Thank you my readers for your patience! The school year has started back up and due to COVID I am nannying two kids and have my own, with one of those kids doing virtual learning, so it's hard to find time to write these days. Enjoy!
Ward was on the hunt for Hydra's greatest power, working the last head of Hydra, Gideon Malleck, to get to it for SHIELD. He sent brief messages every so often to update.
Dr. Gardner was sent off to the ATCU to be kept in stasis to try to save him before he became Lash forever.
Lincoln came to stay on the base permanently, having been done running. The head of the ATCU was going to be brought onto the base while SHIELD tried to peek into every corner of their facility. The pod containing Dr. Gardner would let them in, Bobbi and Hunter would go in on the ground to infiltrate and May and Nat would extract.
So they took the Zephyr while Coulson kept the woman occupied. They wanted to bring back a sample of the cure they supposedly were working on.
To their surprise, the ATCU was distributing fish oil pills to all their employees to try to turn anyone who was an inhuman. And it was all under the guise of keeping their employees safe from what they called an alien contagion.
The question was if Hydra running the place. And they now had to extract Hunter and Bobbi even quicker because Banks, who would recognize them, had now shown up.
At first they thought Rosalind might be Hydra but the second she mentioned Malleck they knew. She was clueless and she had let him handle everything.
Malleck was turning inhumans and putting them in stasis, stockpiling them. Rosalind convinced Coulson to let her help because Bobbi and Hunter were still trapped in the facility. She got in touch with Banks who them out and to a parking lot for May and Nat to extract.
Ward managed to find Von Strucker's vault and get in very deep with Malleck, who even called him a second head. This was good, he would find out more to help stop them.
They managed to find out how Hydra was connected to NASA, and they would purposely send people through the monolith, thanks to Ward's intel and Rosalind's.
Thousands of years ago an inhuman was born who was meant to rule but he was on the other side of the monolith. For generations Hydra was trying to bring it back, that's why they sent people through. And they wanted to know how SHIELD sent someone through the portal and got them back.
They wanted FitzSimmons. Ward told them to keep the pair on the base and don't let them leave under any circumstances.
Unbeknownst to Ward, Malleck had Rosalind taken out. She was found dead in her home the night they found out everything.
Word from Ward about Hydra wanting FitzSimmons came too late. They left to check out a Distant Star Facility that had been abandoned years ago, it was another link to Hydra.
The pair was determined to rescue a man trapped on the planet who was completely innocent, who had kept Simmons safe while they were there.
The minute they entered the facility, an inhuman working for Malleck took out Banks and their other agents and took them.
They were taken to Malleck, where Ward also was. To their surprise, he was cuffed. Malleck had found him out somehow. He and Fitz were forced to listen while Simmons was tortured, to try to get Fitz to say how she came back. But they wouldn't budge.
SHIELD managed to find them at the castle in England. They were trying to open another portal. They pulled up a live satellite feed. Hydra had brought heavy artillery and armed guards.
Through the satellite feed they identified Fitz, Simmons, and what looked to be Ward unless they captured another SHIELD agent. They watched as the portal was opened, Fitz was taken through and Ward fought off his guards and dived through after them.
At the last second, Coulson dived into the portal from the quinjet, much to the surprise of everyone.
"Dad!"
"Phil!"
Daisy and May both yelled from the lowered ramp to try to stop him. May had to yank Daisy back from trying to grab him.
That was that. Coulson, Ward, and Fitz were on the damn death planet and all everyone else could do was wait.
While they planned the assault they found the stockpiled inhumans had been dropped off. So now they had to rescue the inhumans and take control of the castle. So they made two infiltration teams. They would be getting into the castle through an overflow drain underground. May, Daisy, Nat, Mack, Bobbi and Hunter, and the inhumans would be going in.
Joey melted the grate to get in and they split up. Lincoln took out the electricity to take out all the lights and make it easier to sneak in.
May managed to find Simmons who had escaped Hydra custody but who revealed she had released Lash. She met back up with the rest of the team and they managed to take the castle. They barricaded the doors so Hydra couldn't get in and secured the portal.
"Where's May?" Mack pointed out.
They all glanced around and saw she was gone.
"Oh no, I let Dr. Gardner out. He helped me. She's probably gone back to find him." Simmons said.
"Is that a good or a bad thing?" Daisy asked.
"I guess it depends on what she finds." Mack said.
Lincoln was convinced that they needed to destroy the portal, even if it meant leaving Coulson, Ward, and Fitz abandoned on the other side.
"Jiaying was afraid of this thing for a reason. What if it's not our team that comes back?"
"Are you crazy?" Nat said.
"Lincoln!" Daisy couldn't believe what she was hearing.
"It's just a thought." Lincoln raised his hands.
"Even then, there are over a dozen inhumans here that we can't leave behind." Skye commented.
"Yes you can." May came back in the room. "Lash killed them all."
Daisy felt like she was going to be sick. All those people gone.
Hydra began to try to break in and retake control of the portal. Mack ordered everyone to be evacuated while he and Daisy stayed behind until the last possible second.
"No." May argued. "You're coming with me."
"I can keep the portal open if anything goes wrong." Daisy pointed out. "I'm not leaving Dad and Fitz, not when we have a chance here."
"And if you can't save them I lose both of you." May pressed on.
"Hey, come on." Nat stepped in. "She can do this."
May took a minute before sighing.
"The longer we're here arguing the closer Hydra is to getting back in." Mack said. "Coulson made me director to make the hard calls. Daisy stays, everyone else get the hell out."
May resigned herself to letting her daughter stay behind and left with the others.
It was a short time but it felt like the longest of their lives when Mack ordered May to blow the castle to hell. Their people had returned and they loaded up in the containment module just in time.
One by one they walked out. Daisy first to her mother and from there heading straight for Natasha and embracing her. Mack hugged Bobbi tightly.
May watched happily, seeing her daughter with someone who clearly cared for her. That was when Coulson stepped out. She met him the last few steps and held him tightly.
"You're bleeding." Natasha pointed out when she pulled away and put her hands on either side of Daisy's face.
"Yeah, that new machine Hydra brought us just as bad." Daisy wiped the blood from her nose.
Natasha took her to get cleaned up while May noticed someone was missing.
"Did you leave Ward there?" She asked Coulson.
"Don't tell me you're starting to care." He smirked.
"No, but he did get found out and still dove in to the portal after Fitz." May remarked.
"He's in the containment module. He took a bullet to the leg for Fitz."
"You're kidding."
"I'm really not. He and I jumped in to get Fitz and take out the Hydra agents and he shoved him out of the way."
Without a word, May moved to the containment module where she saw the bane of her existence sitting with his leg wrapped up.
"You'll receive medical care when we get back to the base but you will remain in your cell." She told him.
"Fair enough." Ward groaned.
When they returned to the base Simmons was actually the one to treat him. She removed the bullet, stitched him up, and cleaned his other wounds. She was wrapping up the last one on his arm when Daisy walked in.
"How's it going in here?" She asked.
Simmons snipped the wrapping off and secured it before speaking.
"He's saved Fitz and I've helped him. We're even." She deadpanned before leaving.
"Thank you, Simmons." Ward said to her retreating back.
"No guard dog?" He then said to Daisy.
"She really hates you, you know. Starting with eye candy and ending with guard dog." Daisy said.
"I know. That's why I do it." He grinned slightly.
"So you really saved Fitz?" She questioned.
"If that's what everyone says." He shrugged.
"You didn't?"
"I just did what felt right."
"Because you're so good at that."
"I'm trying. Really trying."
"I don't know what you think will happen, but you and me, we're never-"
"I know. I'm not stupid. I can see you and Romanoff have something. And it looks good on you."
"So why are you here?"
"Because this was a team, a family, and it felt good there for a while. Garrett had me under his thumb though, I thought I owed him my life and I did some terrible things because of it. I'm trying to do better."
"No one here is going to trust you again."
"I haven't killed a single person other than Hydra since Victoria Hand. Once you kissed me, I couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't keep killing. It took me a while, I had to be locked up and interrogated by you but I guess that's what had to be done."
"And you're not just going to snap and kill Nat one day?"
"No. I care about you Daisy, and don't take this personally, but I've moved on because I realize you'll never feel the same way."
"No offense taken." Daisy actually smiled. "I promise I won't let Nat break your neck."
"Thanks for that."
"Thanks for helping get my dad and Fitz back."
From then on out, Ward slowly assimilated into being a member of the team again. Daisy and Nat slipped into a little dance. It was no secret how they felt, but they were just getting their feet wet right now. And it felt nice, Daisy knew she could trust her, and Nat felt the same way.