Daisy remembered a man with no eyes appearing to her, then she was blinded by sunlight. She was in a totally unfamiliar place.
"Take me back to my mother." Daisy said to the man who had taken her.
"Back there? They were trying to kill you." The man said.
"I don't care. I want my mother." She knew she sounded childish but she was scared.
"Just let me introduce you to someone who can help you with your powers." He tried to subdue her.
"Who the hell are you anyway? Where did you bring me?"
"I'm Gordon. I brought you to someone who can help you. She helped me when I got my powers."
"So what? You kidnap people?"
"I teleport."
"Just take me home."
"After you listen. If you still don't want to stay, I'll take you home."
Daisy thought about it for a second.
"Fine." She threw her hands up.
Gordon walked her to an office of some kind while she thought about how worried everyone might be. Her mom especially, she tended to panic in situations like this.
"I want to call my mom at least." She requested.
"We don't have phones here." Gordon said.
Daisy rolled her eyes, because of course they wouldn't.
He opened a door and showed her inside. There was a Chinese woman standing up behind a desk.
"You must be Daisy. I'm Jiaying. Tell me about your power?" She asked.
May got back to the base and demanded answers. New people had invaded the base calling themselves the real SHIELD. Bobbi and Mack had been spies for them. Apparently Natasha helped Coulson escape and now she was locked up along with Ward.
The leader of the new SHIELD, Gonzales, wanted to grill her but May insisted she do it. There were cameras, nothing could be hidden.
"Why did you help Coulson escape?" May asked.
"Like you wouldn't have done the same thing." Natasha smirked.
"I was with Daisy and now I want to know where the hell she is." May grumbled.
That caught Natasha and Ward's attention.
"What?" Natasha asked. Ward watched on from his corner that he had taken up residence in.
"No one told you?" May said.
"Told me what?" Natasha pushed.
"Someone took her. Some of these other agents Gonzales sent tried to shoot her, she deflected it and almost took out the idiot who fired the gun. Then a man appeared and took her." May explained.
"Let me out." Natasha deadpanned.
"They're not letting that happen any time soon." May told her.
"We need to find her. Who knows what the man will do to her." Natasha approached the barrier.
"I agree but we have to do it the right way."
"I can help." Ward chimed in.
"This doesn't concern you." May said without looking at him.
"Literally the whole reason I'm here is Daisy." Ward pointed out.
"Your obsession with my daughter isn't helpful. Shut up." May said.
"This witch hunt isn't helping. Hydra is still out there, we're wasting time." Natasha yelled.
"I agree." May said before walking out.
Gonzales tried to get Natasha to open up to them but they realized there was no way they could, so they eventually just let her go. She walked out without hesitation.
May knew she wasn't just going to go home and do nothing. She would be actively trying to find Daisy.
She was right. Coulson managed to communicate with May discreetly. And he asked her to do the one thing she really didn't want to do. He needed Ward. He was meeting up with Natasha and they would need him.
May got herself in with Gonzales, got a seat on his council. And under the guise of taking Ward to another secure facility, she took him out of the base to escort him to a secure location to meet up with Natasha who would then take him to Coulson. They would all find Daisy together, and Natasha assured him she wouldn't hesitate to kill him if he turned on them for even a second. May would stay on the base playing along.
Daisy was having a relatively smooth time at a place she now knew was called Afterlife. Jiaying convinced her to stay by telling her she could help her control her powers, so she wouldn't hurt her family and friends again. She remembered how scared she was when Sif and the Kree tried to take her away. She imagined her parents, Natasha, everyone under a pile of rubble after she destroyed the base.
But it turned sour when she learned Raina was there. They were harboring her like she wasn't a murderer. She almost tore the woman apart with her powers but her friend and transitioner convinced her to stop. Daisy almost left again but she was convinced to stay because she still wasn't controlling her powers.
SHIELD attempted to put a tail on Natasha but of course she lost them fairly quickly. Fitz had quit as well but hadn't shaken his tail yet.
And to May's shock, Deathlock was up and running as an active asset. It was who helped Coulson and Hunter escape. And when agent Weaver mentioned Theta protocol, May was clueless even if she didn't show it.
Coulson had kept secrets from her and she didn't like it. So she negotiated for charge of the base so she could bring Coulson in by talking him into it. She had to set aside her anger and bring him in peacefully.
May went from the aircraft carrier she was taken to back to the base and went straight to Simmons to tell her she was working on Deathlock technology unknowingly. She and Simmons decided they needed to find out the truth. She had just sent Ward and Natasha out and she hoped she did the right thing.
She figured out that Coulson was lying about his plane trips and he was burning through money. What was he doing?
Daisy meanwhile had learned that her mother had her own connection to the place. She knew something had happened, the Bahrain incident, but she had never pushed her mother for any details.
It was an inhuman woman who had stolen Terragen crystals and sent her daughter through the mist, but the little girl was too young and her powers drove her insane. She was deadly, she killed with a wave of her hand, and May had ended up having to kill her. Everyone thought the girl had been caught in the crossfire, no one knew the truth but Coulson and her.
And while it did hurt to hear this, Daisy would never hold it against her. She made a hard call that almost destroyed her.
"May. That's my mother." She told Jiaying.
"Your mother?" The other woman asked.
"She, she lost me when I was a baby. She threw herself into her work. I never asked her what exactly happened in Bahrain." Daisy sat down.
"I'm sure she felt like she had no choice." Jiaying seemed to be completely understanding. "They were my responsibility, I should have been more proactive."
"It changed her, she went to such a dark place when it happened. And now..." Daisy was now an inhuman just like the little girl, and May was a potential one.
"Now what?" Jiaying asked.
"My dad isn't the reason I'm inhuman."
"You're mother is." Jiaying realized.
"It's ironic and horrifying for her. I can't even imagine what is going through her head." Daisy said.
"I'm sure she feels even more empathy." Jiaying told her. "But the way you talk about her it seems as though she accepts you for who you are."
May had Simmons on Fury's toolbox, it was made of vibranium and only Coulson could open it. It was time all the secrets were out in the open.
"It's not exactly." Simmons said to May when they were alone.
"Simmons, what did you do?" May felt like she was scolding Daisy for something.
"I duplicated the box and swapped it for a fake." Simmons admitted.
"Where is the real toolbox?" May said through gritted teeth.
"With Fitz."
May sighed.
"That's fitting because when Romanoff left she went to Coulson, and he's been communicating with me." May rolled her eyes. She elected to omit the part about Ward though.
"You're the only one I can trust I didn't know where else to turn to."
"I'll handle it. Just keep pretending to work." May told her.
May told Bobbi what happened and the three of them had to stick together. Before they had to tell the board what happened, they were going to have Simmons try to hack into Deathlock's feed to find Coulson.
When she did get in, they saw Ward, Coulson, and Natasha. Everyone else was shocked, May acted as such but she knew this was the plan. They were going to find Daisy, she trusted Natasha and Coulson and knew they had Hunter and Fitz with them. She sent a team out to clear the building and to her surprise, Coulson remained and he came back to the base willingly.
He turned himself in because in his search for Daisy he had found out that two Hydra members were conducting experiments on enhanced people and were tracking the teleporter. He wanted to invade their base in the arctic. Ward had been able to provide this information for them, trying to prove he wanted to help.
They had taken Deathlock, an agent. So Coulson offered to open Fury's toolbox in exchange for them going along with his plan.
Ward, Natasha, Hunter, and Fitz remained on the quinjet, away from Gonzales' grip. Once Coulson cleared the way, they joined back with the bus. Ward was accompanied by a guard at all times but wasn't locked up.
"You will be accompanied by a guard at all times." Gonzales warned him.
"Who will shoot you without hesitation." May said.
"Noted." Ward held his hands up. "So where do we begin?"
The last video they had from Deathlock was an hour ago, Hydra removed his eye to cut the feed. The board of SHIELD took a vote, with it being a tie and down to May.
"I'd like a word with him alone." She said before walking out of the office with Coulson following.
"What the hell are you thinking?" May turned on him.
"I could ask you the same thing." Coulson accused. "Since when did you become a high ranking member of team Gonzales."
"Someone had to run the base while you were gone." May spat. "Having a seat allowed me to keep you safe."
"And what about our daughter? Or did you forget one of his agents tried to kill her." Coulson threw back.
"Trust me I haven't forgotten!" May raised her voice. "But I had to get in with them. You've been lying to me though. All those trips, and you want to tell me what Theta protocol is?"
"No." Coulson said.
"Because you don't trust me?"
"Because you're not Director."
"Neither are you, not anymore."
"You're right. I should have told you the truth more, and I will apologize to you later at length." He stemmed his temper. "But right now List has Mike Peterson and who knows how many other prisoners."
Things had gone unbelievably south for Daisy. Hydra had managed to track Gordon as he teleported and had taken her new friend Lincoln when he had taken a trip outside Afterlife. Gordon tried to rescue him but took a bad hit himself.
Daisy wanted to rescue Lincoln, she knew what Hydra would do to him but Jiaying didn't want to risk anyone else. So she went behind her back and asked Gordon to take her anyway but he said no too.
However, Raina unexpectedly chimed in. She had the power to see the future and she apparently saw Daisy save Lincoln. Eventually, Gordon agreed and took Daisy back to the SHIELD base.
The noise was enough to make May aim a gun at Ward and tell him to get on his knees. When Daisy appeared, he had his smart comment to make.
"Look at that, we got the team back together."
Natasha guarded Ward and May and Coulson met their daughter at the bottom of the steps.
"Where have you been?" May asked her. She let Daisy go but continued to hold her hands. "Why didn't you call?"
"I couldn't. I'll explain later but what are you guys doing?" She asked.
"Hydra has Mike Peterson and who knows how many others." Coulson explained.
"They have my friend Lincoln." Daisy said. "I'm in."
May and Coulson looked at each other and nodded. May went to get the plane in the air and Skye smiled at Natasha.
"So, care to explain? You had them scared to death." Natasha grinned.
"Don't act like you didn't miss me too." Daisy smiled back.
Ward continued to walk into the plane, watching them. He saw something there, he definitely didn't like it but he liked seeing Daisy smile.
"I met a bunch of people like me. Seriously Nat, they all have powers or have the ability to. They all struggled like me." Daisy felt so happy to say this, Natasha had been helping her before she had gone to the cabin.
"I'm happy for you. You had me worried there for a minute." Natasha walked onto the plane with her.
Ward got them up to speed on what he thought Hydra might be up to, gathering and experimenting on powered people to use it as a weapon. Daisy told them she was able to control her powers now, but she was still being secretive and didn't want to reveal to much in front of Ward.
They decided how they would split into teams to handle the mission. They were getting the prisoners out and blowing the place.
The plan was to go in cloaked and buckle into the quin jet and let Hydra blow the plane to allow them to think they were taken out. It was a bumpy drop, tricking Hydra into thinking they were debris.
They split off once they got inside, Nat stayed with Simmons, Ward, and Daisy while May went with Coulson and Fitz. That way both teams had someone for good firepower.
Daisy, Ward, and Nat went to free the prisoners with Daisy showing off her control over her powers with Simmons there for medical care.
"Well the least you can do is thank me." Ward smarted.
"How about I just don't use them on you?" Daisy said.
"Right." Ward shut up.
They found Mike awake but missing his eye, he said they had already taken Lincoln to experiment on. Ward stayed with Simmons for backup and Nat and Daisy went to find Lincoln. By the time they got to him he was dying, but Daisy was able to use her powers to restart his heart.
Fitz shut down the base's missile defense systems. And May realized she didn't know where Coulson was. She found him in the next room gathering intel from a computer, something he planned to do himself. Another secret from her.
Everyone made it safely back to base and SHIELD blew the Hydra base to hell. Lincoln wouldn't wake up but he was alive. Mike was missing his leg but he would soon go to a facility where it would be fixed.
Coulson had a chat with Maria Hill about the intel he gathered. He found Loki's scepter, it was in Sokovia with Hydra.
"What?" Natasha said. Coulson told her, May, and Daisy what he found.
"I've sent the intel to Hill who turned it over to a Stark." Coulson explained.
"So that means the Avengers will be going after it?" Daisy asked. She knew what that meant.
"I have to go." Natasha said. She looked at Daisy. "I know we just got you back here but I have to." She hugged the young woman.
"Just be careful." Daisy said into her hair.
"I will. Don't run off again while I'm gone." Natasha made her promise. And with that she left the base. They needed to recover the scepter, and soon.