Chapter 14: The Only Light in the Darkness

Hello again! Ok, this chapter has taken WAY too long, but school just finished for Easter break so I finally had the chance to finish the chapter. We are drawing to a close so hang in there; there's only 4 more chapters to go! Yay!

Enjoy,

LittlePond

Chapter 14: The Only Light in the Darkness

The files were heavy; all 108 of my missions documented between my knuckles, solid with the truth they presented.

I nodded my thanks to Coulson who'd allowed me to view them. It had taken several days, and a mission's worth of bonding to persuade him, but I'd managed. "Why do you want these again?" I shrugged, hoping that he wouldn't press too hard, these were dangerous times for a girl like me.

"I remember Garrett said something about it- I'm curious."

"About S.H.A.D.O? The Strategic Hazardous Assassination Directorate Operation?" Coulson asked. I didn't want him to be suspicious, but he seemed to be headed that way. "I have a theory that S.H.A.D.O is HYDRA." Coulson seemed to buy that, and petted the file as though a cat, "Makes sense. Have fun reading them; they get grisly."

Coulson began to move out as I answered, "She isn't one of the most dangerous assassins for nothing."

"She?"

My brain grasped at the threads of excuses as the lie slipped out. "It's a feminist thing; unknown things become female." He nodded in that abrupt, censored version of his and left me alone, muttering, "Have fun with a cold-blooded murderess."

A lot happened since the HYDRA uprising. The team, including Trip, had abandoned the Hub as Kernel Glenn Talbot of the US Air Force threatened to intake us in exchange for 6 months of court hearings.

In doing so, Coulson received a set of coordinates from Fury- seriously, the man could not stay dead- which led us to a secret base named Providence in the Canadian woods.

Fury, however presumably dead he was, was too good at this game for his own good.

Ward hadn't been with us; he'd taken Garrett to the Fridge with Hand. Though assuming his allegiances, Hand was dead now and the Clairvoyant was free. The son of a bitch.

Which was why I was smouldering as Ward repeated his story, Simmons scurrying about attempting to clean his wounds.

"By the time we got to the Fridge it was too late. HYDRA everywhere, we couldn't stop them," Ward explained, saying that HYDRA had taken all they could get their hands on. Including the prisoners, which meant Ian Quinn was back.

He also claimed Garrett was dead, with 2 bullets in his head. I knew that was crap, but I couldn't help but revel in sympathy when Trip said he would've emptied the mag had it been him to kill him.

Within moments, Ward picked up the subject of why I knew was the reason he returned, "1 small victory. HYDRA didn't get their hands on this." In his hands was the hard drive to which Skye downloaded our research, encrypted for safe keeping.

"We should probably back it up, now that we're in a secure facility," Ward suggested. From the alien virus, to GH-325, none I wanted in HYDRA's hands, and the idea set my mind on edge. Coulson stepped in, "First Skye, I need you on threat assessment, pull up a list of the Fridge inmates."

Once only the HYDRA agents remained in the lab, I stomped to Ward, "Alright, I need some straight answers right now." He chuckled, despite the pain which the movement must've caused to his broken ribs. "Straight answers? After what you've done?"

Once again; because I hadn't followed orders, I'd ruined everything for everyone.

"I couldn't exactly get out," I turned my back to him, leaning against the desk, "You and Garrett killed Hand and took over the Fridge, didn't you?" Ward agreed, and said Whitehall and Garrett wanted me out fast. "How do you suppose I get out?" Faking one's death was tricky business, especially when your identity was fabricated.

"You're S.H.A.D.O; think of something."

Ward began to walk out, to where I had no clue, but I had another question.

"But why? HYDRA has it's best assassin with S.H.I.E.L.D'S trust, why not exploit that?" He stopped after a few steps, gripping his bandages, "We're soldiers. We follow orders, not question them."

"But we decide right from wrong. Has S.H.I.E.L.D taught you nothing?"

"Are you thinking of defecting, Aurelia?" Ward questioned, his voice sharp, like all HYDRA members. They had no variance, no variety. Each one concerned with the mission, nothing else.

They were different than the HYDRA I knew, they had evolved, or I had devolved. Either way, we had outgrown each other.

"Know whose side you're on, and fast. This is war," he said.

~~~

"Alright, just need you guys to answer a few questions," the leader of Providence, Koenig, stated, as a very imposing chair swivelled to face us. It looked like a carnivorous insect, silent and perched, waiting for the right prey.

It looked like something from a dream, or a memory of a dream, but with the effort of remembrance, my mind became slippery like mist on a winter's morning.

"A few psychoanalytic questions," Koenig elaborated, which I didn't understand until Coulson said it for us; a lie detector.

Oh dear. This couldn't be good.

"The lie detector. This baby measures galvanic skin response, oxygen consumption, micro-expressions, bio-feedback brainwaves, pupil dilation, voice bio-metrics, 96 variables in all. Fury designed this himself, he wanted a lie detector Romanoff couldn't beat."

"Did she?" If Natasha Romanoff couldn't beat this thing, I was screwed. Koenig chuckled like a teenager in the line to meet an idol. "Like Fury would tell!"

Coulson sighed, saying the sooner we got this done, the sooner we could stop HYDRA.

The wait to go through 'Orientation,' as Koenig called it, was intolerable. One by one, the team entered, and one by one, they exited, lanyards in hand. The lanyards that permitted exit and entry from Providence.

Eventually, only Ward and I remained. I had no idea how luck made that happen, or fate as some would call it, but I was clearly angering whoever was in charge of those things.

"Think we can do this?" Ward asked me, catching the silence off guard and snapping it's neck. I sighed, "If this thing is a match for Romanoff we're screwed."

The Specialist rolled his eyes, fragments of his patriotic S.H.I.E.L.D persona flaring out of his smile. I wondered for a moment if any of that had been real. Back when Miles was on the plane and he flashed those protective glances, had any of them been out of real care? Or had they been all part of HYDRA's master plan?

"Thanks for the encouragement."

"Hey, the Black Widow is the Black-" The door to the room clicked open, Koenig exiting with a grin on his face. The poor man had been down here since the Battle of New York with only Call of Duty: Black Ops for company. He must've been enjoying himself.

"Agent Ward, you're up," he instructed, pointing to the doorway with his thumb.

Ward pushed off the wall with the flat palms, mouth hardening into a tight line with the strain on his fractured body. "Wish me luck," he muttered. It was my turn to smirk, to allow Kennedy Montgomery to arise, "You'll need it."

Eventually, it was my turn.

The chair was even less comfortable when you sat in it; there were monitors on your wrists, ankles, even your thumb. I remembered Koenig saying something about measuring pupil dilation, and wondered how they got those images. After pondering for a while, I decided it was better not thought about.

From below the dais that the chair sat, Koenig looked up from the screens reading my biometrics. "We'll start with some easy questions to establish a base line. Can I have your full name?"

Question 1, and I was already having trouble.

Slow your breathing, calm down, truly believe your words. Aurelia Tempest never existed. There's only Kennedy Montgomery.

"Kennedy Jordan Montgomery."

Koenig looked down at the diagrams, analysing the data. He bought my answer and moved to the next question. "Eye colour?"

"Blue."

"Please list your immediate family." I went through the same routine, picturing fake memories in my head, imagining the faces of my family in detail, making myself believe in the illusion. "Mom and dad; both deceased. I have grandparents and an uncle."

I must've been getting the hang of this, since Koenig moved onto the next question with only a simple nod. "What's the difference between an egg and a rock?"

The questions seemed to be going in a pattern: easy, hard, easy, hard. But I decided I shouldn't jinx myself. With a deep breath I answered, "Apart from the various chemical differences, an egg is edible, a rock, depending on the type, is a weapon."

"Have you ever head of Project Insight?"

"No. Sounds like a communist thing though."

I remembered something through HYDRA gossip but the details were fuzzy.

"Have you had any contact with Alexander Pierce?" Once again, I knew of him, but Whitehall had never permitted me to meet with the heads of HYDRA, only once when I was 15, but Pierce had been unable to attend that meeting. "No."

"You wash up on a deserted island alone, sitting on the sand is a box. What is in that box?"

This question. There was always this kind of question in any type of quiz, from 'which Disney princess are you?', to 'what colour is my aura?'

I shrugged, or as much as I could in the chair, "Any specific type of island?" Koenig shook his head, as if the others had also asked this question; we thought alike. "Just the first thing that comes into your head."

"Maximoffs."

Crap, that was a risky answer. All it would take to uncover me was a search on their history to realise where they'd been the past few months, or years. How long had it been?

Koenig looked up the from the screens, "Who?" Ok Tempest, play it cool. The Maximoffs aren't related to HYDRA, they're regular citizens. "Very good friends of mine, from before S.H.I.E.L.D."

The lie came smoothly, like butter left out in room temperature. With a double take at one of the graphs, Koenig took to the next question.

"S.H.I.E.L.D no longer exists. The agency has been labelled a terrorist organisation, so why are you here?"

The hard question. I really did jinx myself.

The truth was I didn't know, but the answer was so close that couldn't fail to grasp it. So the next best answer was out, "I'm not sure."

But the words felt wrong in my mouth, as if they'd been meant for another version of me.

"Can I have that again?"

Looking down, I saw the desk was large, too large for just a computer, so there was most likely a weapon, incase of an infiltrator .If I chose wrong, Koenig could pull out a gun and end it right here, which couldn't happen; I wasn't done here.

Koenig's steel eyes hardened, getting ready to make the hard call, like he must have in Call of Duty during those months since New York. I saw his hand begin to crawl toward the drawer in slow motion.

In that moment I could hear the gunshot, feel my skin caving around the bullet and smell my blood trickle down my navel, cleansing me in scarlet glory.

And the fear of ending everything here, at such an anti-climax, forced the answer out, the glint of gunmetal peeking over the desk like a timid zoo animal.

"The team. They're the only people aside from the Maximoffs who're like me. I want to stick with them."

"Well then, good job, Agent Montgomery."

~~~

The prisoner's name was Marcus Daniels.

He worked at a psychics lab, working with something called Dark Force. And like every Star Wars movie, nothing goes bad when you work with Dark Force.

Once exposed, Daniels gained the ability to absorb energy. Even better, he was pathologically insane, and obsessed with cellist Audrey Nathan, whom he called his 'only light in the darkness.'

The plan was simple; now that Daniels was free, if we found the cellist, we find Daniels.

The woman in question spoke through the speakers, recounting her tale. Coulson, Fitz and I remained in a separate room, while Simmons and Trip interviewed her. Coulson stood a little way off, staring as if reliving a memory. I wondered if this mission was more personal; perhaps Daniels was an old friend.

"Then a S.H.I.E.L.D agent came to my door," Audrey recounted, the sound of her voice was like coins, "I don't know why but I trusted him, the handsome part maybe? He just swooped in like out of a movie. He promised me he would stop Daniels, and that's what he did. Phil never lied to me."

I turned to face Coulson with an expression that screamed, Are you serious?

At his desk, Fitz dropped the pencil from his mouth.

We had formulated a plan, and gathered at Audrey's auditorium that night. Simmons, Trip and Audrey stood onstage, Fitz, Coulson and I remained in an office for the backstage crew, watching down like hawks.

The plan was simple; Audrey would rehearse until Daniels showed up.

"We got to get going, Daniels'll be here soon," Coulson reminded us as Audrey prepared for her rehearsal. "Why don't you tell her the truth?" Fitz asked.

Right, the thing that had me itching to scream at Coulson. He refused to tell Audrey, the woman he loved, that he was alive.

"It's not because you're afraid to talk to her?" Fitz asked, eyes trailing Simmons, making my being soar with ecstasy at his obvious crush. Coulson sighed the sigh of an ancient creature, tired of the world's tricks, "I don't want to hurt her again. Besides, it's not like I can stay."

The room fell into a bleak silence, filling the space with a heavy vapour. I gripped one of the high energy canons we were to use to take down Daniels and stood in between them, "Ready to take down Daniels boys?"

As silence fell over the auditorium, and the spotlight landed on Audrey as she lifted her bow and struck the cello's strings, erecting an indulgent noise. "She's very beautiful," I stated truthfully, unable to break my gaze away from the woman underneath the spotlight's cloak.

If only I'd been older.

"I know," Coulson smiled and remained silent for a while, as though trying to think what to say next. Eventually he decided, "Do you have anyone outside of S.H.I.E.L.D, besides family?"

I knew I should lie, it was the best way to safeguard my secret; I already compromised my security with Koenig. But the nature of the moment told me otherwise, and if I could trust anyone, it was Coulson.

"Yes."

Audrey's notes sunk lower in pitch, fingers waltzing across the strings as though in a trance. I could see why Coulson had taken a liking to her, she had the elegance of a performer. "Mind if I ask who?"

Now that I'd decided to speak truthfully I felt lighter. It sounded cliche, but there was no way else to describe; a supreme weight had vanished, and now I felt as though a child learning to walk. Free.

"There's two; twins actually." Coulson smirked, gaze still on Audrey, "Nice. Identical?" I shook my head, drumming my fingers on the controls, "No; different genders. Wanda and Pietro."

"Any of them..." Coulson trailed off, though I know what he was insinuating, "Like I was with Audrey?" I smiled and looked down, almost embarrassed to admittance, like a daughter introducing a lover to a father. "Yes."

"How long have you been together?"

He seemed so eager to know about Pietro, it was almost creepy, but still adorable.

My heart soared at the absence of pronouns. Normally, one would immediately assume I was with a male, which I was, but the female part was an option to me too.

"A few months, I think?" I guessed, "We were friends for some time before, but it was like-" "You'd known him your whole life."

The accuracy of his words felt like being beaten in the best way. "Exactly," I answered, looking at the man with new eyes. "But we're completely different. We only met because I was on my way to the lab, while he was on the way to the gym."

Coulson knitted his eyebrows, looking briefly at me before drawing his gaze back to Audrey, "That's very different."

The story came naturally, like stretching a muscle after waking from a pleasant dream. "Well if you ignore the martial arts. You and Audrey seem different too. A government agent and a cellist." It seemed a weird mesh of occupations, and yet it seemed something out of a movie.

"Would they be worried about you? You've been off grid for a while." If he thought I wasn't going to notice the change in subject, he was wrong. But I had to go along with it because Kennedy Montgomery would.

The next chapter of the story came rushing out, "Pietro went to study abroad with Wanda to Sokovia. They're not due back for a while."

How I wished that that was true. How I wished I could return home to the Maximoffs. Stability. Trust. Family. All these things I didn't have, all these things I lacked, all these things I craved.

"Maybe once this is over, we can organise a call, catch you two up," Coulson suggested, giving me one of those smiles. It reeked of his paternal instincts, the instincts I only saw directed at Skye, and not once had I ever expected that to be directed at me.

Whitehall, for all the years he had raised me, had never looked at me like that.

Blinking hard, I looked back to the stage, finding a reason as to why Whitehall wouldn't; he was business like, work orientated; he probably never had the time. "That would be nice. Thank you."

The cellist stopped in the middle of her song, her bow clanging on the stage with the rattle of a knight's sword.

"No, please," she begged, and following her line of sight, the madman walked into view.

Even without the trench coat, Marcus Daniels gave off the aura of psychosis. His steps were slow and deliberate, his entire being stationary, and his gaze focused on 1 objective; Audrey.

Maybe it was because she was beautiful, maybe it was because she was a loved one of Coulson's, but I wanted to run right out and eliminate the threat before any damage could be done.

And then the plan went into effect.

A trio of blinding white light flew through the atmosphere, hitting him at a T intersection. Daniels raised an arm, darkness leeching out like a plague. I'd seen beautiful gifts; linear soft blue and gentle curls of scarlet, but the black, almost purple darkness that struck Trip was an ugly thing.

My very DNA was repulsed by it, as if it gravitated toward white, pure light.

After Trip fell, Fitz-Simmons soon followed as Daniels continued to Audrey, who placed her instrument down and scooted off her chair. Coulson and I shared a look, and ran downstairs to help.

I scampered to the rafters where Fitz nursed Simmons' wounds, throwing away the image of Fitz kneeling by her, soothing her pain. I ignored the shaking of the metal underneath my combat boots, and forgot the sound of 2 canons turning on downstairs.

I grabbed the high energy canon and turned it on to its highest intensity, adrenaline swimming through my bloodstream, relishing in the course of my veins as the light joined Coulson and Trip's, my being settling around the illumination.

Daniels let out a cry, as the whirring of the energy reached a crescendo, and with a final scream, he exploded in a chessboard of energy.

~~~

When we arrived back at Providence, the group of us came to a startling realisation.

The hangar was empty, the Bus was gone.

"Where's our Bus?" Simmons asked. "And our team?" Fitz added.

No one knew.