There were five SHIELD bases left intact in the end, but only three have remained hidden from authorities well enough to still be serviceable. Gunfight and helicopter fire tended to attract attention of the military, and when Talbot and his goons came, all was lost. It was all right, though. Where the new SHIELD was most lacking was not in bases, but in agents trustworthy and able to run them. Not even a ten percent still remained active and loyal. Some had been Hydra; some had been killed in the takeover. The Academy kids all had scurried away. Word spread around that the most bright where applying for a job at Stark Industries. But all that was expectable, and not that worrying. The thing that bothered May the most was how many agents with years of experience just left. Disillusioned, no longer heroes of the winning side, unwilling to find themselves on the wrong side of the law. She could only imagine how much it had to grate on Coulson. After the full assessment, he had just smiled sadly and tried to joke about how Hydra had actually done them a huge favour.
"We were getting sloppy, May. Comfortable, fat and slow. But on the brighter side, I will be honoured to work with these who still remain".
After that bomb had dropped May wondered for some time if Simmons would also be quickly gone. She spent her time visiting Fitz and closing herself in her Playground lab. It was good sized and well stocked, but no fancier than anything she would be offered at MIT and Stark's. May would truly understand it, if she packed up and went. She was a loyal girl but also a pragmatic, sweet but not sweet enough to hesitate in doing what she wanted and never spare a thought to everyone's opinion on her. Still, day after day, she stayed. Maybe she just hoped that SHIELD would get her a fully developed Deathlok to dissect.
Skye stayed, of course. Coulson was so very touched by her loyalty, he literally had stars in his eyes when talking about it. May could not avoid noting that she also had nowhere else to go. May briefly considered asking Ward about his supposed info on Skye's family, going as far as imagining how a one on one meeting between them would go. She had accepted her own inability to reach him, be the girl could maybe pull him from the bottom of whatever well he have chosen to drown himself in. In the end, decency won out; Skye was way too innocent to witness the new May-made version of Ward.
After an afternoon of tai-chi exercises and hard thinking, she mentally amended decency for discomfort.
Two tiresome weeks of almost complete inaction rolled by, and thankfully some cleaning missions started to turn up. Tripplet and May flew back to Providence, spending twenty hours motionless among the snow to make sure that the military was gone and base was now abandoned. By dawn of the next day they sneaked inside, and came out an hour later with the most useful heavy duty weapons, some electronic stuff and a cute chemset that Tripp thought may cheer Simmons up.
The next week Skye's worm, trojan, virus or whatever it was pinged once over in Australia and May did the long trip, this time all alone. She came back one week later with little to no intel, a nasty wrist sprain, and the blackest of all moods. She had so hoped that the people that had set off Skye's surveillance would lead them to some Hydra. Weeks after the reveal, they were no closer to their first concrete lead. No names, no trails, and no promising locations. It turned out the "Hydra cell" was just a bunch of military guys who had wised up in the world wide confusion and stolen stuff from Cybertech before it could be properly dealt with, sealed and confiscated. They had then proceeded to form their own clandestine agency, acting as if changing continents was quite enough to have thrown off all tails. Their blond and tattooed leader was walking around their camp smashing stuff with the goddamned Berserker staff that must have taken the Cuba recovery crew hours to dig out. May had tried so hard to forget just how pathetic they all were and take the mission seriously enough. And then, everything just had to go and blow up. She made contact, playing an independent interested party, but some of the guys must have been with Talbot at Cybertech and recognised her as "that chic with the nail gun". They had ganged up on her, tied her up and spent the night reminding her that she was a weak little helpless woman surrounded by strong young horny males. It was a pity that May was indeed not close to Romanoff in the interrogation department. Black Widow would have struck gold here, but May just got bored and pissed off. She sprained her wrist, slit some meaty throats and was on her way before the dawn broke. She took the staff, too. Having to haul its weight across the desert while making sure it was properly wrapped up at all times accounted for two thirds of her fuming mood as she came back to base.
Due to unfortunate positioning while being tied by these goons, the wrist she had to sprain had been her right, and Coulson made her take some days for full recovery. He had been planning on a personal visit to the Cube, to see if he could borrow some people from there. Playground wasn't a big base, but it was undermanned for a Headquarters with only four (semi)real agents and Koenig. Skye and Simmons were to go with him, too, presumably to see if they clicked together with the potential additions and in an effort to cheer them up. May argued that she was their only pilot, but Coulson just waived and determined that they would take the scenic route and get some fresh air. There was no arguing with him. They took communicators, icers and some little handy EMPs, and were on their way. May got to stay in the compound, doing tai-chi and avoiding Koenig's wholehearted attempts at socializing.
She was just finishing her morning shower when the breach alarm lit on. There weren't any shrilly sounds, just a discreet ping and a strategically placed little flashing light in every room. May left the water on, slipped out of the stall, dried herself off with three efficient long swabs. Her shirt and slacks were on in half a second. No easy access to the body armour, only an icer for a weapon. She got herself a median-sized ceramic knife while ghosting through the kitchen, and deemed herself as ready as she needed to be.
The war room proved to be useful in that the displays were now showing the entrance to the base, a hole the size of a man in it, the thick metal doors literally vaporised. A missile of some sorts, then. Nine people came through, some holding machine guns. As May watched, they split in two groups of four and five. The smaller group was heading upstairs towards the leaving area and May, but it was the second one that made her blood run cold. They were walking directly to cargo elevators that led to the basement with, among others, all SHIELD's weapons and fancy alien inventions. It was already troubling May that they had heavy firepower. If they got their hands on Coulson's gun, there would no stopping them at all.
She stepped back into the kitchen and settled down behind the isle in the middle. Two guys came her way, checked the place from the threshold but finally moved on to search the living quarters. May crawled lightly around to keep them in her view. She could take them easily, but not without noise. And then she would be fighting here upstairs long enough for basement party to find their prize. That is, if they have not found it already, directed by Ward in exchange for his freedom or even in spite.
The situation was ready to explode one way or another. May ghosted through headquarters to the cargo area at good pace, successfully avoiding being seen. The guys were military all right; there was no smoothness and no subterfuge to them. Still, they were clearly searching for people; May hoped that Koenig was good enough an agent to stay hidden, or else SHIELD would soon be one more member short. She had no time to look for him, however.
By the time she reached the elevators the entire area was empty, the party of five having made their way downstairs. May put the knife to good use, shortcutting the electricity in the elevators so that the only way back up was through the stairs.
The lights downstairs were blinking lazily, slowly coming on prompted by the movement sensors. They promptly went off as May cut through the wires at the top of the stairs. Descent was soundless, and she keenly felt the loss of light as she slid down step by step. The layout of the underground level was far from ideal for an all out fight. Still, it was much better than the claustrophobic Bus. The main compound area was basically divided in four lines of shelves containing crates big and small. Relevant weapons were all stocked inside several independent cells much like the one Ward was being held in, at the far end of the basement, and would not be found without some intensive search. This would give May time to work her way through the compound and hopefully take out some strays. Darkness worked in her favour here; in absence of main lights, there was only the solitary bulb illuminating Ward's prison cell for the entire area. Koenig had installed it after realising that he was not prone to move enough to activate the other lights. May could now see the stripes of light it threw down the aisles from afar. She could hear movement ahead of her, the men moving but not speaking to each other, walking the corridors confidently enough that their steps echoed in the half darkness, stopping time and again to open containers and inspect their bounty.
As the raiding committee advanced into the depth of the compound, May became aware of the one thing that was missing from the picture. There was no pause in their steps, no exclamations and no questioning of an unknown man sitting in the only illuminated cage of the basement. No sound from the prisoner asking to be let out. May had assumed they have come for the weapons, but what if they had actually come for Ward?
Was all his time spent in captivity a ruse again? Had he not tried to run because he was expecting this? Or, even worse, could he have led these men in here? It was a terrifying thought. It meant that Ward had finally found a way out of his cell, and had been to the top levels. Sent some kind of signal even as May showered, or slept tonight. Who knew where he was now. Leagues away from here maybe, but probably right behind her. When Lorelei and he were on the run from Lady Sif, May had explained to Coulson that Ward was not the kind to actually run. He would buy time, distract and then invade the enemy home base while nobody was looking.
Step by step, icer on the ready in her right hand and the knife pressed into her left palm, May advanced between the shelves. She changed directions once and again, all the while choosing the deepest shadows the layout allowed her. Nearing Ward´s cell her worst fears all confirmed. The door did not stand open, but there was nobody inside. And meanwhile, ahead of her, a small explosion marked the moment one of the big container was cracked open. It seemed like they had already figured out where all the best weapons were stored.
She peaked around the corner, careful to never leave an open space at her back. She could see just three of them, quickly pulling Phil's favourite toy from its container. None of them seemed to actually lead the little group; they were clearly just tasked with acquisition. The angle and the cover weren't the best. Still, there was nothing for it. May checked again to make quite sure no enemy was approaching from behind. The first shot went off perfectly, and in the confusion of the sound and the fall, the second shot met its target beautifully as well. The third guy ducked down, and instantly became invisible from May's position. She vaulted over a pair of containers to one side, and had just the luck of peripherally notice one of the two soldiers she missed before. The shot was messy and hit him in the shoulder, but that was the beauty of the icers: the man still went down like a sack of bricks.
Three down, two to go. May rolled again, then run and rolled and only stopped after changing aisles twice and backtracking at least fifteen meters back to the entrance. It was a spot from which she could have a direct line of fire if anyone tried to leave the place. She had hoped to completely lose the man with Coulson's tesseract gun, and she probably had, but as luck would have it she was spotted by the last unaccounted for soldier. She tried to gun him before he could raise the alarm, but the shot went wide. A little enough mistake, but from there on her situation became immediately dire. Instead of stealthily set a trap the two remaining guys, now she was just as trapped. All of a sudden she was not cutting their retreat line but sitting in a corner like a duck while two machine guns rained shots at her from two different positions. To make the matters even worse, one of the machine guns stopped and she heard a long whining sound just before wood shards the size of arms came down on her from the top shelf. Another whine, and blue wind was combing through her hair, the cracking energy from the Tesseract washing over her and boiling off her skin. She had to bite the inside of her cheek to avoid crying out. Damn SHIELD for inventing such a weapon; damn Phil for bringing it with them to the Playground. It should have been put into the Slingshot right after Stark and Rogers had ganged up on Fury upon discovering what SHIELD was doing with the Tesseract.
Except that hey, surprise, there was never any Slingshot, and May would now find her end at the hands of two punks with a strike of blind luck and a mass destruction weapon.
She had thrown herself down and covered her head. She peeked just a little, than threw her knife into the shelf over the weapons location. Still no luck; the shelf shuddered and some things came down, but it was mostly edible provisions and a little glass. Which was anticlimactic, but then she did not have any use for the knife anymore. The distraction proved useful to peer some more, but the cover of both guy was way too solid. She would never have an angle. It made no sense to even try.
The cannon of extraterrestrial blue doom would be the end of May, she was sure of it after two more blasts. Even the lead padded crates to her right were slowly melting, giving her a good look at how her body will soon look like. She tried to shift away, but moving did nothing to better her position. The stupid weapon took a long enough to reload, but May´s hands were tied as long as there was a second guy somewhere waiting for her to show herself.
Another whine.
"Just show yourself, you frigid bitch. You are soooo outnumbered. I´ll make you a hot deal. Give you exactly what you have been waiting for."
Bang! The world almost seemed blue now, but the important part was that Maty knew that voice. It was one of the guys she met while in Australia. May pursued her lips and ignored his words. There had to be a way to get out of there.
"Come on, baby, come with us. You are alone in here, and we have come a long way just to…"
The whine started to build up once more, and then there was a loud crack that sounded almost like a gunshot and immediately the blue light went off. The voice shut up and there were no more taunts or movements. May was way too grateful for the reprieve to dwell on the hows and whys. She crawled and rolled and crawled and rolled and finally could stumble away into the forgiving darkness. There was blood welling on her palms, making the icer slippery. The debris around her completely covered the floor, and somewhere along the way she picked a long wooden plank to hold in her left hand. Whatever happened to the tesseract gun, she was almost positive that four people were down, with one still to go. Maybe she had just lucked out, and the contraption simply backfired on its owner.
She paused a little just to catch her breath and then walked a little unsteadily along the aisle, hoping to get a feel on the location of the last one. He had not stayed motionless after shooting with the Tesseract gun stopped being fun. Alone, out of the protection of big numbers, he did not stand a chance. May heard a step, followed it from a distance. She saw the shadow move quickly along, morphing into a man just for a second. She followed it, too. Convinced that she was on the right track, she went cautiously around the corner looking to put an icer into a retreating back, but there was no one inside and the aisle ended right there. Crates piled up at least two meters high on both sides. They were not impossible to climb for May, but a decent obstacle for a foot soldier with preference for machine guns.
Back of her neck tingled; something was completely wrong. The frozen feeling lasted all of a half second and then May was whipping around, icer coming up to point. The man was less then two meters away from her, his own gun at the ready. May pulled the trigger with no aiming. He went down instantly despite May´s doubts. She immediately came closer, weapon on the ready. It was too dark to see the typical crisscrossed pattern of the toxin on his skin, but not enough to miss the darkish wet streak coming from the exit wound on his forehead.
She struggled to see into the corridor behind the fallen man, the one she had just come through. There were mostly shadows and only one clear outline. The polished barrel of a gun that had been pointing at the dead man and was now pointed at her, held in the trademark double-handed grip Agent Grant Ward was known to be specially fond of.