"Oh, hello Santana, Daddy. Good morning. How was it? Find out anything new?" Rachel asked from where she'd paused over a huge pile of food. Santana just rolled her eyes, pouring syrup over her chocolate chip pancakes and the pieces of sausage next to the stack.
"Yeah, couple of things. Where's Q? She already ate?" Leroy sipped at his coffee at bit at the pastry on his plate, watching as Hiram walked into the cafeteria, put food on his tray, and sat down across from him. He leaned across to press a kiss to his lips.
"Morning, love."
"Oh, Quinn ate breakfast with Dad and I this morning then went down to the range. I figured she'd come up for lunch, but it's early still." Santana nodded.
"Yeah, true. Wonder how she's doing though. I don't know shit about guns but it'd be cool to see. I wonder what distances the range goes to though. I mean we're underground or so I'd assume, so how far could it really?" Santana said, cutting a piece of sausage to put in her mouth just as Rachel finished the last of her food and reached for the gallon of water by her feet.
"Oh it's larger than you might think, actually. Consider how big the safe room we were in was. I think the shooting range's longest distance is out to 750 yards. So with that in mind Shield Marksmanship tests aren't completed here." Hiram said, chin on his fisted hand as he leaned against the table.
"He's right. Maybe when we leave you can call her, tell her to make sure she eats lunch. I know she has the habit of getting so into a particular task that she'll forget to take care of herself." Santana nodded in agreement. She'd seen that plenty of times. To many. She pulled her phone from her pocket and slid three of her fingers along the back to get it to extend into tablet size, tapping on it's screen to get it to call Quinn. The blonde's face filled up the screen and she looked a little tired but there was a smile curving her lips.
"Hey, Q! What's up? Still at the range? How is it, having fun? Oh, say hi to everyone." Santana turned the tablet over to face Rachel, the other brunette smiling brightly and waving. Then towards Leroy and Hiram who both did the same. When she brought it back to her face the blonde was standing up from where she'd been crouched on the floor.
"It's great. Not at the range anymore though. Agent Oliver, the range master, saw me kicking ass and taking names and thought that I'd be up for tackling some of the stuff they have here that they use at the field agent training facility. So I've got to go, but I'll be out of here in about an hour or so, and I'll make sure to go eat lunch, okay?" The blonde asked, and Santana watched as she gulped down a bottle of grape Gatorade before tossing the bottle in the recycling bin.
"Oh, that sounds awesome, Q. And good, Rachel was worried that you might forget to eat. We'll see you later. Hit either of us up if you want to find something to do later today before dinner. Have fun Q, peace." Quinn waved and Santana returned the sentiment, disconnecting the call afterwards.
"She is something else, seriously. Scores like this she'd make quite the field agent." Hiram said, looking down at something on his tablet that the girls couldn't see.
"That's exactly what I said, Dad." Santana nodded, agreeing just based on what she guessed field agents got up to. She had gathered that her mother was one by this point, but she'd met no others as far as she knew. But Quinn had leadership skills by the handful, and the ability to make tough decisions, and to hurt and maybe even kill someone when she needed to. Which she thought might be even more important. With people like her and Rachel around that had to be important. Especially considering the kind of people she knew Hydra had on their side as well. She'd taken the information from Quinn and watched as the files came up on Coulson's screen so she knew exactly the kind of threat the world could be facing without field agents to detain or neutralize them.
"So I know Daddy is about to go back to work, Santana. What do you think you'll do? I think I'm going to do some running." Santana shrugged. Maybe she'd hit the pool and do some laps.
"Not sure."
"Perhaps you'd like to come to the engineering lab with me. Your mother is out with her team on leads from the information you and Quinn gave us. You can see the kind of stuff I'm working on and maybe I can tell you some more about your dad." That sounded awesome, really. She'd wanted to spend some time shadowing Hiram the day before, and hearing more about her Papi sweetened the deal.
"Sounds good to me, Hiram, thanks." He just smiled at her and she thought that maybe she really reminded him of her father. She didn't look very much like her mother, so maybe that was it.
"I'm sorry, what are you suggesting?" Hiram asked, brows furrowed over his hazel eyes and lips in rather thin line. Santana didn't exactly like him looking at her like she'd disappointed him or something. She was thinking rationally, she thought.
"I'm suggesting using harmonic resonance. Against this subject it'll work. If I'm correct the way he'd start earthquakes and such isn't that different from what I just did this morning. Causing the atoms in the stone or rock to harmonize and move in the same direction at the same tempo. If you find that frequency and create a device that resonate the reverse you could stop whatever he may be doing." It sounded simple as far as she was concerned.
"Santana, if his file is correct, the difference is that he isn't doing this with his mind, he's somehow doing it with his body, and we have no way of knowing how it may affect him to use this proposed device on him or the area around him." Santana bit her lip, tapped her left foot against the ground, and shrugged.
"That may be true, but if SHIELD is all that stands between him and destroying a city with an earthquake isn't that an option we need to have, Hiram?" He stared deep in to her eyes, or so it felt for her, then nodded his head. He swiped the file away from the screen that was a table as well, putting them on the next subject.
"Right, Zhao Wei. Pyrokineticist. Tianjin." Santana said, opening the short video of the girl who would be fifteen now slinging fireballs at Santana's mother before she was frozen out.
"Yes. Although I'm not sure how well that freezing technique will work. It's been five years. We don't know where she is, and if that happens to be with Hydra we don't know. If it is, god forbid, she'll be far stronger and icing her out will no longer work. She'll burn through it." Hiram said, taking a seat in the high chair next to the table and bringing up statistical information about the Chinese girl's powers.
"Fire needs oxygen, obviously. Maybe something along those lines? I suppose it would depend on whether she can create fire or if her ability is limited to controlling it." The Latina said, leaning over the table to go over the statistics.
"No known evidence of her creating fire. She's been seen with a lighter or matches before. Something small to give her a flame to control or make even larger."
"Meaning more dangerous, yes. Regardless the fact is even if she does create fire somehow there's nothing for it to do but be extinguished in a vacuum. This isn't anywhere near a perfect solution. This vacuum box would have to be large enough to encompass her entirely and extremely heat resistant inside. It won't be of use in a situation in which she's already created a raging inferno. We'll need something more mobile. Do SHIELD already have heat resistant suits?" Santana asked, already opening up a small part of the screen to search for it. Those that came up were rather bulky.
"We do of course, but they aren't for this application and they'll need reworking to minimize weight and maximize mobility."
"Agreed. Perhaps we can start from another point. With these level two environmental suits, increase their heat and flame resistance." Santana said, walking away to pull over a screen on wheels like a rolling white board, sending the mk. 2 evo suits up to the screen and then marking on the changes that would be needed.
"Perhaps we could use graphene nanoribbon tertiary layer, yes? Obviously that would be highly insulated as well as strong. With modern armor above it there would be little chance of traditional projectile weapons penetrating the suit at all." Santana hummed, adding those notes to the screen as well. Then adding a note about a super cooled fluid layer.
"Very good idea. It's enjoyable to work with you, Santana. You're just as quick-witted and sharp as Victor was. He'd be proud of you, you know. He always said he hoped you'd follow in your mother's and his footsteps. He believed in what SHIELD is all about." Santana's eyes went wide and her hands slammed quietly on the table.
"He...he talked about me? Because my mom always said that he died before I was born. That he saved her life." Hiram tilted his head just a bit and nodded.
"Just before you were born yes. Less than a month. Your mother had been on desk duty since she became pregnant, but she was still just as vigilant at her job back then. There was an attack on the building she'd been stopping by to work in that day. Your father dropped her off then went to get her some food to satisfy her cravings. When he got back, Hydra agents were executing anyone that didn't wasn't of interest. He worked his way through the building and got there just as they realized who your mother was. The lead on their team put his gun to her stomach and threatened to pull the trigger if she didn't get them in to the database and turn over any and all information they wanted." Santana nodded, tears falling from her eyes. He didn't have to say much more. She could imagine how this would end.
"He took a bullet for us." Hiram nodded, coming around the table to be closer in case the currently fragile young woman needed him.
"Essentially yes. Our teams got there too late to save him. Your mother was devastated and fell into a dangerously deep depression. It was only because of you that she took care of herself. And then a month later you were born and...I suppose she realized she didn't have time to do anything but love you and take care of you. After all, you're the only real part of him she has left." He said, shrugging. Santana stiffened and backed away, scowling.
"And I almost threw myself off of a roof. Fucking selfish as hell of me wasn't it. Jesus. Need to stop focusing on myself so much. Try to be better for the people I love."
"That's an honorable idea. And a good one. Speaking of good idea's, let's go eat. Not exactly sure how it got to be dinner time already." Santana just nodded stretching her arms around her sides before she followed the engineer out of his lab and into the elevator. He swiped his tag and hit the button and it was mere seconds before they were in the cafeteria.
"So what's up with the speedy but smooth ride? Inertial dampeners?" Santana asked as they got in the line to grab food. The Latina taking roast chicken, carrots, and mashed potatoes and gravy. The two of them found the table with everyone else at it, sitting down and returning greetings.
"It is inertial dampeners of a type. There are even the classic counterweights along with-"
"Hey, no engineering talk at the dinner table, you two." Leroy said, causing both Hiram and Santana to frown and return to eating their food, both of them sulking.
"Yeah, so like I was saying, he had me do the whole course. Or as much as I could do today. All the pt stuff is done, and he cleared me for everything else to start tomorrow with Agent Coulson. I'll still have to have a degree of course, all of which I can finish within two years. By the end of the summer I'll have tested out and graduated high school." Rachel beamed, sliding across the space between them on the bench to wrap her arms around the blonde.
"Wow, Quinn! I'm so proud of you. I've been saying since yesterday that you would make an amazing shield agent. I'm glad you have found something to enjoy here. I hoped you would."
"Wait what happened?" Santana asked, ignoring the horrified look on Rachel's face at her essentially destroying the stupidly good roasted chicken.
"I'm on the path to becoming a shield agent. I'm starting already, and then once I get my bachelors I can start all of the extra requirements for going from a regular agent to a field agent, which is what I want to do." Santana nodded, spooning mashed potatoes into her mouth.
"That's bad ass, Q. Very very cool. I guess I can let go of hope of ever sparring with you and you not kicking my ass into next week." The blonde smirked and nodded.
"Yep. Not sure how you held out hope this long." Santana just shrugged, nudging Rachel with her shoulder when she laughed.
"Shut up, she'd kick your tiny ass too if you don't cheat."
"Language, Mija." Maribel said, appearing from out of nowhere. Santana swore she was surrounded by god damned ninjas.
"Sorry, Ma. What's up, thought you were out on assignment."
"Just got back. Brought one in." Santana's eyes went wide and she pulled away her mother's coat, checking her for injuries, just noticing what appeared to be a huge burn through the sleeve of her jacket when Leroy spoke up. The skin below looked better than it should, all things considered.
"Everything went okay? Who did you find, Maribel?" It was Leroy who asked. Standing to reach across the table and inspect her left arm.
"Must've been Wei. No one else on the list is a pyrokineticist."
"Isn't my name anymore. I really wish you'd all stop calling me that." A voice everyone at the table recognized, Santana turned around, mouth and eyes wide.
"No fucking way!" She wanted to yell but didn't, only those at the table and Tina, who was walking toward the heard her.
"Holy shit. Tina? Really?" The younger girl rolled her eyes at Quinn but nodded, sitting down at the table and ignoring the eyes watching her as she bit into her burger.
"I have to admit that I did not expect this. Maribel what are the circumstances of her being here aside from the obvious?"
"She isn't Hydra. Never was. Her aunt and uncle hid her away in Ohio after the last time I saw her and she escaped back in China. She's been there the whole time under my nose."
"Okay but like...how did you find her? She's been in Lima since she was in sixth grade at least." Santana said, watching Tina just in case.
"We stopped at the base to refuel and there was an incident in town."
"By incident she means a bunch of guys in fatigues coming to try and grab me. I guess they followed the breadcrumbs that lead to me being here. They killed my aunt and uncle, so I killed them. Just in very dramatic fashion." Tina said, shrugging.
"She means she blew up the house with them in it."
"That. Yeah." Quinn's eyebrow was up above her right eye, and Rachel looked flabbergasted but Santana not so much. She could understand the motivation behind that.
"Well oh fucking kay then, Tina. So how's this work then? Tag and release?" Santana asked, ignoring the look her mother sent her when she cursed.
"Not in this case, Santana, no. With Hydra after her it's unsafe for both her and everyone else for her to be anywhere that isn't under Shield protection." Leroy said, standing up when Tina finished her food.
"Come with me, Tina. We'd like to get an idea of the range and origin of your powers when you use them." She shrugged, obviously not in the mood to be much more chatty. She followed the tall man out of the cafeteria, leaving all three teenage girl's left at the table confused.
"No, but really?" Quinn said.
"I suppose so. Agent Coulson did hint at the fact that there were more rooms on our floor that had been searched through. I wonder if there are more. I know you can't tell us Maribel. I suppose we'll see." Santana shrugged.
"Shit, I guess so. I just hope Finnocence isn't some kind of giant rock mutant."
"Santana, stop. He may be hard headed but-" She frowned as both Santana and Quinn devolved into heavy laughter. She stomped her foot under the table which just made Santana wrap her arms around her.
"Sorry...sorry. Just was kind of hilarious."
"You two are so childish sometimes."
"Sure Rachel. You're right. If by childish you mean amazing and by sometimes you mean 24/7 365."
"The answer is no. I don't want you in my head!" Tina said, arms crossed and stance highly defensive. Santana rolled her eyes. She like this Tina like a million times less than the one she was used to seeing every day.
"Look why don't you calm the fuck down, alright. You think I want to go on some magical meditation journey in your mind? I don't, okay. I have better shit I could be doing today with Hiram. But this is to help your ornery ass. So why don't you save the gigantic chip on your shoulder for someone who deserves it so we can get started."
She had little to no patience for this kind of bullshit. Her mother was back out in the field and the last thing she wanted was for her to get hurt by some other "Wizard" as Quinn had taken to calling them. Because apparently she couldn't keep the Potter geek inside anymore. Not that Santana minded it really. She as adorable when she was ranting about it all. Back to the matter at hand, Tina was scowling but nodded her agreement.
"Alright Tina go ahead and do what you usually do the conjure a flame." Leroy said over the earpeice, Santana adjusted herself in the heavy level three enviro suit she was wearing. It wasn't uncomfortable exactly, but it felt weird wearing something so heavy. In front of her, Tina pulled a black zippo lighter from her pocket, flipping it on and then closing it, the flame it lit already in the palm of her hand. She made it larger and separated it into three fireballs, juggling them in front of her.
"So like you said you can't create flame from nothing, but Santana's going to help you do that. Just relax, alright. She won't hurt you. You can close your eyes if you think it'll help you do that. What you'll want to do is focus on what allows you to take the flame from where it is over the lighter and take control of it, we'll work from there." Leroy said, watching as the shorter brunette of the two closed her hands and let the flames from her hands disappear.
Santana didn't close her own eyes, she was past the point of needing to do that by this point. But she reached out, ignored the non relevant memories, and focused on the task at hand. She saw Tina taking fire from that light again and again and again until she realized the answer was deeper than where she was. She pushed forward until she found what she was looking for. In a dark space that had only ever existed in Tina's mind sat a small, minuscule, flame. She reached for it, pulling it out and placing it where it belonged, in the brunette's hand. She watched as it grew slightly in size until there was a flame the size of a baseball in Tina's hand, neon blue in color.
"Holy shit! That...that came from me?" She said, grinning over at Santana, who just rolled her eyes and nodded.
"Yea, Tina. It came from you. Just be careful with it. It's inside of you in a way and that can be more dangerous than what you were used to before. Anyway, I've got a date with some tech and your husband, Lee. I'll see the both of you later." Tina just nodded then turned back around, watching the much hotter flame grow while she kept a tight hold of it.
Meanwhile Santana was pulling off the environment suit, putting it back in it's cabinet along the wall, happy to be back to her shield jumpsuit.
"Stop trying to steal my husband, kid!" Leroy yelled into the microphone, laughing the whole time. Santana was just walking through the hallway towards the elevator she heard it. She scoffed as she got in, swiped her tag, and pressed the button that'd take her up to the engineering lab.
"Yeah right. If anything I'd steal your daughter!" Is what came out of her mouth. She grimaced. Well shit that was an accident. And not even anything she'd been actively thinking about honestly. It surprised her just as much as it probably surprised Leroy.
"You can borrow her for dinner and a movie but I expect her back in quarters before midnight, young lady." He said, laughing. Dinner and a movie with Rachel? That didn't sound bad. It sounded good actually.
"Right. Before midnight. I gotcha Leroy. I'll see you later, gonna pull my earpiece." He said goodbye before she pulled the small piece of skin toned plastic from her ear, pressing a button on her phone that deactivated it before she slipped it in it's little case and back in her pocket.
It was a minute or so before she was walking into the lab, seeing Hiram tinkering with some circuits and servos on what looked like a thin backpack. The pack was set onto the back of a hard suit of some kind, helmet removed and obviously empty while strapped to a working frame that allowed access to the front, back, and even the sides when it was turned.
"Is that influenced by the iron man suit?" She asked, walking closer to get a good look at what the Engineer was working on.
"No actually. I've been working on it's concept for a long time, and god knows Stark's is much better in many ways. Besides, this one isn't the same exactly. It's purpose is different."
"That much I think I can tell. How many chips are in this thing? A computer in a suit. Too heavy duty to be for recon, right? And this surface isn't the same as the one that you used for the Osprey 2.0 to make the cloak tech work." He smiled at her, setting her small electronic screw driver down to pull the rolling screen over and bring up the suit's blueprints.
"No. It's a heavy combat suit. And this computer that I'm working on in the back is intended to keep the wearer alive and get them back to the nearest base if at all possible. It can communicate conditions and intel to exfil craft, and can continue to walk around even if the human inside is injured and or unconscious."
"Hiram that sounds an aweful lot like it's damn near AI." She said, her mind creating horrible potential scenarios.
"Not quite, no. Perhaps in the future we'll get there but it'll take some time. If we were, however, able to create an Artificial Intelligence anytime soon it certainly wouldn't fit on the back of this suit. What has you worried?" He asked, sipping from his cup of coffee.
"I read too much Asimov as a kid is all." He nodded his head and rolled the frame the suit was strapped into away into a corner.
"Oh, me too. I understand your concern. Now, on to current projects, what did you learn from Tina?"
"That she can in fact conjure flame herself without her lighter. So you can add that and the video Lee will have to the database. In the meantime you and I, sir, have plenty of work to do. There are plenty of others on the list we got. Let's get down to business." He just smiled at her and nodded, bringing up the next person on the list.
"Timur Golovanov. Precognition. I don't know what there is we could do for that with the exception of me or someone like me being there to shut it down myself. Which I know isn't happening. But it could be dangerous, sure. Especially if in the hands of Hydra." Hiram nodded and swiped the screen, frowning when the next file came up.
"Ndale Choi. Technopathy. This one could be a real problem, Santana. We'd have to be careful what equipment was used by the retrieval team. Anything digital at all could be turned against them. Tablets, other communication devices, an entire aircraft..."
"So they go in analog, sedate him and bring him back. There's got to be a room here cut off from the rest of the base's tech, right? I mean the kind of people you have here, people like me, Rachel, Tina...There something right? A room that's just concrete or whatever?" She asked, knowing there had to be. If they knew about someone who could manipulate and infiltrate all of the electronics in this place and any other SHIELD base they'd have had to put an analog room in each one.
"Yeah. Just the safe room you've been in. It's designed to drop off and sink into the ocean if push comes to very hard shove." She nodded. She could understand that. In fact she fully expected them do push whatever button there was if she lost control of her powers.
"Right. Okay good." Santana whispered to herself.
"Let's move on."
"No, I'm serious. My audio was linked into both of theirs. I know what I heard Rachel." Tina said nodding her head as Santana sat down and dropped three waffles on top of Rachel's tray.
"Hey Rachel. They just finished the next batch. Said you were waiting. And Cohen-Change, I'm going to go ahead and hope that you didn't just tell Rachel what I think you did. You know, for your sake." Santana scowled when the shorter brunette just shrugged her shoulders.
"Even if I did there's nothing you could do about it. I'm not afraid of you anymore Santana Lopez. I don't have to hide just exactly how powerful I am here. This isn't McKinley and you aren't some HBIC here." Tina said, attitude dripping from her words. Santana wanted to reach across the table and right her neck. Rachel lifted one hand towards each of them, obviously about three seconds from asking them to calm down.
"Tina, I'll ask you not to antagonize Santana. And what you told me was between her and my father and obliviously wasn't yours to tell. Santana, please just let it go, okay? What she says doesn't matter."
"I think the bigger problem, Wei Zhao, is that you don't understand that it'd be you who couldn't do anything at all. I'm going to very fucking kindly ask you to mind your own business. But this is the first and last time I'll do so, get me?" She stood, leaning with her fists on the table before she got up and took her tray with her to the elevator, Rachel following behind her without her tray, it having been already empty by the time Santana stood up. She swiped her card and pressed the button to bring her down to her quarters, scowl staying on her face until Rachel took her free hand and squeezed. She pulled Santana towards the taller girl's quarters.
"I'm sorry about that. I'm not sure why I thought being out of McKinley would cure her of her exceedingly annoying gossipy tendencies." Rachel said, sitting in Santana's desk chair while the Latina took the bed, folding her legs under her and going back to eating her eggs, bacon, and hash browns.
"It's fine, she's a bitch. And that's fine too. I just didn't want her to somehow manage to fuck things up between us. You're my friend and I care about you. But I didn't even intend to say what I did. It just kind of came out. Anyway that's what I get for helping her. Anger and fucking embarrassment."
"I actually would be interested in going on a date with you, Santana. As long as you are actually interested." Rachel said, rolling the chair forward and setting her hand on the Latina's knee.
"Wait, for reals? You want to date me?' Rachel giggled, shrugging.
"Well, I think we should go out on a date before we start 'dating' each other." She said, holding up her fingers to make the quoting gesture for the word dating.
"Yea, no, that sounds really fucking awesome. Thanks, Rach." The shorter brunette got up, moved the empty tray over to the desk and climbed up on the bed, pressing a quick, chaste kiss against Santana's lips. They lay back next to each other, prepared to talk about what they'd be doing with the rest of their days when both of their phones pinged. Santana pulled hers out, letting it unfold out to tablet size before she answered. The look on Quinn's face instantly had both of them worried.
"Q, what's up? What happened? You're worrying us."
"San, it's your mom."