A/N: Hey guys! So this is the AU follow on from 2x10 :) Hope you'll all like it!
Thank you to those who reviewed :)
DISCLAIMER: I only own the storyline.
Damn you, Skye. I was trying to help, and you shot me! Angry thoughts like these were racing through Ward's head, clear through the haze the pain in his side was causing.
Agent 33 had Ward's left arm draped over her shoulders as she supported his escape from the operative-infested theatre. Unfortunately, it was no less crowded outside.
"You need a med kit." She stated, glancing at his face.
"No kidding." Ward replied.
Agent 33 only rolled her eyes and dragged Ward's nearly unconscious body over to the shade underneath a palm tree before darting off to a truck and grabbing the emergency medical kit stashed in the back.
On her way back to the downed agent, a sudden rumble shook the ground. Ward blearily registered the event and clutched at the ground for some sense of stability. Agent 33 staggered and fell to the ground.
And then the trembling stopped.
Standing cautiously, Agent 33 glanced around, assessing the damage. Across the courtyard, she noticed Skye's father, Dr. Zabo, wearily get to his feet.
"Doctor Zabo!" she called out. When he looked over she beckoned.
It was evident he was reluctant to help a known Hydra agent – albeit brainwashed – but still a follower of Dr. Whitehall. However, when she pointed out Ward's now unconscious form on the ground, he hurried over.
As she met him at Ward's side, vaguely noticing that he was bleeding as well, she held out the med kit. He pushed it aside and knelt to examine the wounds in Ward's torso.
"Four bullet holes, two deep. All hit ribs. The bullets still inside…was he wearing a bulletproof vest?" he muttered, his hands now covered in blood from merely pushing the stained shirt up the body.
"Bulletproof-ish jacket. Saved him from immediate death, but if you can't stop the bleeding…" she trailed off, worried.
"I can save him. But then, I think, we all need to have a chat." He focused now, ripping the shirt off completely before grabbing the med kit and pulling out several pieces of gauze and a few syringes of clogging fluid. He groaned in frustration. "I can't pull the bullet heads out now, he's bleeding too much, and I don't have the equipment. So rip the seals on these open and inject them right into the holes. Quickly!"
Managing to keep her hands from shaking too much, Agent 33 tore open the airless seals around the syringes and using her free hand to steady the target spot, stuck the syringe head into Ward's flesh. Meanwhile, Dr. Zabo was preparing the gauze for application to each wound.
Once each syringe had been emptied into Ward's side, Dr. Zabo stuck the gauze onto the holes. "Hold these here while I bandage him." Agent 33 replaced his hands with hers and he reached for the med kit again.
"Two bandages…that might not be enough."
"It'll be enough for now. I'll steal a quinjet, and that'll have what you need." The agent reassured the doctor.
He nodded and started wrapping the fabric around the comatose body.
Ward woke several hours later, and immediately noticed that he was no longer outside. Blinking a few more times, his vision cleared and he recognised the inside of the back of a quinjet.
"Ah, you're awake." The voice from his right made him freeze, and his head whipped around. Dr. Zabo was sitting on the side, his jacket off and a few seats away. His shirt was splattered in blood and he had a few untended cuts to his face, one of which was still bleeding. "You've been out for some time."
Ward was still looking around, confusion evident on his face. Squeezing his eyes shut a couple of times, he re-focused on the doctor. "Why aren't I dead?"
"You nearly were. If your new best friend here hadn't gotten my attention when I left the Ponce de Leon Theatre," he gestured to the cockpit, where Agent 33 was leaning against the doorway. "You would have bled out on the courtyard. And my dear daughter wouldn't have been too pleased about that."
"Skye is the one who shot me. She left me for dead!" Ward didn't say any more because of the displeased expression the older man wore.
"Several months of training by her new S.O. Agent Melinda May, after you trained her for the few months that you lived on that plane together, and she tries to kill you by shooting your side?"
The young male agent remained silent taking this in.
"Also, every bullet hit your ribs. Didn't even graze your lung."
"How would you know her aim to kill wouldn't be the heart?" Ward asked, but was somewhat half-hearted about it. Pun not intended.
"Because when she made me leave at gunpoint, she pointed the gun at my head, and from what it looks like, the same distance that you were shot from. It's anger that fuels her actions, far more than anything else. She's like her mother that way."
Ward didn't speak and returned his attention to the ceiling. Agent 33 moved to his left side and sat down on the one of the seats edging the quinjet.
"So what are you going to do now? Skye apparently wants nothing to do with you." She asked the doctor tentatively.
"That's not her name!" his sudden outburst caused both specialists to look at him with alarm. "Her name is Daisy." He said a little more calmly.
"Skye is the name she chose for herself when she left the orphanage." Ward said sullenly. "She was given the name Mary Sue Poots, and hated it."
"Her name is Daisy." Dr. Zabo said fiercely. "That's what her mother and I agreed upon."
"Regardless of what you want to call her, the choice is still hers on what she wants to be called." Ward's stubbornness on the subject surprised both Agent 33 and Dr. Zabo. "She'll be grateful to you for giving her more information on her past and family, but you can't force her to accept 'Daisy' as her first name."
"I'm her father–"
"And she is not a child!" Ward angrily replied. "She's twenty five, and has spent most of her life without you there."
"That is not my fault!" the doctor stood up, looming over Ward's body on the floor.
"He never said it was!" Agent 33 cut in. "He merely stated what she lived through. She's stronger than you think."
Ward and Dr. Zabo glared at each other, breathing heavily.
"Why are you so adamant about wanting my daughter to decide for herself what she wants? She wouldn't choose you, not after what you've done." His voice curdled with vicious anger as he lashed out with his words.
Ward's jaw clenched and he dry swallowed. Ignoring the potential truth behind those words he calmly answered. "Choices are important."
"What makes you say that?" Agent 33 asked softly.
"Because it's the choices you make that define who you are. I messed up, and I need to make the right choices now." He narrowed his eyes at Skye's father. "Just like you."
Agent 33 tensed at Ward's carelessness with his choice of words.
"Do you really love her?" Dr. Zabo spoke again.
Ward didn't answer, but his eyes spoke volumes that words could never replicate. Dr. Zabo's demeanour softened and he sat back down.
"When you're healed, go after her. She'll have had time to process everything that happened today. Being told indirectly by Raina that you love her, that her mother suffered in the last week of her death, and the change that she will have gone through as well as reuniting with her father for the first time in twenty five years will have been to much to sort through while trying to stay alive."
"She didn't want to change. She wouldn't have gone down there."
"The theatre collapsed and most of San Juan is damaged. Raina was set on going down, so Daisy would have followed her and likely undergone the changes the Diviner released."
Agent 33 and Ward shared a look.
"What kind of changes?" they both asked.
"Once inside the temple, the Diviner will be activated and when it is placed on the pedestal, the temple walls will close, effectively shutting all who are there inside. The Diviner opens, and inside are some crystals. Then Terrigen Mist is released in a burst."
"Terrigen Mist?" the specialists synchronise again, but they don't seem to mind.
"It acts as a catalyst for Inhumans. The aliens from whom the Diviners come from, the Kree, changed the DNA of humans in the area, so that when they come into contact with the Terrigen Mist, the chemical combinations of both the Mist and the DNA react. This causes changes and awakens powers within these special people."
"What happens to someone who isn't one of those Inhumans?" Ward asked warily. "Do they turn to stone?"
"The Mist is harmless to those who aren't descendants of the original Inhumans. Generally, they are of Asian origin. Raina hails from Thailand and Daisy and her mother come from China."
"The Hunan Province."
"Just so."
"Would anyone from the S.H.I.E.L.D. team have followed her down there?" Agent 33 piped up. "I mean, we know Coulson was injected with alien – Kree – blood, and that caused him to continue whatever it was that Garrett kept drawing. Would he be an Inhuman of a sort, or just a means to an end for those that are?" She didn't miss Ward's slight reaction to her last question, a tightening around his eyes.
"The Inhumans were created by experimentation and alteration, not transfusion. So no, he isn't Inhuman. However, the symbols in his head would have acted as a guide for the new Inhumans to take up the mantle."
"How many Inhumans are there? And how do you know all this?"
"Daisy's mother was a descendant of the original altered humans. Her gift was that she didn't age. Whitehall took that from her, as well as her life." He finished with such a blaze of fury in his eyes that Ward and Agent 33 were uncertain as to whether or not continuing the subject was wise.
Deciding against it, Ward attempted to sit up. Immediately, Dr. Zabo reined in his temper.
"No, no, no. Don't get up."
"Well, I'm sick of lying down!"
"I only sewed your wounds up," Dr. Zabo checked his watch. "About 6 hours ago. I had to stop the bleeding before then, and after that, you needed more blood and couldn't wait for me to finish. All the bullets were still in there as well. You need to refrain from as much activity as possible for the next week, and only lightly for the week after that. Gradually get back into your training, and nothing strenuous for at least a month."
"A month?!"
"Yes, a month. Maybe two, depending on how fast you heal. Follow that, and you should be at full health within six months. I trust you'll make sure he sticks to that?" his last comment was aimed at Agent 33, who nodded. Ward lay back down, looking resigned.
Wanting to change the subject, as he was still confused about Skye, Ward focused on Agent 33. She stiffened under his gaze but continued the eye contact.
"You're very different."
She turned her head to the side slightly, silently indicating that he should explain.
"When Whitehall was alive, you were 'happy to comply'. When you came to me after he'd been killed you didn't know what to do. Now…you seem surer of yourself."
"I do?" Agent 33 now looked confused and cautiously worried.
"You were brainwashed. Perhaps having to think for yourself and not awaiting orders is undoing that?" Ward glanced at Dr. Zabo, his eyebrow raised in question.
"It's possible, I suppose. Whitehall was always directly involved in the brainwashing process, perhaps even performed the entire thing in order to ensure the loyalty was to him first and foremost. And in order to do that, he would have to completely cover up who you were beforehand. You saw him dead, no?"
Agent 33 nodded.
"You see, that may have brought about an old longing of yours. You were S.H.I.E.L.D., so you would have wanted Whitehall dead, with him being Hydra and everything. The feeling of not knowing what to do – based upon suddenly not having anyone to order you around, and an old goal now accomplished."
"And I went to Ward because he said earlier that he used to be loyal to someone. Garrett, I know. And I remember thinking that with him knowing what it's like, having to reinvent oneself, he could help me." her voice was now quite small, still worried about rejection, but also hiding Skye's involvement in her decision.
"33." Ward said gently. "I'm not going to send you away. I want to help you, as Coulson never helped me. We can show him that even though he's Director, he still makes mistakes. Second chances do work."
Agent 33 smiled, a glimmer of hope lighting up her eyes.
"So who do you want to be, Agent 33? What do you want to do?"
A hint of cunning slid in to rest next to the hope. "I want to find out who I was. That will help me decide who I want to become."
Ward smiled, identifying with that base desire. Yeah, we're gonna be better.
A/N: So what do you think of the follow on? Better than the promos of 2x11? There'll be Skye showing up in the next chapter, and the plotline will revolve around Skye and Ward, separately as well as together. Although there will be other characters taking precedence for scenes to give more background to what's going on.
Just so you guys know, I won't be able to see 2x11 and onwards for a while as I live in New Zealand, and we've yet to watch Agent Carter 1x4. So keep that in mind! Not that it should be a problem :)
Reviews! I adore them :3