremely crowded.
"Hunter," Simmons began, wanting to ask the mercenary to leave, so she and her team would have more space to work. As he didn't react to his name, however, and remained entirely focused on Bobbi instead, the scientist finally took a moment to look him over thoroughly, trying to determine his condition, as she realised that she hadn't properly done this so far.
Up until now, she had been so focused on the blond agent on the gurney, given the fact that her injury was obvious and she clearly needed medical attention, that she had practically ignored Hunter, aside from asking him for information about what had happened to his ex-wife.
Jemma noticed with concern that the mercenary's face was pale, a thin layer of sweat covering his forehead, and she could even spot a slight tremor in his free hand. While she knew, of course, that all of this could simply be signs of his strong concern for Bobbi, there was also the possibility that these symptoms were after effects of the weapon that had been used on him not long ago.
"Hunter," Jemma started once more, laying her hand gently over his and Bobbi's this time. "I'll take care of her for now, alright? Why don't you go outside with Agent Lee over there and she'll run some tests on you to find out what weapon Hydra used against you and Bobbi, okay?" she asked, nodding to the female member of her staff in question.
Hunter was clearly reluctant to leave, and Jemma couldn't help but smile softly at his devotion to his ex-wife, but she was still relieved when he finally let go of the blond woman's hand and took a step back.
"Bobbi will be fine, and you'll be right outside, Hunter, so there's no need to worry," she assured him, prompting a small nod in reply.
"Alright," he relented. "Just… don't forget to give her something against the pain, alright?" the mercenary asked, indicating the bandage around Bobbi's leg. "She's probably not feeling it yet, but the more the numbness fades, the more her leg's gonna hurt like hell."
"I will, I promise," Jemma replied, before she indicated to Agent Lee to take Hunter outside into the lab, where the rest of the team was waiting. She could see that especially Director Coulson was more than eager to talk to the mercenary, to find out about the details of the mission and the encounter with Hydra, but as she had other priorities right now, the scientist quickly focused on her patient again, shutting out everything else.
She even had one of her assistants close the door, so that they would be undisturbed, before she began cutting off the field bandage around Bobbi's leg, wanting to assess the damage.
Given the agent's condition, she constantly had to remind herself that she actually wasn't unconscious, and that, no matter how tough Bobbi usually was, this situation probably had to be quite frightening to her.
"You know, I meant what I just said to Hunter," Jemma suddenly announced, glancing up to the specialist's face, despite the fact that her eyes were closed and she obviously couldn't see her. "You, Agent Morse, are going to be completely fine. The bullet didn't hit any bones and while you'll probably be walking on crutches for a little while, I don't see any reason why your leg wouldn't heal perfectly."
She kept working on the injury again in silence for a while, glad that after she had injected a local anaesthetic, she wouldn't have to worry about Bobbi feeling any pain, even once the paralysing effect on her finally broke.
To distract her patient from the situation, she finally began talking again, however, choosing the first topic that came to mind.
"I have to say, I think it is kind of adorable to see how much he cares about you, to be honest. I mean, it's not like I know Hunter that well, as we haven't really been on the team together very long, but I still think it's nice that you two have stopped bickering all the time as you did right after we came back from our undercover job inside Hydra."
Bobbi blinked slowly a few times at this point, and even started moving her fingers, but Simmons didn't realise it immediately as she kept talking.
"I mean, I know it's not easy to repair a relationship once it's broken," she admitted with a soft sigh, her eyes wandering to the group outside in the lab and resting on Fitz for a long moment, before she continued and focused back on the woman in front of her. "But I think you and Hunter make a nice team… or probably more than that, and that's not something you see a lot in this business."
"We're… just friends now," Bobbi suddenly replied, barely managing to form the words. Her answer had clearly startled Jemma, who jumped slightly as she became aware of her patient's improving condition. She abandoned her work on the specialist's leg for a moment to check her eyes with her pen light once more, satisfied to find that her reaction had much improved already.
As she ultimately continued, there was a knowing smile on the scientist's lips, clearly meant to say that for once, she had a better read on the situation than the experienced agent had.
"Well, friendships are very important," she admitted, her eyes drifting over to Fitz briefly once again, "and maybe that's really all you two are right now. I just know that Hunter has looked over here to check on you about fifteen times ever since I asked him to leave, so whatever it is you're calling your relationship right now, I think it is very sweet how obviously he cares about you. Working things out with each other might not always be the easiest thing to do, but I think it is worth it in the end, don't you agree?"
Bobbi hesitated a moment to answer, her eyes moving slightly, so that she could see outside as well, but when her eyes finally fell on Hunter, the words were out of her mouth before she could even think about them.
"Yeah, I do."
Bobbi was going to be fine. He had known this for quite a while now, and yet Hunter still found that he was having trouble believing it.
The mercenary was sitting in one of the chairs in the lab, watching carefully as Simmons was still treating his ex-wife's injured leg in the infirmary section, not willing to let her out of his sight even for a moment.
The military medic back in the field had already stopped the bleeding and made sure that the bullet hadn't caused any irreparable damage, but even now under SHIELD's care it was obvious that Bobbi would be out of commission for quite a while, if the thick bandage Simmons was wrapping around her leg right now was any indication.
There wasn't much of a commotion in the lab anymore, as Coulson and the rest of the team except Fitz had already left, and the tests on him had been finished as well, so now the mercenary was sitting by himself, willing time to move faster.
Skye and Trip had both been discharged a while ago, but especially for the former, it had taken some convincing from Simmons, until she had finally agreed to leave the lab and give its personnel more space to work, as she had wanted to stay with her team mates at first.
The scientist had even tried that same approach with Hunter as well, seeing as he was in fact the only one, who had walked away from the mission without a scratch, but the only concession he had been willing to make had been to stay out of the closed-off infirmary section and not to bother any of the other agents, while he maintained his watch over Bobbi from the main part of the lab.
Hunter exhaled audibly as he kept looking at his ex-wife. He was flexing his hand absentmindedly to get rid of the lingering stiffness he still felt in his extremities after having been paralysed with that modified ICER Hawkins had used against him and Bobbi. Apparently they had already found traces of dendrotoxin in the blood sample Agent Lee had taken from him earlier, which, as he had been assured, would be gone from his system in a few more hours.
Leaning forward in his chair, Hunter rubbed the back of his neck in a weary gesture as he closed his eyes for a moment, his thoughts wandering back to the mission relentlessly.
This had obviously not been the first time an operation he had been involved in had gone wrong, and knowing this business, he was sure it wouldn't be the last time, either, but none of that was making it any easier right now to wrap his head around what had happened.
He had screwed up. He had let his emotions get the better of him once again, losing his focus on the mission in the process, and just like during the job that had cost Isabelle Hartley and Idaho their lives, others had ended up paying the price for his mistake.
Hunter knew of course that he wasn't the only one who had failed on the mission today, and that he had had nothing to do with what had happened to Skye, Trip and May, but both Bobbi's injury and Alex's death were on him, about that he had not a single doubt.
If he had been less emotional, if he had listened to his ex-wife instead of convincing her to take the fake Lt. Lewis with them, they probably would have been able to save the kid. Worst of all, it wasn't even as if he had actually convinced Bobbi, either, he simply hadn't left her any other choice, stubbornly putting them all in danger for a man, who had turned out to be the one responsible for all the horrors of the last few days. The one responsible for his father's death...
"Jemma said that Bobbi will be fine, didn't she?" a familiar voice suddenly asked, pulling Hunter out of his dark thoughts, and as he looked up, he saw Fitz standing next to him, a tentatively hopeful expression on his face as he was looking over at the two women in question.
"Yeah, she did," Hunter agreed with a slight nod as he looked back at Bobbi now as well, the guilt in his eyes unmistakable despite the knowledge that she would make a full recovery from her injury.
Next to him, Fitz was shifting slightly in his position, ultimately crossing his arms in front of his chest awkwardly as he spoke again.
"I know that the mission went bad-", he began, only for Hunter to cut him off immediately.
"It went horrible," the mercenary corrected, his expression darkening even further.
"Well, yes, I guess that's probably a better way of putting it," Fitz agreed, but when he continued a moment later, there was actually a certain amount of relief in his voice, proof of him stubbornly focusing on what few positive things there were left to focus on. "But even though you couldn't protect Coulson's informants from Hydra, I'm really glad you and the others all came back in one piece. More or less at least," he added, looking at the assortment of bloody wraps and tissues lying next to Jemma; remains of her efforts to fix Bobbi's leg.
Hunter sighed wearily once more as he considered the engineer's words, but even though he was obviously relieved as well that they hadn't lost any team members on today's mission, that couldn't alleviate the guilt, pain and anger that was burning in his chest.
"Alex," Hunter began, only to correct himself immediately, "Alexander, the guy Coulson had sent Bobbi and me to protect, he was only a kid, Fitz. Reminded me a bit of you, actually," the mercenary added with a weak smile, and even though Fitz gave him a look that clearly stated that he wasn't a kid, the scientist remained silent and let Hunter continue.
"He didn't deserve what happened to him. None of them deserved what happened to them," he pressed out angrily, referring to the other informants Hydra had killed, "and I had the man responsible for all of this right in front of me, but I didn't see it!", he pointed out, visible angry with himself.
"But how could you have?" Fitz replied after a brief moment, his brow furrowed, as he was actually trying to come up with a way how Hunter might have been able to see through their enemy's ruse. "And Bobbi didn't see it either, did she?" he added, glancing over at the agent in question once more.
Hunter shook his head dejectedly, clearly too upset right now for Fitz's arguments to have any effect on him.
"Yeah, no, she didn't, but she wasn't the one who insisted on taking the guy with us, either. I practically invited him to shoot us in the back, damn it!" he burst out in frustration, before leaning forward in his seat and pressing the heels of his hands against his closed eyes to get rid of the image that was seared firmly into his mind, of Alex lying dead in front of him.
When that attempt failed however, Hunter leaned back in his seat once more and sighed heavily.
"I think I need a bloody drink, Fitz. You guys got any of that rubbing alcohol around here?" he asked with a weak smile, the attempt at humour feeling painfully forced.
Fitz's mouth opened slightly as he was obviously going to reply something, but in the end he just turned around and started looking for something, much to Hunter's surprise.
"You know I was joking, mate, right? I don't actually want any-" but at this point he broke off as he saw what Fitz was holding in his hands now.
"I know this probably isn't strong enough, but-"
"Fitz, this is great," Hunter replied immediately, as he took the bottle of his favourite beer from the younger man's grasp. "Why do you have this here?" he asked, looking up at the scientist in surprise.
"You left a few bottles here after we saved the Bus, remember?" Fitz reminded him, and Hunter's thoughts instantly went back to the day Agent 33 had almost blown up the Bus with the team on it, and how he, Fitz and Mack had shared a beer here in the lab afterwards. It had been the first time he and the engineer had actually talked with each other and he still remembered his slightly awkward, but entirely heartfelt confession about that girl that hadn't reciprocated his feelings.
Jemma Simmons, as he had figured out by now.
"Huh," Hunter simply replied as he looked down at the bottle in his hand, but instead of opening it, he began peeling off the label distractedly, his thoughts too far away right now for him to actually be able to enjoy a drink.
It was at this point that Fitz finally realised how fruitless his efforts to cheer Hunter up actually were, and so he ultimately gave up on trying and simply pulled over another chair and sat down next to the mercenary in silence. Neither of the two men said another word while they waited for Simmons to finish treating Bobbi, their beer bottles unopened and in the end simply forgotten.
To be continued…
A/N: I have to admit that I did have quite a bit of trouble to distance myself from everything that happened between Hunter and Bobbi over the course of the second half of the season, which was a main reason why it took me so long to update. That hadn't been so much of a problem so far, because I had been focusing so much on the action of the latest chapters, but now it seemed really hard to go back to the more personal moments.
