The Father-Daugther Job
Disclaimer:
As always, I own nothing.
Rating:
T
Genre:
Romance/Family
Pairing:
Coulsye
Lyrics Used:
Megan McCauley "Porcelain Doll"
Don't They Realize I'm A Porcelain Doll?
Why do they leave me? | Why do they use me and bring me down? | Why do they hurt me? | Why do they leave me? | Why doesn't anybody stick around?
Why doesn't anybody stay here? | Why do they leave me? | Don't they realize I'm a porcelain doll? | Small, unsure, beautiful | Breakable
Why am I not numb to this? | Why can't I let it all escape my mind? | Don't let me sit here, collecting dust | But, please, be careful | Please be kind
Why doesn't anyone stay here? | Why do they leave me? | Don't they realize I'm a porcelain doll? | Lost, alone, unsure | Kind, demure, small | Fragile, helpless | Breakable | Breakable
"Hey, Hardison." Eliot Spencer called, gruffly, catching his friend, Alec Hardison's, attention. "Got a minute?" He asked, casually, as the rest of the group dispersed.
"Sure, Eliot." Hardison replied. "Whatchyou got on yer mind?" He asked, curiously.
"I was just wondering where we are with that little...side project, we talked about..." Eliot replied, carefully. The rest of the team didn't know about his search for his long-lost daughter and he wanted to keep it that way, at least, until they found her.
"Eliot Spencer." Eliot turned at the sound of his name to see an African-american woman of average height with a slender build clad in a flower dress sashaying across the bar to where he and Hardison were standing.
"Can I help you?" Eliot replied, gruffly, as his posture reflexively stiffened in reaction to being approached by a stranger.
"My name is Raina." The woman offered, by way of introduction. "And, I actually have a job offer for you." She added, with a warm smile.
"Nate's really the one you should be talkin' to-he handles all the new clients-" Eliot began, in a vain attempt to get rid of the woman giving him a strange vibe. He couldn't place it, but, he knew he definitely did not like it.
"I didn't come here as a client, Mr. Spencer." Raina interjected with a deceptively soft voice. "I came here to hire you away from this team. The Clairvoyant has seen your irrefutable talents and, with our new technology...You could be unstoppable."
"Now, listen here, woman..." Hardison interjected, rising from his seat, just before he felt a needle jabbed into his neck. "AH!" He cried just before collapsing to the floor in an unconscious heap.
"I'm so sorry." Raina apologized, softly. "Tact never was my colleague's strongest suit..." She conceded, glancing down at Hardison's unconscious form on the floor with a bland expression on her countenance, before looking back up to Eliot.
Eliot shift his gaze from side-to-side, frantically searching for any other enemy soldiers, as he spoke. "Listen, I don't know who the hell you think you are or-" Before he could even finish the sentence, Eliot felt a needle stab him in the neck, as well, before he collapsed into the Centipede soldier's waiting grasp.
"Take him to the car." Raina ordered, in her same, soft voice. "Make sure no one sees you." She added, before her soldier nodded curtly as he dragged Eliot's unconscious form out the door of the bar and loaded him into the waiting car.
Some time, later, Hardison woke to the shrill sound of Eliot's phone ringing. Finding the offending electronic device, he picked it up from where it had apparently landed after being dropped during Eliot's abduction. "Yeah?" He answered groggily.
"Who is this?!" The voice on the other end of the line greeted, tersely.
"Alec Hardison." Hardison replied, bluntly, struggling to stand on still wobbly legs. "Who the hell are you?" He demanded. After what had just happened, he wasn't too keen on trusting anyone.
"This is Agent Phil Coulson." The voice responded, curtly. "With S.H.I.E.L.D." He added, with a somewhat intimidating tone to his voice. "I'm looking for Eliot Spencer." The senior S.H.I.E.L.D. agent elaborated.
"Yeah, well..." Hardison grunted as the effects of whatever he'd been drugged with began to wear off. "Take a number..." He added, sarcastically.
"Explain." Phil ordered, curtly. It never sat well with him when somebody he didn't know answered a phone belonging to a S.H.I.E.L.D. asset.
"I don't really know..." Hardison replied, honestly. "All I know is that some black chick in a flower dress showed up...Said she had a 'job offer' for Eliot...Someone jabbed a needle in my neck and I blacked out...I woke up when you called and Eliot and the woman and her soldiers was just gone..." The hacker replied, helplessly. He hated knowing that his friend was God-knows-where enduring God-knows-what.
"Raina..." Phil surmised. "We're on route, now...We'll be there in twenty minutes..." He replied, curtly, before clicking the phone off without waiting for a response. This is gonna crush Skye...Phil thought to himself as he replaced his phone in his jacket pocket.
"Oh! Hey, Phil!" Skye greeted, warmly. "Are we about to land?" She asked, curiously, wondering why the senior agent had returned to her bunk so quickly.
"Yes, but...That's not why I'm here, Skye..." Phil conceded, sighing heavily as he frantically searched his mind for the gentlest way to break the news of her father's abduction while sliding down next to the young woman on the bed.
"What's wrong?" Skye asked, immediately alerted by the tone in Phil's voice. "What's going on?"
"Look...Skye..." Phil began, hesitantly. "There's no...easy way for me to say this but..."
"My dad's in the wind, again..." Skye deadpanned, finishing Phil's thought. "Isn't he?"
"Yes, he is..." Phil conceded, but, correcting the young hacker before she could interject. "But, not for the reasons you're thinking..."
"What do you mean?" Skye asked, curiously.
"Your father's been taken." Phil deadpanned, deciding it would be best just to be honest with Skye. Too many people had already hidden too many things from her. He'd be damned if he'd be one of those people. Plus, he of all people understood the damage secrets could do to a person. "By Raina..."
"What?!" Skye demanded, leaping to her feet, as she paced back and forth anxiously. "Raina's out?! I thought S.H.I.E.L.D. took her into custody! She's supposed to be locked up!" Skye screeched as Phil rose from the bed, gently gripping her by the biceps to halt her pacing and forcing her to look him in the eye.
"I don't know how she got out, Skye..." Phil admitted, gently. "But, we will find her." He assured her, firmly. "And, we will get your father back, safely." The senior agent added, drawing the young hacker into his arms as he finished. "I swear on my life, we will find him."
"Where's Eliot?" Nathan Ford asked, lightly, when Hardison rejoined the rest of the team.
"He's gone, Nate." Hardison replied, regretfully.
"What d'you mean 'he's gone'?!" Sophie Devereaux demanded, curiously.
"I mean..." Hardison replied, with a dark sarcastic tone to his voice. "Some woman showed up...Claimed she had a 'job offer' for Eliot...Drugged me...When I came to, he was gone." Hardison explained, helplessly. "Some dude called himself 'Agent Coulson' with S.H.I.E.L.D. called Eliot's phone lookin' for him...Said he'd be here in twenty minutes..."
"Wait a minute..." Parker replied, trying to analyze everything Hardison had just told her. "You said he was with S.H.I.E.L.D.?!" She demanded. "S.H.I.E.L.D. is coming here..."
"Girl, would you relax?!" Hardison replied, lightly gripping his girlfriend's shoulders. "They ain't interested in anything you did in the past, a'ight?" He added, gently, looking her straight in the eye. "Believe me, if that were the case, they'da locked you up a long time ago..." That seemed to do the trick as the thief calmed down in his arms.
"Why would S.H.I.E.L.D. be investigating Eliot's disappearance, anyway?" Sophie questioned, curiously.
All eyes were on Hardison as he squirmed, guiltily, under all the scrutiny. "All right, all right..." Hardison conceded, cracking under the pressure. "Look...When we all first came together...Eliot asked me to help him look into something on the down low..." The hacker confessed, finally. "Twenty-five years ago, he met this S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, named Evania Zhåo, was sent to kill Eliot because of his reputation as a hit man..." He explained, heavily, while the rest of the group seemed to hang on his every word. "But, she decided to do somethin' else...She made him a S.H.I.E.L.D. asset."
"So, you mean..." Parker replied, still turning everything her boyfriend was saying over in her mind. "That Eliot's been working for S.H.I.E.L.D. this whole time?"
"And lying to our faces about it?" Nathan asked. Curiously, his voice wasn't angry. He was only searching for answers that might help them find Eliot.
"He had to keep it under wraps." Hardison added, defending their friend. "I mean, it wouldn't do S.H.I.E.L.D. any good to have an asset that people knew worked for them..." The rest of the group had to admit that was a fair point. "Anyway, the reason he told me this was because...He and Evania had a thing..." Hardison added, searching for the right words. "They hooked up...She got pregnant...Long story short, Eliot has a daughter he hasn't seen in twenty-four years...He and Evania knew they both had enemies that they didn't want their daughter exposed to...But, they couldn't agree on how to keep her safe, so...Evania disappeared, one night, with their daughter in tow." The rest of the group was shocked to learn that their friend had this whole other life that none of them had ever known about. "Anyway...When we all first came together...Eliot asked me if I would help him try to find his daughter..."
"Did you ever find anything?" Nathan asked, curiously.
"Not a lot..." Hardison admitted, ruefully. He hated admitting defeat. "All I found was this document from Saint Agnes Orphanage which S.H.I.E.L.D. redacted. And, Evania's not gonna be any help..."
"Why not?" Sophie asked, curiously.
"'Cause she's dead..." Hardison replied, bluntly. "She was killed shortly after she dropped the baby off at the orphanage. I been bustin' my ass but, I can't get into S.H.I.E.L.D.'s database to find the un-redacted version of that document. Without it, I can't find nothin' on the daughter...S.H.I.E.L.D. does an amazing job of covering their tracks..." Hardison admitted.
"Excuse me." The entire group's heads all snapped over to the doorway where they noticed a man clad in a navy-colored suit pulling off a pair of black aviator sunglasses standing in front of five other people. "Are you Alec Hardison?" The man in the front of the group asked, curtly.
Author's Note:
I hope you all liked the little plot twist, I threw in there. Don't forget to leave a review!
~Skye Coulson