Within hours, Zephyr One was patrolling the airspace above South America at 60,000 feet.
Far below, S.H.I.E.L.D. agents Mack, Hunter, Bobbi, Joey, and against all protests, Daisy, were being briefed by local Colombian authority and searching for the source of their visit. The weather was sweltering, especially given the climate of their last deployment.
The rest of the team remained on board the aircraft, monitoring intelligence and communications streaming in from the ground, and standing ready to prepare threat responses.
A 3D printer was humming next to Fitz in the lab, creating a prototype casing for a new variant of ICER. Or as Simmons had pointed out, an anti-ICER, meant to reverse the effects of frostbite while penetrating through to targets beneath up to four inches of solid ice.
The caveat being, of course, that the rounds would punch straight through targets not sufficiently frozen. Fitz would improve the bullet design as soon as the invisible threat on the ground was identified and he could know if his skills were needed more urgently there or not.
He could hear Lincoln and Simmons re-comparing notes on Inhumans in the background-Simmons from her research, Lincoln from his upbringing-but his mind was far elsewhere. In the chaos of stumbling into the containment module as the castle exploded all around him, flying to Antarctica, then keeping the Zephyr airborne under hostile fire, he hadn't processed what had happened on Maveth. He remembered stepping past the charred body of his love's other lover, yelling for Coulson to follow him over the crushed body of Ward, into the dark, shifting ground.
He remembered stepping out of the containment module, looking to meet Simmons's eyes, and seeing her gaze empty, searching for the man whose body Fitz had killed. He remembered not being able to meet Coulson's eyes after watching him end Ward. He should have been able to. Ward. The man who had dropped Fitz into the deep ocean. Killed Rosalind. He should be feeling at least okay. Simmons wouldn't choose Will, and no one would be hurt by Ward again.
But why was he hurting? His heart ached as if the walls of the castle had collapsed on top of him, and their full weight was on top of it. His memory flashed back to the way Simmons had looked past him, into the containment module for someone else.
He had been very glad to have seen that module detonate above the Antarctic skies. The new one they had loaded on board didn't carry the same feelings with it.
"How do you lose someone as big as Mack?" Daisy vented in frustration.
The ground team returned to their staging area empty-handed, and missing one pair of hands. Hunter and Bobbi shrugged and glanced through another security camera view. The team on board the Zephyr would be doing the same.
Hunter muttered a response, "I don't know, same way one loses a truckload of weapons."
Bobbi stepped between the two, "Well, good thing that grocery store down the street is security conscious," she said, clicking the playback button, "here we go."
Daisy's eyes narrowed. "Who's he looking at?"
Hunter expected Mack to go for his gun and nodded as he did, only to make the same expression of confusion as the recording when Mack's hands found his holster empty. "What did we just watch?"
"How accelerated exactly?" Daisy called in to Simmons, marking the timestamp.
"Approximately six meters in the thirtieth of a second that one frame of video is exposed. So very."
Daisy bit her lip, "Well, catching her won't be easy."
Simmons nodded to her computer screen, "I'll reconfigure the containment module. If we can even get her in there." Lincoln perked up next to her.
"Thank you," Daisy signed off, and tried to think of her next move with Hunter and Bobbi.
"So you do that remotely?" asked Lincoln, as Simmons pulled up her tablet and began making modifications.
"Exactly, the poly-technic material adapts to the powers we're dealing with. A necessity since Inhuman powers are so random." she rolled her eyes in tiredness. New threat to deal with every week.
"Mmmm not true," Lincoln started.
"I'm sorry?"
"Powers aren't random. We were taught that each is given to fill an evolutionary need of the time."
Simmons raised her eyebrows, "Are you being serious?"
"To create equilibrium within the species, Yin and Yang and all that. At least that's what we were taught," Lincoln offered, confirming.
"Huh. A natural intelligent design."
Malick took a deep breath to maintain his composure as the vault doors opened.
It was a reinforced concrete bunker. Bare, except for a single television screen, sparse chairs, and a couch. Its occupant was worth more than the contents of every other vault in the world combined.
Giyera followed close behind as he walked into the room, making his way around to see It.
The body of Ward was curled into the fetal position, with pale sunken eyes and a chest that remain caved inwards.
"How can I help you? What do you need?" Malick asked, kneeling a safe distance away.
"I'm hungry." said the body of Ward.
Giyera took a slow, deep breath.
Mack was aching from the force of the woman's assault earlier in the afternoon. His experience with Spanish hadn't gone past high school but he tried anyway.
"You think it was a gift from Dios? Or pescado?" God or fish. The woman seemed to believe the former, but as a new Inhuman, she likely received her powers from Terrigen-contaminated ocean products.
She paused, trying to explain. Mack humored her, trying his best to translate until the door blasted off its hinges.
Daisy stood tall in the space behind it, Bobbi and Hunter with guns raised behind her. He'd have to convince Simmons to sedate Daisy so she'd get some rest at some point, the woman had used her powers too much recently, and without her protective gauntlets.
His captor's head darted toward the noise and disappeared in a blur, only to recoil at an invisible wall and fall back unconscious. Good. Now it was her turn to be captured.
Werner Von Strucker bucked against the restraints, screaming for the room to let him die. Memories of being tortured by Ward's men.
Coulson looked coldly at Lincoln and Simmons, and his prisoner on the same mind probing machine he had once been forced in by Raina and Garrett. "They're telling me Gideon Malick is untouchable. I won't accept that." If he could find any hints to pass along to Talbot he would. And if he could find a clear shot at Malick, he would take it.
Bobbi struggled to move against her own muscles. The last thing she had done was draw her batons, only to have collapsed onto the highway. Her face had been frozen in place, perfectly positioned to watch Hunter drop as well. And for the police force that had welcomed her team to Bogotá to execute her and Hunter's unarmed captive. The cousin of the Inhuman they'd captured earlier that day.
Now she was in the police headquarters. "Hunter?" she struggled, "are you okay?"
"It…..hurts." he complained.
She grimaced as well, "Pain means it's wearing off."
"Bloody…..powers," muttered Hunter, continuing his complaint.
Lucio stormed into the police station's armory.
Several panicked officers were attempting to pry apart a fused ball of assault rifles as alarms continued to sound. They looked at him in confusion.
Another Inhuman was here.
Beyond his sunglasses, Lucio was a confident man. While his coworkers may have needed the crates of weapons being shipped into the region, he did not. The fast girl and her cousin may have delayed them, they would do little to stop him.
He continued deeper into the facility, quickening his pace, arms ready to flip up his lenses and stop the assailants cold. He turned a corner and saw a trio standing, lost, looking for who to fight next. Three of his men were tied against a wall to his side, weapons taken and scattered far from them.
Lucio leveled his gaze, then cried out abruptly in pain. His hands were bound, his eyes surrounded in scorching metal. A member of their trio had been thrown against a wall by a glimpse of him, but it made no difference now. He couldn't take another look, and before he could try he was thrown against the wall. By who, he did not know.
But he did know his capture would be temporary.
Fitz's heart was not the only one that ached.
"I miss you." Simmons said, "There it is. I miss you."
"I'm here, we're together. We're-" Fitz turned partly away from his computer. Partly.
"Professional. And matter-of-fact. And there's this chasm in the middle of the room of all these things…"
"...and I'm sorry about that Jemma. Because maybe there was another way.."
"Will died saving me. What you did was kill a thing. A monster. You've been nothing less than extraordinary this whole time."
"So about this thing. This chasm, as you call it."
"Can we start over? Back to where we began?"
"Sixteen and achingly shy?"
"Two people endlessly inquisitive, about to embark on a relationship that will change their lives but they're not sure where it will go." She extended her hand, desperately hoping it would cross the void between them, "I'm Jemma Simmons. Biochemist."
Fitz stood and faced her. His hand embraced hers warmly. "Leopold Fitz. Engineering."
A moment passed. And then they broke into a soft smile, and their signature fist bump.
Mack and Daisy stood behind the glass wall, looking into the conference room where Joey was talking to Elana.
"She'd be a good fit for this team you're trying to build." Mack suggested, looking over.
"Except for the pesky little fact that she doesn't want any part of it," sighed Daisy.
"Look, she's also vulnerable out there. It might be a good thing keeping her close. It's safer." He paused, "Don't look at me like that."
"Is it safer? Four of us in one place makes us vulnerable. Like the twelve Inhumans Lash killed."
"It's hard to build a team if everyone's spread all over the world."
"When I was a hacker, me and my team were tight and we weren't even on the same continent. We made it from the Playground to Antarctica to the Lemurian Star to Colombia in what? Two days max? And that was because you got yourself kidnapped."
"Well. Yeah, the right tech solution, it could work."
Just an hour later, Mack stood on the exit ramp of Zephyr One with Elana in front of him.
"If we need backup. Or you do. We're a tap away." Mack offered the latest from FitzSimmons and Daisy's technology armory. Another had been made for Joey, and Mack hoped that he would take it. A mother's Sunday dinner was not possible for most of his team. He wanted him to experience a full life outside of the lives he would save working with S.H.I.E.L.D., and when they captured Donnie and other potential recruits, the same offer would be extended to them. The team needed for everyone to be at their best. Especially against the likes of Lucio, Lash, Giyera, and whoever else was out there.
"Backup," she mused, "I'm sorry for kidnapping you." The watch felt good in her hands. Solid. Like her new friends. It wouldn't fill the void left behind by her cousin's death. Not yet. But she had a feeling that God had brought her to good people, and when she returned, it wouldn't be as the Elana she felt herself as before.
I'll see you soon," Mack said warmly, "Yo-Yo."