They made it back to the motel in one piece and May had never been so relieved. When Tripp told her they were back, she rushed from her room and saw Phil and Daisy walking up to everyone.
"You're okay." She breathed as she held her daughter, cradling her head.
"I'm fine, he didn't hurt me." Daisy said.
"Let's get you inside." May and Phil escorted their daughter to their room.
"You're sure you're okay?" Phil asked. "That was one big ass mess."
"Really guys, I'm fine." Daisy insisted.
May gave Phil a look and he left the room.
"Daisy, I know I don't know you very well but I know when something's bothering you." May sat down on the bed next to the one her daughter sat on.
"How do you do it?" Daisy asked, breaking down, "I am one broken nail away from raging."
She was referring to Ward's betrayal. Of the entire team, the organization, and most importantly, her.
"How do you keep it all together? You should be furious, but you're the freaking zen master." Daisy started going on a tirade.
"You think I'm not?" May cut her daughter off. "I am furious, but I'm sure as hell not going to waste it on a tantrum."
Daisy settled down and May continued. "I'm going to mine it, save it, and when we find Ward I'm going to use every bit of it to take him down."
"You're pretty awesome." Skye grinned. Her mother was more than she could have ever imagined.
"Your father is going to get us something to eat. Shower, change, whatever you want." They both stood up and she held her daughter tightly again, still grateful she was safe.
"I love you." She whispered.
Daisy gawked for a second before responding back. "I love you too."
May left her alone and she sat down. To be honest, it was the first time she heard those words and felt like they were the truth.
Later that night, Daisy had fallen asleep in one of the beds and her parents watched her back rise and fall with her breathing.
"Did you get her to talk?" Phil asked May, who sat next to him on the sofa in the room.
"She's pretty upset. I don't blame her. He lied to her, to all of us for months. But worse is he led her on. She's been through too much, Phil." May put her elbows on her knees, head in her hands. This isn't what she wanted for her daughter.
"Hey." Phil reached out and put a hand on her back, rubbing it a little. "None of us saw it coming. But she's not alone, she has her family. Us, FitzSimmons, we're all her family."
"I just want her to know she has more love than she knows." May sat back up and leaned against Phil.
"One step at a time." Phil kissed the top of her head and she closed her eyes. When they were alone her guard was down and it felt good.
They stood up and moved to their separate beds. May slept next to her daughter and Phil climbed in the opposite bed. He could hear May's breathing slow down within minutes.
He had a hard time sleeping though. He was struggling with this, but having his family in the hotel room with him helped. He paced the window for a little while, feeling restless. He turned around and watched May and Daisy sleep.
Walking over to the bed, he tucked the blanket around Daisy a little more. She was a bit of a restless sleeper and had managed to get it halfway off.
Then he walked over to the side May slept on. She and Daisy were facing each other, Daisy almost curled into her mother as if she were a small child again. He couldn't count how many times he had managed to come home early from a mission and found his wife and baby daughter asleep and cuddling in the middle of the night.
He brushed some hair out of May's face and stroked her cheek. Over twenty years later and her beauty hadn't faded a single bit, she still looked young and fresh out of the academy to him. She hummed and smiled a little. Not wanting to wake her, he stopped. But she turned over immediately, searching for his touch. He touched the back of his fingers to her cheek again and she sighed through her nose, sleeping peacefully.
He finally felt like he could fall asleep himself so he climbed in his bed. Facing toward May, he watched her sleep until his eyes slipped closed.
Over the next few days they did a little digging and found out a place called Cybertek was behind the Deathlock program, which was what Mike Peterson was now known as. They wanted to find a computer at one of their offices and plug in a Trojan horse virus Skye had created just for them.
Tripp brought up some things from his grandfathers Howling Commando days and May thought Phil would swoon. He was cute when he got this way, fawning over the vintage spy gear with Tripp.
"Okay, the two of you can get a room later." Daisy joked. "Where did they buy this stuff? Out of the back of a comic book?" She picked up what she thought was a toy.
"Come on girl that's not really a joy buzzer." Tripp reached for it. "That's a-"
Then Daisy pushed the button and all the lights went out with a surge.
"It's an EMP. Knocks power out in about a 10 foot radius." Tripp finished.
"Yeah a lot of vintage spy stuff was made to look ordinary. Like these smokes." Fitz took out a pack of cigarettes.
He pushed a button and a laser shot out. But while joking around and pretending to smoke it, he lit the curtains on fire.
"Watch out Hydra, here we come." May said sarcastically.
So Phil and May went undercover, basically as Fitz and Simmons. They presented the icer bullets as their own creation and thankfully the meeting didn't last long. Their proposal was rejected and they were asked to leave. Which was fine with them, they began to search the building while Daisy sat outside in a van trying to find a signal to indicate where a computer might be.
"There's nothing, I can't find a signal to indicate anything." She said icer comms. "But there's something funny about the fourth floor. Only one way in or out and extra reinforced security door."
"That's got to be it." Tripp said from the seat next to her.
Daisy got on the radio and told Coulson and May to head straight there. They fought their way down easily and Coulson used the laser to get past the door.
"I think I know why you can't find anything Daisy. We have a problem." Coulson walked into the room with May.
The problem was there were no computers, everything was hard copies.
Searching one of the cabinets, they found files upon files of Deathlock, dating back to decades ago.
"Garrett was the first Deathlock." May said, staring at the man's file.
They may have came to plug in a Trojan horse but they were leaving with intel.
"Daisy, get ready for a huge file transfer." Coulson said.
"How huge?" Daisy asked.
At that moment they threw a huge metal cabinet out of the window and escaped, much to the shock of everyone else. FitzSimmons jumped out to retrieve the cabinet and Tripp used some of his grandfathers gear to help them escape.
Back at the motel, everyone looked over the files. Garrett was the first Deathlock back in 1990. This had been an ongoing project for over 20 years.
Daisy thought Garrett wanted the GH 325 for himself and looked at creating an army of super centipede soldiers as a bonus.
Tripp began doing some research with Fitz and they identified a number of purchases made by Cybertek across the globe. All of them ended up in Havana, Cuba. Where SHIELD used to have a base.
They were going to find Ward and Garrett, and May was going to kill them both.
Once they landed, they separated. FitzSimmons was to find the bus and radio when they did, staying put and out of sight. Daisy went with her parents and Tripp to find a computer and wake the Trojan horse.
A few hours later, FitzSimmons called with news that they had it. The bus was at an airfield, but a long ways away and packing up to leave. Daisy said they didn't necessarily need to get the bus back. There was something in the old SHIELD base that was generating a lot of power. She suggested they could simply plug in the virus and start tracking the bus wherever it went. Which sounded like a much better option than racing to see if they would get to the bus first.
Upon arriving, the base looked abandoned. Tripp used more of his grandfather's gear to find a hidden door. Daisy saw the computer inside and was going to head for it but centipede soldiers showed.
"Daisy, get to work. We'll buy you some time." May told her.
The fighting ensued, crashes and gunfire erupted around Daisy as her mother got ahold of the Asgardian staff that enraged the one holding it.
"Bring the house down." Coulson told her. "Time to go!" He yelled over at Daisy.
May began swinging at the brick pillars around her with the enhanced strength from the staff. With one last blow and everyone out, she collapsed the basement in on the soldiers and they ran, successful.
For a moment, just a moment, they were excited. They had eyes on everything Cybertek did. But Coulson walked in looking somber.
"What is it?" May asked.
"FitzSimmons' tracker crosses the ocean." He told them.
"So they managed to tag the plane." Daisy said.
"It appears so. But they're not answering." Coulson finished
"No." Daisy gasped.
"We can't think about that right now. They may have been captured but they risked everything to put a tracker on that plane. If they're alive, catching Garrett is our only shot at finding them." He stated.
They made a plan to invade the Cybertek base. They were going to take Hydra down.
This time May absolutely refused to leave her daughter. The two marched into Cybertek, icing anyone in their way and announcing they had a bomb. Daisy strapped it to the man at the front of the room and began to grill him and constantly threatening to blow him up while May cleared the room. That was until she heard the voice of the person she hated most.
"She's not going to kill you. She had a chance to kill me and she didn't take it. And she hates me, a lot." Ward said while approaching her with a gun aimed at her chest.
May watched, hidden in the shadows and biding her time. She was betting on this freak's feelings for her daughter.
"I feel sorry for you." Daisy responded. "Betraying the only people who gave you a chance at being a decent human being."
"Don't lose focus." May thought to herself.
"Fitz was a hero because he still wanted to give you that chance after everything." May didn't want her to let her emotions distract her. "But some people are just born evil I guess."
"Good girl." May whispered.
"Yeah." Ward began, "maybe they are. But I've learned things about you that you'll want to know. You and I aren't that different."
He was trying to throw her off but it didn't seem to be working.
"Oh," Daisy smirked, "you're not the evil I was referring to. Garret is evil. You're just weak." She emphasized that last word. "Doing anything you're told. I hope Garrett orders you to walk into traffic."
"You're right Daisy, you woke up a weakness inside me. For once I wanted something for myself. But maybe I'll just take what I want, wake up something inside you."
May was getting more and more pissed, hoping any second now to be given the cue and go after him.
"I'm not afraid of you, Ward." Daisy said, now standing toe to toe with the man.
"You're not going to kill us with the bomb, you'll die too." Ward pointed out.
"No." By the look on her face she had something up her sleeve, "I have something much worse than a bomb that will absolutely destroy you."
"And why is that?" Ward was a little confused.
"Because she's my mother, and she's really pissed off."
May came out of nowhere and kicked Ward in the face. And the fight ensued. She went into a blind rage and let everything loose. Every time he landed a blow, it only served to enrage her more.
Meanwhile, Daisy took the man she had been questioning to find a solution to their Mike Peterson problem. The poor man was under control and wasn't serving John Garrett of his own free will.
May fought Ward for all she was worth, tapping into her anger. All of it, him lying to her face, pretending to care about Daisy, trying to kill all of them.
He was about to win, she was on the ground and he was approaching her, probably to deliver the final blow. That was when she spotted a nail gun in front of her. She surprised him by grabbing it and driving three nails into his foot and pinning him to the ground. He let out a yell each time that satisfied her.
"May, wait!" Ward begged as she continued to swing at him.
That was when Daisy reentered the room. Her mom was looking like she was on her way to beat him to death. And as much as Daisy hated him, she didn't want to see him dead and she didn't want her mother responsible for his death.
"May stop." Daisy yelled. May didn't appear to hear her and kept swinging.
"He has intel we can get out of him." Daisy yelled louder. Nothing.
"Mom!" Daisy screamed and May stopped. "We need him, he has information."
May was breathing heavily but stopped at the request of her daughter. She walked away and gathered herself before two agents came in and cuffed him. Although she did rip his foot off the floor, ripping the nails out along the way and causing him to let out an awkard grunt.
"Did you get all your feelings out?" Phil smiled at May.
"Is he still breathing?" May asked bluntly.
"Guess she kept some of it to herself."
"He's having trouble speaking. I think I fractured his larynx." May grinned proudly.
"Oh good." Phil said while approaching Ward.
"Actually your daughter was smart enough to remember we can get intel out of him and stopped me." May smirked.
"Let me be clear." Phil said to Ward. "Your attempt to cross off FitzSimmons failed, though Fitz may never be the same again. You attempted to kill not only every member of this team, but also myself, my daughter, and her mother. So I'm going to invent new ways to torture you. You will spend your life in a literal hell."
Four agents led him away to be locked in the cage on their plane. He wouldn't be going anywhere, he was going to be under the close eyes of Phil and May.
May linked her arm in his and he looked down at her. "You know I first fell in love with you when I watched you kick the ass of a man about that size."
"You mean it wasn't my charm and my wit?" May said sarcastically.
"I mean it Melinda, you're amazing. Thank you for protecting our daughter."
"She called me mom for the first time." May informed him. "The only reason Ward is alive is because she told me to keep him that way."
"Someone needs to make sure you're sensible." Phil smirked before he walked away to make sure the deplorable man was locked away securely.
May felt something flutter up in her chest. But for now she ignored it. Her daughter was alive and well and the man who caused so much grief and pain was going to be locked away.