This chapter is very plot-heavy compared to the last chapter, but it was necessary to move the timeline along. It also borrows heavily from 2x07 and 2x08, although the timeline and events were changed a little bit. For those of you more interested in family and Huntingbird bonding moments, I can tell you that this is the end of the Ward/dire-circumstances segment for now, and that the next few chapters will change up everything and allow for more of those moments.
For now, enjoy! :)
T.A.H.I.T.I.
"We meet again," she said as she walked into Vault E. A steel table had been set up for the interrogation, and Bakshi was currently seated at it. His hands were entrapped in metal cuffs and his knuckles were red and raw, but that was nothing compared to the large bruises forming on his face. Courtesy of Ward, she presumed, although it was also possible he came across Agent Simmons on the way down here. If she had been a specialist, Bobbi would have suggested they play some form of S.H.I.E.L.D. good-cop-bad-cop, but in all honesty Simmons simply wasn't threatening enough to pull that off. Not with someone like Bakshi.
Bobbi would just have to break him on her own.
"What, are we not talking?" Bobbi asked, cocking her head at him as she sat down. "From what I remember, that was something of a rare occurrence at HYDRA. You were always keeping me up to date on your little pet projects."
Bakshi simply gave her a tight-lipped smile and otherwise didn't react to her words, not that she'd expected him to. She made a show of getting comfortable in her seat and setting her full water bottle on the edge of the table, not-so-subtly indicating to him that she was in for the long haul. Cold, dry air from the ventilation system lightly floated past the back of her calves, slowly bringing the room temperature down to a brisk fifty-five degrees.
"I don't think I've ever seen you without your tie," Bobbi continued in that same nonchalant voice, eyeing his blue jumpsuit. When he still didn't respond, she smiled. "Okay, I guess we're done with the small talk then." Bobbi leaned forward, placing her elbows on the table. His expression remained unchanged. "I want to know what HYDRA's planning." His eyes simply glittered at her, so she broke the seal on her water bottle and took a drink. "They can't do anything for you anymore, Bakshi. As far as HYDRA is concerned, you're a liability."
She capped the bottle and set it back on the table. "If you think they're going to rescue you, you're sorely mistaken. You're not that important to them. You're not vital to their goals. You're disposable, Bakshi. On the off chance they did send someone...it would be someone like me, an enforcer: someone whose mission would be to ensure you didn't talk. Your best option now is to tell me everything I want to know."
He just stared back at her. Bobbi didn't let the silence go on too long before pushing her chair back and standing up. "I'll be back in a few hours, when you've changed your mind." Then she exited the room, leaving her water bottle on her side of the table, just out of his reach.
May was waiting for her outside. "How'd it go?"
"I'm letting him refrigerate a while," Bobbi replied. "After a few hours, maybe his tongue will loosen. The passage of time will wheedle away at his conviction that HYDRA will come for him, and there was no way he was going to turncoat with me there goading him toward it right away."
May nodded. "And the temperature?"
"Just a little trick I like to use to make the time pass slower," Bobbi smiled. "I'll try him again in a few hours, press the whole you-owe-them-nothing issue."
"Sounds good," the specialist agreed. "Simmons is about to debrief us on her autopsy findings. As a biologist, I'd like you to listen in."
Bobbi nodded, following May up to the lab. Skye and Coulson were already there waiting for them. Simmons pulled the sheet back on the body as soon as they got within three feet, and Bobbi ignored the autopsy smells that suddenly assaulted her nose with the movement. Frowning at the sight of the body—grotesquely carved with strange lines and circles, practically ripping through skin and flesh—she looked to the young biochemist for an explanation.
"The cuts were all quite deep," Simmons acknowledged them uneasily, "but the cause of death was cardiac arrest." Skye gave her a questioning look, but Bobbi understood the grim meaning behind Simmons' words. "She died from shock due to the pain, not from the wounds," the scientist clarified. "Very common in this type of ritualistic murder."
"Ritualistic?" Skye asked.
"It has all the characteristics," Simmons nodded. "The cuts are very precise, and the killer continued to carve on her long after she died, as if there were some need to complete the work. My hunch is that it wasn't the first time, either." She glanced between Coulson and May. "It's also not the first time we've seen these carvings. They're the same ones Garrett and...Garrett was making, correct?"
"That's correct," May said curtly. Bobbi glanced at Coulson, but he didn't say anything. She supposed the whole team knew by now about the symbols he'd been compelled to carve on the walls, but it seemed to be a sorer subject than Bobbi had originally picked up on.
"Well, I'm still waiting for their bloodwork to come back, but something tells me based on these carvings and the symbols in the paintings of the victim that one or more likely both of them had GH-325 in their blood," Simmons said. "Just like you and Skye do, sir."
"I'm well aware of that, Agent Simmons," Coulson told her. "How long until the bloodwork is done?"
"No more than half an hour," she informed him.
Skye bit her lower lip, then turned to the director. "There's always...the memory machine." There was silence as the four original team members exchanged glances, leaving Bobbi feeling the odd one out.
"Memory machine?" she asked.
"Raina used it on Coulson back before HYDRA fell, and he remembered some of what he went through during the T.A.H.I.T.I. treatment," May answered, the cold tone of her voice demonstrating how much she did not like this idea. She looked at Coulson. "The doctors buried those memories for a reason, Coulson. I don't think it's a good idea to dig up memories that have driven people like Garrett and our killer insane when your own compulsion has only been getting worse."
Skye shifted on her feet. "Maybe she's right, sir… It's a bad idea. Hell, in the history of bad ideas, it's years ahead of most everything."
"Trying to bring dead agents back to life using alien blood blows everything else away," Coulson replied. He looked at May. "I see your point, I really do, but I know the answers are in my head somewhere, locked away. We have to catch the man responsible for this, especially if he really did go through the T.A.H.I.T.I. treatment and is now murdering S.H.I.E.L.D. agents because of it. He may even come after us, and we don't even know who they were or how to locate them or even how many patients there were."
"How dangerous is this machine?" Bobbi asked, looking around at all four of them.
"Last time he was in it, he nearly died," Simmons admitted.
"I'm doing it," Coulson said, not even a shred of doubt left in his voice. "If going back into the machine saves even one life, then it's worth the risk. Simmons, get Fitz and have him pull it out of storage and prep it for use."
"Yes, sir," Simmons replied.
May stared at him hard and long for a minute, with the rest of them just standing there silently. Her stance unnerved even Simmons from moving, despite the direct order. "If you're going in that thing, we're going to be monitoring you very closely," the senior specialist said finally.
"I wouldn't expect otherwise," Coulson nodded. "Simmons, Fitz."
"Right," the younger woman ducked her head, heading out of the lab.
The director turned to Skye. "I'm going to need you to be my anchor in there; keep me focused on the task. May, you and Mack can help if something goes wrong."
"Help?" Skye asked.
"Hold me down," Coulson clarified grimly. "Bobbi, while the rest of us are doing this, I need you to keep working Bakshi and be in charge of base security. We've been on high alert since Ward broke in, and we will be until we catch him again."
"Understood, sir," Bobbi nodded. She wasn't sure whether to feel glad she wasn't following through on all this alien-blood stuff or whether she was just going to be missing out on all the action. Then again, she wasn't supposed to be in any action right now—Isabelle was most important.
They all dispersed to their respective duties, and she headed upstairs to Skye's workstation, where she could check the feed of all the security cameras at once. Once she had ascertained none of them were running on a loop using a little device Fitz had invented that moved a small mechanical arm across the sensor upon command, she checked all of the perimeter alarms and even went through the last few hours of security logs, killing time until enough had passed that she could go pay Bakshi another visit. She ignored the desire to go and see Isabelle for a few minutes before resuming her interrogation—she'd only been away from her for a little over two hours, and she knew from the camera feed that she and Hunter were currently having some father-daughter bonding time playing with Hoppity in the lounge. She didn't want to interrupt that.
She also knew he was carrying an ICER tucked into his waistband, and somehow that made her feel safer about the whole thing.
When it was time for her to back to Vault E, she took a moment to compose herself before standing up and walking down the stairs. The same rules applied as last time. No thinking about Isabelle. No thinking about Hunter. No thinking about the agent whose safehouse she'd accidentally given up to Bakshi. Just the mission.
Bobbi was happy to find the temperature of the room had significantly decreased since she had started the interrogation process. Her subject looked up as she entered, the posture of discomfort and boredom leaving him as she pulled out the chair across from him. "I want to know what HYDRA's planning," she repeated. "And the names of its top leaders besides Whitehall, and the locations of their bases."
Bakshi's lip curled. "Anything else?" Bobbi hid her own smile at having gotten him to speak. That was the crucial first step—and crucial misstep on the part of the interrogatee—of any investigation. That was what allowed them to argue, to debate. That was what allowed him to eventually slip up. That was what would allow Bobbi to win. "We grow stronger every day while S.H.I.E.L.D. clings desperately to a world it no longer understands," Bakshi continued talking.
A deep sense of satisfaction filled her. Go time.
"Here you are," Bobbi said, handing May a white S.H.I.E.L.D. file folder. "Transcript's in there if you want to look at it, but the most important bits I summarized on a separate page."
"Anything useful?" the specialist asked, taking the folder.
"I think Bakshi slipped up," Bobbi nodded. "Something was off in there...he made it sound like Whitehall and Red Skull knew each other. Personally."
"Which shouldn't be possible, given that Red Skull died in the '40s," May nodded. "I'll have the team look into it in the old SSR files."
"How's Coulson?" she asked.
"He's…" May paused. "He says he's fine. He discovered the name of another T.A.H.I.T.I. patient, and he, Skye, Mack, and Triplett are gearing up to bring him in before our killer gets to him too." She gave her a tight-lipped smile, holding up the file folder. "I'll have FitzSimmons start working on this. You should take a break, spend some time with Isabelle."
"Will do. Thanks, May." Bobbi turned and left the room, heading for the lounge. Hunter and Isabelle were nowhere to be found, so she went to their makeshift room instead.
The sound of high-pitched laughter emanated from behind the closed door, and Bobbi smiled as she pushed it open. "You're back!" Isabelle squealed, leaping off the bed to engulf her legs in a bear hug.
"Yes, I am," Bobbi grinned, lifting her up. "How are you? Were you good for Lance?"
"Very good," Isabelle nodded vigorously. "He gave me ice cream and now he says I'm bo...bou…"
"Bouncing off the walls," Hunter supplied, plucking her out of Bobbi's arm and dropping her onto the bed. He tickled her, eliciting that high-pitched laughter Bobbi had heard earlier. "Yes, you are!"
Bobbi smiled, taking a seat on the bed. Hunter let up on his tickling and Isabelle scrambled away from him, hiding on the other side so that only the top of her golden head was visible. "So I take it things went well?" she asked him quietly.
"You can't get me here!" Isabelle shrieked, popping her head up for a brief second to stick out her tongue before promptly disappearing again.
Hunter crouched at the end of bed like an animal ready to pounce. "Come out, come out, Isabelle!" he called in a playfully sinister voice. He glanced at Bobbi. "Yeah, everything's great," he replied in a low voice. "Only one question, though: why is she all of a sudden calling me 'Daddy'?"
I'd love to know what you thought!