They were each given a headset so they could communicate over the volume of the chopper blades and motor. As Commander Hill finished explaining that Agents May, Mack, and Morse were going to be okay and Daisy’s dad would meet them at the hospital, Daisy’s hand tightened around the pantheon.
“Thank you.” Daisy swallowed and tried to steady her voice. She was sitting across from Commander Hill and looked directly into her eyes. Finding nothing but concern and steady authority there, Daisy made her request. “I have to talk to Fury. I mean, Ma’am. I need to speak with the director, ma’am.”
Hill let a shadow of a smile tweak her lips. “You will. He’ll find you. We have a lot of questions for you, Daisy Johnson. And your team.” She looked around the helicopter with curiosity. “Bit out of the way for a class field trip to the woods.”
“We were left without full awareness of the assignment,” Fitz grumbled.
“Commander. Ma’am.” Carol sat up straight and spoke as directly and with as much decorum as she could under the circumstances. “We have reason to believe Agent Garrett is aiding the Pantheon organization.”
“No, Miss Danvers. I have reasonto believe it,” Hill countered. “I suspect if you were at the Fort, you have proofof it.” She eyed Daisy’s clenched fist where the USB hid.
They were each given a headset so they could communicate over the volume of the chopper blades and motor. As Commander Hill finished explaining that Agents May, Mack, and Morse were going to be okay and Daisy’s dad would meet them at the hospital, Daisy’s hand tightened around the pantheon.
“Thank you.” Daisy swallowed and tried to steady her voice. She was sitting across from Commander Hill and looked directly into her eyes. Finding nothing but concern and steady authority there, Daisy made her request. “I have to talk to Fury. I mean, Ma’am. I need to speak with the director, ma’am.”
Hill let a shadow of a smile tweak her lips. “You will. He’ll find you. We have a lot of questions for you, Daisy Johnson. And your team.” She looked around the helicopter with curiosity. “Bit out of the way for a class field trip to the woods.”
“We were left without full awareness of the assignment,” Fitz grumbled.
“Commander. Ma’am.” Carol sat up straight and spoke as directly and with as much decorum as she could under the circumstances. “We have reason to believe Agent Garrett is aiding the Pantheon organization.”
“No, Miss Danvers. I have reasonto believe it,” Hill countered. “I suspect if you were at the Fort, you have proofof it.” She eyed Daisy’s clenched fist where the USB hid.
“I need to speak with the director,” Daisy repeated.
Commander Hill nodded and relaxed into her seat.
As they neared the hospital, a voice barked over the communications system. “Hill? I wanted those kids here 10 minutes ago!”
“Director, we are landing now. Oh… and I think we picked the right candidates for the Program, sir. You’d be proud.”
“I know I’m damn proud, Hill; I want them at this hospital!”
For the first time in several hours, the four students exchanged small, tentative smiles. By Program, they knew she meant the Secret Warriors. There was still a mole on the loose, and a dangerous Pantheon one at that, but if Daisy’s theory was right, when they had trained and proven themselves worthy, they were getting superpowers.
———
“Dad!” Daisy called out as she saw Phil in the hospital waiting room. He wrapped her in a bear hug until she pulled away to flood him with questions. “How’s Mom, where is she, is she okay, can I see her?”
“One at a time, my sky,” he choked out, stroking away tears from her cheek that she hadn’t even been aware had sprung up. “She’s gonna be okay. They are working on her now. She’ll have to do some rehab for her leg and she’ll be out of the field for a while, but she’ll be okay.”
He swallowed as he held back tears too.
“I think I caught Pantheon,” she whispered to him, unclenching her fist from around the USB souvenir just long enough for him to see. “Turns out there was more to the camping trip than planned.” She looked away sheepishly and caught Carol’s eye, who sent an encouraging nod.
“That’s my girl!” Phil’s eyes brightened in pride.
“We need to talk to Fury,” she continued, determined to solve the puzzle she’d been pondering since she first watched his video. “I think…”
She trailed off as the Director himself entered the room with Mack, who looked shaken and bruised but wasn’t wearing a hospital admittance bracelet.
“You four,” he waved a finger in the general direction of Carol, Fitz, Jemma, and Daisy and pointed to a small room just off the waiting area. They followed, and Jemma sent Fitz a strong, silent “no” as he nearly began to laugh at the wall of brochures with titles like “Living gallbladder-free!” and “The care and keeping of your spleen!” and posters with illustrations of cartoon organs and humans holding hands.
Fury gestured for them to sit down, as if it were his office. “I understand you four have some stolen information for me from a decommissioned Shield base you trespassed onto while you were supposed to be roasting marshmallows and telling ghost stories on a class camping trip.”
Carol gaped and blinked. Jemma blushed deeply, and Fitz sputtered to defend them, but before any of them could say anything, Daisy held out her hand, with the pantheon USB in her palm. He accepted it but waited for their explanation.
“Everything I have on Pantheon, sir,” she stated somberly, before correcting herself. “Well, everything you didn’t already have that was on my old laptop.”
“Sir. Pantheon was using it as a base of operations,” Carol added. “We intercepted communications as an aircraft left the base, sir.”
Daisy’s stomach churned. The “eagle hunt.” Garrett was referring to the attack that hurt her mom and the other agents.
“He did this,” she whispered, looking over her shoulder, through the glass window, and down the hospital hallway.
Fury’s look of confusion was answered by Fitz. “Professor John Garrett, the one who dropped us off in the woods with barely a crash course. He was the one on the radio we heard communicating with the pilot. He must have flown out of the Fort after he abandoned us.”
“You’re certain?” Fury looked down at Daisy’s pantheon and back up at their young, haunted faces.
Jemma nodded. “It was his voice, sir. They were going to attack a Shield team. The pilot leaving the Fort called him the Clairvoyant.”
Fury’s expression hardened. He pointed to Carol. “You. Get me Hill.” He then looked to Fitz and Jemma. “You two are free to go. Anything else you have, I want in a debrief report to the agent sitting with Professor Johnson.”
“Yes, sir.” They repeated and all filed out, except for Daisy.
“Miss Johnson.” He leaned back in his chair, as if sizing her up. “You may have found in your … explorationsof highly classified Shield files that your captor was a follower of this Clairvoyant.”
“I didn’t—” She was interrupted by his pointed eyebrow raise and realized what he was really saying. She didn’t have clearance, but he was telling her anyway. “Oh. He was a student of Garrett’s. At Carter Academy.” She put the pieces together and felt like she was going to be sick.
“Formerly. Obviously, that privilege has been revoked. Between his arrogance and your skills tonight, assuming what is on this—” he held up the pantheon “—is what you say it is, Shield may have apprehended its greatest threat. Not John Garrett, but the compromised security of its assets and agents.”
“I just wish I could have warned you sooner.” Daisy shook her head and glanced to the hallway again. If she’d been able to let them know as soon as they heard, maybe her mom and her team wouldn’t have been hurt, or… “If I could have gotten on his plane, somehow, caught on to his plan earlier, maybe I could have helped fight him.”
“Miss Johnson.” Fury leaned in and his stormy expression made Daisy sit up straighter and focus on his words. “Shield isn’t all about punching bad guys or your martial arts belt color. It’s about protection. Whether that’s one man from himself or the entire universe against an alien invasion.” Her eyes widened at alien invasion. But Fury continued, hitting closer to home, “Or protecting the secrecy of information the world isn’t ready for yet. It’s a broad job description. One you can be part of filling as an agent one day.”
“Thank you, sir.” Daisy exhaled.
“I’m not here to congratulate you, Daisy. I’m asking you to lead.”
“Sir?”
“The mission your mother and her team are recovering from was a successful one. They recovered stolen property of Shield’s that will not only ensure our future, but yours. Specifically of that Program we don’t talk about.”
“Superpowers,” Daisy exhaled, not realizing she’d said it out loud.
Fury barked out a laugh and relaxed. “You can go now, Miss Johnson. But remember. I’m keeping my eye on you.” He pointed to his remaining good eye, and she wasn’t sure if it was a joke or a threat, so she simply nodded, stood, and thanked him again before leaving. As she did, she let in Commander Hill whom, she suspected from Hill’s wry hint of an approving smile, overheard the latter part of the conversation from the otherwise-empty hallway.
——-
Daisy awoke with a sore neck and realized she had been sleeping in the hospital chair next to her mom’s bed. She yawned and breathed in the sterilized smell hospitals always seem to have. Elsewhere down the hallway, there were so many beeping noises and people talking, she wondered that she was able to sleep at all.
“He’ll pay,” On the other side of the bed, Phil was reassuring Melinda, who had an IV in her arm and a cast on her leg but, from the fire in her eyes, still looked ready to fight someone.
“I wanna kill him,” she grumbled.
“I know,” he soothed. “Me too. Let’s just rest a bit, okay? Oh, look who’s awake!” They both turned to look in Daisy’s direction, where she was stretching and adjusting her eyes to the morning light.
“Hi,” Daisy mumbled, still groggy. She felt like once she got into a proper bed, she’d sleep for a week. Reality flooded back in as she looked around. “Mom, you’re awake! Are you okay? I mean, obviously, you’re not okay, but …”
“Daisy,” Melinda interrupted. “I’m going to be fine. I heard you did good work last night.”
Phil held up the pantheon thumbdrive. “Fury himself said so. Key evidence for arresting and, we assume soon sentencing, John Garrett.”
He tossed the thumbdrive back to Daisy across the bed. It took all of her brain power to catch both the pantheon and what he meant. “They got him?”
“With your help,” Melinda added, the most impressed Daisy had ever seen her mom look.
Daisy looked back down at the thumbdrive. “What about the other kids, at the campsite?”
Phil sent her a look she couldn’t quite interpret, perhaps pride, or perhaps seeing a bit of himself in her. “The buses went back to bring them home almost as soon as Shield received your alert signal at the Fort. You don’t have to worry about them. They all wanted to know about you though, if you and your team were okay. Seems you made some friends out there.”
Daisy nodded, feeling the weight of responsibility back on her. Remembering the way they had all looked to her. Remembering last night, Fury asking her to not only join the Secret Warriors but lead. Her mom had said her dad had been Fury’s right-hand man before he changed jobs to raise her. Maybe it was in her blood and she had that potential too, to rise to the heavy expectations everyone seemed to have for her.
For now, there was one person in particular whose opinion she was most worried about. Melinda sensed her emotions and saw her glance to the door.
“An agent took the other students back to campus last night,” she informed her daughter. “They’re all fine, and they were instructed to get your stuff back from the bus and bring it here this morning.”
“They’re coming back?” Daisy clarified. She realized she probably looked terrible and raked her fingers through her hair. “Um, I’ll be right back.” Her parents exchanged knowing glances as she rushed out to the restroom in the hallway to fix what she could of her appearance with limited resources.
As she did, she walked past a room with a few Shield agents around the bed of an agent from her mom’s team.
“I have to warn Hunter,” the agent mumbled, attempting to get out of bed.
“It’s okay, I’ve got my contacts looking for him.” She couldn’t see him, but she could tell by the voice it was Agent Mack, their team leader. Daisy slowed her pace and glanced in at a better angle. The woman in the bed was Agent Morse, who sounded like she was in a lot of pain.
“Hey!” Agent Morse tried to shout at the door but couldn’t make it sound authoritative. Daisy ducked and continued walking past, but Mack caught up with her.
She blushed at having been caught. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to overhear.”
Mack’s expression said he didn’t believe her, but since he didn’t call her out on the slight lie, she glanced back into the room and continued, “Is she gonna be okay?”
“Oh yeah,” Mack’s expression softened. “She’ll be fine. She wants to talk to you though. Come on.”
He held the door open and Agent Morse sat up as best she could, wincing.
“Daisy Johnson.” Morse attempted a smile, but was too exhausted and in too much pain to be convincing. “I hear you helped them get the intel to find and capture the bastard who ordered this.”
Daisy shook her head. “Just happened to be in the right place at the right time.”
Agent Morse looked to Agent Mack, who chuckled lightly. “From what I heard, you four did more than that.”
Daisy looked up to him and back to Agent Morse. “I’m sorry we couldn’t get it sooner.”
“Nah, don’t think like that,” Agent Morse reassured her. “Hell, when I was a freshman, I would hardly have known valuable intel if it’d been handed right to me. You’re doing great, kid.”
Daisy felt it again. The honor of having so many believe in her and yet, the pressure of the expectations she was under.
“Thank you. I hope you feel better soon,” she added meekly, not knowing what else to say. She backed toward the door and the agents resumed their earlier conversations, in more hushed tones.
———
Daisy did her best to clean up at the restroom sink, but paper towels and hand soap and brushing her fingers through her hair could only go so far. She spotted a bowl of wrapped mints by the exit and took a few. It wasn’t a toothbrush, but it was better than nothing.
She assumed Carol would volunteer to come back with Fitz and Jemma to the hospital with her things, and she was right. She had also assumed Carol, having had the opportunity to sleep in her own bed, would have looked more well-rested than she did, but when Daisy saw her, Carol’s dark circles said otherwise.
“Hey,” Daisy greeted Carol as she walked into the hospital waiting room.
“Hey.” Carol smiled weakly. “FitzSimmons are parking the car. All the close spots were taken, but they are coming in to say hi and visit your mom. They just dropped me off first so I could give you this.” Carol handed over Daisy’s duffle bag from the bus.
“Thanks. Are you okay?”
Carol blinked in surprise at the question, but Daisy waited for an answer with concern. “I… I am in a hospital but I’m not sick or injured, so I’m doing really well, comparatively speaking.” She tried to joke, but Daisy wasn’t laughing, so she tried a diversion instead. “Have you even slept at all? You were here all night. And your mom?”
“My mom’s fine. Or she will be. We’ll go see her in a sec.” Daisy tilted her head in observation and suspicion. “You didn’t really answer my question. Did yousleep?”
Carol looked away and then back at Daisy and sighed. “I slept. Some. I couldn’t get the sounds out of my head.” She lowered her voice and her gaze until she was staring at the ground. “I kept hearing the alarm you triggered on the base, but it was here in the hospital. We had to get everyone out, but I couldn’t find you.” She met Daisy’s eyes again with a haunted expression, clearly recalling the emotion of the nightmare even as she stood so close.
“I’m here.” Daisy dropped her bag and wrapped Carol in a hug. “I’m right here.”
Carol held Daisy close. “Me too.”
The moment didn’t last, as the sound of a frustrated young Scotsman and an English girl could be heard explaining to the nurse at the reception desk that they were trying to find a Daisy Johnson, and no, she wasn’t a patient here, just a visitor like themselves.
“Guys!” Daisy called and waved. “Over here.”
The couple sighed in relief in perfect synchronicity as they saw her.
Daisy picked up her bag and led them all down a hallway to her mom’s room. Somehow the hospital didn’t seem so bleak and miserable with them by her side.
They filed into Melinda’s room and stood around her bed as Daisy shared the news her parents had broken earlier: John Garrett had been captured and was no longer a danger to Shield.
“Intel leads to quick results at Shield,” Phil said with a little pride in his tone. “Especially to root out a mole.”
“Pantheon isn’t gone forever,” Melinda cautioned. “Don’t be surprised if we see more of them in the future. These organizations have an annoying way of resurrecting themselves after they lose a head.”
“But for today,” Daisy attempted to lighten the tone again, “it’s a win. One you were all part of making.”
Carol stood tall. Daisy had the sense that if they had had champagne glasses, she would have called for a toast.
“Our team,” Carol stated. “Together.”
“Together,” Fitz echoed and looked to Jemma.
“Together.” She smiled back at him.
Daisy swallowed and looked to Carol, who returned the intensity of her wordless expression. Daisy said it last, loud and clear:
“Together.”
Then after a few minutes, as FitzSimmons moved closer to Phil and Melinda to talk, and Daisy and Carol hung back, Daisy said it once more to her alone, quieter, as a vow:
“Together.”
Carol didn’t respond except to take Daisy’s hand in her own and rub her thumb across the back. It was the magic spell to calm the storm of Daisy’s anxieties. With her friends by her side, they could weather whatever may come next.
