The mission at the symposium had gone completely haywire. Coulson went in with Talbot posing as a doctor, using his robot hand to get the handprints off the other leaders and allowing their team access to their rooms. But Talbot was being blackmailed and sold Coulson out. Malleck had his son in a gel matrix cube in stasis to force his hand.
They were able to save the kid and get out safely, but Malleck slipped away again. Bobbi and Hunter had gone after him and there was no word from them. When Coulson did hear from them, Hunter said they were in the belly of the best and they would call when they landed.
They ended up in freaking Siberia. They tagged two cars that Malleck was in with the Russians. They claimed to be building a sanctuary but everyone knew it would be a prison camp. Coulson would be sending in a backup team to infiltrate. This time Natasha really had to stay away. Malleck was a former member of the World Council that had influence all over the world and if she was caught it would definitely tie things to America and the Avengers.
So May, Daisy, and Mack went in for backup. Russian officials were arriving and they needed to get inside. Daisy would be hacking in and getting control of the place with Mack running back end, May, Hunter, and Bobbi infiltrated.
In the Zephyr, everyone else listened in and found out that the Russian prime minister was against the sanctuary and that his attaché was dead. Assassinated by a former KGB general. He found the attache's position on inhumans offensive, because he was inhuman himself.
"That's the world's first inhuman politician." Daisy said. The man was also the Russian minister of defense.
"Yeah, one that has access to nuclear launch codes." Mack pointed out.
Malleck and the Russian official discussed the sanctuary state, and the longer he talked the closer Coulson came to his conclusion. Malleck was staging a coup. He was bringing in the Prime Minister and the inhuman assassin would kill him. And they weren't even sure what his power was.
Everyone converged on the Prime Minister as he discussed the plans. They needed to get him out and secure the inhuman. Hunter secured the inhuman and Bobbi posed as a soldier to get the general away. It didn't take long to figure out the general could manifest a shadow and have it fight for him. And it couldn't be destroyed. There was no way to beat it. Hunter killed the official when he tried to murder the Prime Minister and Bobbi and Hunter would be taking down the general.
Bobbi finally had enough when Daisy was thrown to the ceiling and Hunter was being threatened along with the Prime Minister. Hunter and Bobbi were arrested by the Russians and blamed for all of it.
President Ellis had to come in to assure the Prime Minister that there was no SHIELD, he tried to cover Bobbi and Hunter. Coulson stepped in posing as advisor to the ATCU, which technically he was. He told the Prime Minister repeatedly that the dead members of his government were trying to assassinate him. But nothing could be done.
Bobbi and Hunter had to be disavowed, they would never be agents again and could not be affiliated with SHIELD in any way, or any government agency. But they would not go to prison or be killed.
Coulson returned to the Zephyr to an anxious team.
"What happened to the extraction plan?" Mack asked.
"You never gave us the signal." Fitz added.
"Where are Hunter and Bobbi?" Daisy asked.
"They're not coming. They've been disavowed." Coulson said.
"What are you talking about?" Mack asked.
"There was no other way. It was this or a firing squad. Relations between the Prime Minister and President Ellis are already strained due to the inhumans." Coulson explained.
"And if they found out SHIELD was alive and training inhumans as agents..." May pointed out.
"It would be bad. Like Cold War bad." Coulson finished for her.
Mack tried to argue it but there was no choice. Natasha had known Bobbi a long time, her and Daisy both choked up and grabbed each other's hands. Bobbi and Hunter would never be seen again, they wouldn't get to say goodbye. But they did the best they could.
They all gathered in a bar at different spots, where they knew Bobbi and Hunter were. Simmons at a corner booth, Fitz by a wall, May at a table, Daisy at another, Coulson in the corner, and Mack and Natasha at both far ends of the bar. Everyone sent them a shot, it was a spy's goodbye. They couldn't talk to them, so they did the best they could.
They all held up their drinks and at once, downed them. And then, one by one, they left. It was the hardest goodbye of their lives.
The Watchdogs were increasing in activeness. They attacked the ATCU and imploded it. No one knew where they were getting these weapons. Mack was on leave but was the closest one to the scene, so he had to go check it out. Coulson sent Daisy and Natasha to check the scene.
"Were there any casualties?" Daisy asked as she talked with her father.
"The ATCU had a staff." Coulson said. So that was a yes.
"Up until now it's just been all hate speech." Daisy pointed out.
Her and Natasha met up with Mack at the scene, along with Fitz to bring his toys. He found residue from the bombs that indicated a material that caused imploding but it wasn't stable enough to be packed into gel. And the Watchdogs had found a way to do it.
Daisy desperately tried to keep up as the other three discussed it and Fitz explained that he had something that could neutralize it. They broke it down for her.
"Okay, thank you nerd herd. I'm going to call Coulson." Daisy walked off.
"Dare I ask how you two are so different and yet hit it off?" Mack teased Natasha.
"Eh, it works out." Natasha crouched down to examine the residue more.
Mack shook his head and grinned. Meanwhile Daisy told Coulson what they found and he informed her that he knew someone that was keen on making it a part of SHIELD's weaponry. It was agent Blake, who was in the hospital after a run in with Deathlock but he went off the grid.
"Okay what makes them go from online hate to-" Mack started.
"Domestic terrorism?" Daisy finished. "Maybe someone radicalized them."
"Blake?" Natasha asked.
"So they're really not that anonymous. I've been tracking them." Daisy admitted. "The ones that are spewing hate. IP addresses, emails, ID's, plate numbers. Some of them are local and could have been involved. We need to question them."
"And what? Shake him down? Without knowing if he was even involved?" Mack asked.
He did not want to go along with questioning a Watchdog without knowing if they were involved. Natasha didn't want to either but she knew she couldn't stop Daisy.
"Just don't cause any damage. Question him, and get out. That's it." Natasha made Daisy promise to stay in line.
Daisy took Fitz and tracked down the Watchdog, she used her power to stop his truck. Daisy managed to get a location out of the guy. Neither Natasha nor Mack were happy but they had a location.
In the dark of night they approached the barn that was the meeting place. They iced the watchdog guards and Fitz sent in a dwarf. It caught Blake's voice. Daisy assumed he was there, but Coulson tracked him down to a safe house where he was remotely coordinating meetings.
Daisy got word from Coulson to observe and not attack. But Mack's little brother showed up and surprised them. He had no idea Mack was an agent, and he witnessed Mack take out guards and Daisy use her powers before taking off. The mission was blown, they had to leave. There were too many Watchdogs to take on. But Daisy didn't listen, she charged to the barn.
"Daisy wait!" Natasha called and ran after her.
"Romanoff!" Fitz called.
"Call Coulson." She yelled back.
But a Watchdog hit Fitz with a gel and Daisy had to inject him with the stuff to counter it. But it didn't work. It only slowed it down. They had to figure out a way to get it off, and they couldn't cut it off or rip it. It was too unstable.
Daisy had to use liquid nitrogen off the containment module and freeze the gel on his neck. Everyone breathed a deep sigh of relief when it was frozen and deactivated, and the watchdog they brought with them would be turned over to the ATCU.
And then to drop another bomb, the Watchdogs knew an inhuman would eventually track down their meeting place. They wanted to lure one in, to further their agenda. Only they thought it was Mack with the power. And there was Daisy in the Zephyr, while Mack went home to find his brother.
"We need to get to him. Now." Daisy told everyone.
But it was too late when they got there. Mack and his brother had taken out the Watchdogs but Mack took a hit. He was taken off too a medical facility, SHIELD got ahold of the Watchdogs, and Mack's brother would be okay.
"SHIELD, Alfie works for SHIELD." The man said.
"Did you just call him Alfie?" Natasha asked.
"Wow." Daisy laughed. "Thank you for that. I cannot wait for him to get out of recovery now."
"What do you call him?"
"Mack."
"That's what my buddies call me. So he said two of his buddies took off?"
"Yeah. But not all of them. And now that you know about us we might give you a ring."
"And you're his partner."
"Yeah. I should have been there for him." Daisy felt guilty. Mack had handled this whole situation on his own.
Back at the base, Daisy found out from her dad that Malleck had taken something from the ATCU facility and then fed the Watchdogs intel to cover up his mess.
A 911 caller specifically asked for Daisy, he said Hydra was after him. But Daisy had no idea who he was. She and her parents took a team to the scene to check it out. It was strange to say the least. So Daisy, her parents, and Lincoln took a quinjet from the zephyr to see what was going on.
When they arrived they found the caller and identified themselves as the ATCU.
"How did you know my name?" She asked the 911 caller.
"Because I heard you say it just now." He answered, confusing everyone.
"What do you mean?" She asked.
"Because I saw this. All of this, you talking to the cops. Everything." He gestured around.
"I'm not following." Daisy said.
"Charles. The homeless guy in the alley." He pointed to a man crouching and nervous. "He must have put a curse on me or something. He made me see all of this.
"Okay I'll check it out." Coulson made his way to the homeless man.
"How did you know it was Hydra coming after you?" Daisy asked.
"Because that's what she'll yell when they come out of the sky." He said.
Sure enough, Hydra flew in and May yelled.
"Hydra!" May warned everyone. They all ran for cover.
Hydra attacked everyone on the ground. Daisy got the man to cover.
"Help. Save me please." He begged.
"Don't worry I'll get you out just lay low for a minute." Daisy assured him, looking around for somewhere to run to.
"We're running out of time. Daisy, this is where I die." He said softly. And then Hydra took him out and flew away.
"No!" Daisy cried. Then realization hit her. "The man's inhuman. The homeless man's inhuman. They're after him!"
She ran past her father to get to the man before Hydra could. But she was too late. Hydra trapped him with their claw net. But she managed to touch his hand and he gave her a vision that immobilized her while she saw it.
"Hey! Daisy!" Coulson crouched down in front of her when she came down from it. "It's okay I know we lost one-"
"No." Daisy managed to gasp out.
"Daisy talk to me." Lincoln said.
"We need medical!" May shouted before crouching down in front of her daughter. "Hey tell me, what happened." She grasped Daisy's face.
"It hasn't happened yet." Daisy said.
They got her back to the base where Natasha immediately embraced her. Even though she was used to things like this, she had never had someone she cared about this much on the line.
"Hey, I'm okay. You heard the whole thing." Daisy said over Natasha's shoulder.
"Well when you hear someone scream Hydra followed by explosions and gunfire, you tend to think the worst. Staying behind on missions like that sucks." Natasha pulled away.
"Better than you having to leave." Daisy let Natasha pull her farther into the base to the conference room.
Daisy got an ice pack for her headache and explained what happened in her vision while Natasha gently rubbed her back from the seat next to her.
"My whole face was covered in blood?" Lincoln asked.
"Yep." Daisy nodded.
"And your dad shoots you?" Fitz asked.
"Yep." Daisy asked.
"I would never do that." Coulson said. "Is that even possible?"
Daisy, Fitz, and Simmons all talked at once.
"That's a dumb question." May said.
"Okay so we all agree it's possible. Now what?" Coulson asked.
"I can change it." Daisy put her ice pack down.
"No." Fitz said.
"We can reverse engineer the visions. Get there ahead of this and save that poor man." Daisy argued.
"You can't change it." Fitz countered. "If that's what you saw then that's it. That's the future."
"I have to try. I can't explain how but I was inches away from him and I felt so helpless. It was awful." Daisy said.
Fitz tried to explain the concept of time and space to everyone but Daisy didn't care or understand.
"You're hurting my brain." May complained.
"We have to try." Coulson said.
Everyone agreed, whether the future was fixed or not.
"The only way we can guarantee that none of this happens is if we don't let Daisy leave the base." Coulson proposed.
"What? No." Daisy stood up.
"The only thing we know is that you're at the center if these visions. However," he pointed to May, "your mother is not."
"I get the concept but I need to help." Daisy pushed.
"Dad," Daisy moved around the table, "I was meant to save him."
"If you want to save him then this is how we're doing it." Coulson crossed his arms, effectively putting his foot down as the director. "Write down every detail you remember, your mom will go instead. I won't pick up a gun until this is over, and we'll keep FitzSimmons out of the damn snow. Understood?"
Everyone nodded and got to work. Coulson found the inhuman man's last known address and sent a team. When they returned they had a woman. Charles had a family. After his terragenesis he walked out on his wife and 18 month old daughter.
Apparently being out in the rain had caused it, and when his wife took his hand they saw a horrible vision ending in death. And again when she took him inside. Every time he touched someone they would both see a vision of death. So he was unable to hold his wife and daughter and it drove him crazy between that and being unable to change the outcome of his visions. So he left.
"You still think you should go." May asked Daisy when she found her admiring the carved bird.
"I have an advantage." Daisy said.
"I may not be able to cause earthquakes, but in faster than-" May started.
"Foresight?" Daisy cut her off. "Because I know what's coming."
"Then get off your ass and show me." May smirked.
Natasha, FitzSimmons, and Lincoln set the room up according to Daisy's specifications and began to try to simulate what she saw in the vision. Coulson timed, the goal was to stop everyone before the man Lincoln was pretending to be hit the alarm button.
They finally got it down just in time for another agent to come in and say they found the building and it would be tough getting in. And it was the same corporation who invented the nerve wiring Fitz used on Coulson's hand.
May would be taking a surgical strike team in with no comms. They didn't want Hydra listening in. That was when the perimeter alert went off.
To add a new twist, Dr. Garner turned himself in. He knew Lash was taking over, so he turned himself in. And May had to be in charge of him, she had been tracking him trying to find him. So in the end Daisy went anyway.
"I'll go too." Natasha was clearly worried after what happened last time Daisy left the base. And now she wanted to go alone.
"No. Everyone stays here, it still changes the outcome." Daisy responded.
"I wasn't in your vision." Natasha countered.
"That doesn't mean you weren't there." Daisy pointed out.
"Nat, let her go." Coulson said with a sigh.
Daisy left with nothing but a flight crew. Fitz pirated a signal to tap into the camera feed so they could see everything. And just before it cut out, they saw the face of Will. He was supposed to be dead.
"My God. What is she walking into." Simmons said.