Friends and Foes

To say that Skye was unhappy to see Ian Quinn once more in her life would be an understatement - she just gave him her best glare and did her best not to blast him into pieces with her vibrations. Considering that he went very pale as soon as he saw her, it worked.

"You know him?" Lance neutrally asked as the rest of the party (except for the rescuees, who kind of got out of the way) kind of moved between the two of them.

"Yeah. He was one of Garrett's little conspiracy," Skye gave Quinn another glare, but with a more sullen anger than the glare efore this. "Alongside Ward and Raina and the rest of the Hydra stooges." She paused. "So what are you doing here, playing hero?"

"After you killed Garrett and the rest of his outfit back in New Mexico, I managed to get away," Quinn shrugged. "A head of Hydra named Gideon Malick found me and pulled me back in - not that I had a lot of choice in that matter. He had some very formidable agents doing the persuading for him, too."

"How formidable?" Skye said flatly.

"I went through them easily enough," Hudima rumbled. "Hydra - the old Hydra - has something of a specialist school back in Austria. Most of Malick's specialists came from there."

"And you went through them?" Skye sceptically asked the big InHuman.

"It was less than a dozen," came the reply, "and I have been trained for just such situations, as had agent Morse. If it'd been her, she'd go through them just as easily as I would...and so would you, I suspect, if you have access to your powers in this scenario."

"Hey, what about me?" Lance said acidly.

"I don't know - can you fight a dozen men on a regular basis?" Hudima asked directly.

"Well, no. I'm more of a subtle, trickster sort of guy," Lance admitted after some sort. "Anyways, where did you come in? I mean, why did you get involved?"

"Raina had a vision involving him," Hudima jabbed the finger at Quinn, "and asked me to help him so that he could help us so I helped. So far Quinn has been grateful, let's give him that."

"Useful too," Quinn gave the bigger man an askance look.

"Yes. That," Hudima nodded and turned to Lincoln, who was actualy doing his best to be unobtrusive. "Didn't we meet before?"

"You remember, then?" Lincoln sounded rather strange. "It was, what - two years ago, three? There were those Secret Empire agents who tried to rouse the yetis; Jiaying sent me and Gordon to deal with them; it didn't go well..."

"And now Jiaying the sorceress is dead and her heir has been found," Hudima shrugged and pointed towards Skye. "I did not see this coming."

"Gordon's dead too," Lincoln said quietly. "S.H.I.E.L.D. - including Daisy's friends over there - killed him."

There was an awkward pause, which was broken, perhaps not very surprisingly, by Bobbi.

"That's unfair," she glared at Lincoln. "He was trying to kill us - well, Fitz, and Mack, and director Coulson. We feel sorry for your loss, but we did what we had to do."

"I know," Lincon said in the same tone of voice. "But, well, we're a peaceful people, a civilian people, we don't share your cavalier attitude towards life and death-"

"Excuse me? Cavalier?" Bobbi gave Lincoln a glare. "Just because we don't participate in great, big and visible displays of emotion-"

"Bobbi, stop," Skye said quietly - but Bobbi immediately fell silent as Skye switched her attention back to Lincoln. "You said that you were a civilian people," (by now Skye had enough S.H.I.E.L.D. experience to understand that 'peaceful' and 'civilian' were two different things), "but what were you doing just now?"

"Someone has to do the hard work," Lincoln didn't blink. "Hudima, Gordon, me - Alisha too, I suppose."

"But Alisha's with us..." Skye trailed away. "She's spying for you, isn't she?"

Lincoln very pointedly said nothing.

"We're not your enemy," Skye continued quietly, but instead of Lincoln, the older InHuman answered:

"We know, I told you that, but we're not sure that you're our friends either. This is why your director went to talk to Raina to see where we stand in regards to each other," Hudima's gaze didn't waver.

"And him?" Skye pointed to Quinn. "He's Hydra-"

"He wanted out, so I got him out, on Raina's request," Hudima shrugged. "And he is a good businessman, he is in charge of financial operations and they work - maybe because I can always provide the stick, but he does his part."

"And you don't care about Hydra...Wait," Lance shook his head. "You mentioned some sort of a secret empire earlier. How that fits in?"

Hudima blinked and exchanged a look with Bobbi Morse of all people. "Ah yes, that," he sounded kind of sheepish. "I've been meaning to tell you that if agent Morse didn't. According to her S.O., this is - agent Hand, after Captain America had defeated the Red Skull, and the Allies had defeated the Axis in WWII, some time after that, during the Cold War, the original Hydra split into three parts. One is AIM, which was mostly scientists, it was trounced so solidly by the Iron Man and his people few years ago that they are now busy licking their wounds and not getting involved in anything - not yet. The second one is Hydra itself, mostly politicians; captain America and the others - including you and the rest of S.H.I.E.L.D. - are dealing with it. And the third is the Secret Empire, mostly businessmen, which remains largely untouched-"

"You're dealing with it?" Skye asked softly. "You, and Bobbi Morse, and-"

Hudima chuckled - sadly, bitterly. "You want to tell them, Morse? Because I don't want to."

"Yeah," Bobbi didn't sound very happy herself. "Skye, Lincoln, look. Me and Hudima and the other people, who used to do agent Hand's job? We thought that we were doing something along the lines that you were thinking, but neither I nor he can vouchsafe for it, not anymore. I, for one, suspect that we might've been doing the Secret Empire's- Hydra's- jobs instead of S.H.I.E.L.D."

Skye froze. "But the one time I remember Victoria Hand give us a job - well, Ward and Fitz a job - was in South Ossetia, regarding some sort of a reactor..." she froze. "And we never learned what happened to it after, did we? And Grant, apparently, didn't kill Hand either. No wonder that my parents and the other InHumans don't trust us or differentiate us from Hydra with all of this double-dealing going on around!"

"Not true," Hudima said slowly. "You're thinking of the old S.H.I.E.L.D., Fury's S.H.I.E.L.D. You're a part of a new S.H.I.E.L.D. - Coulson's S.H.I.E.L.D., maybe yours too. The two organizations are different - aren't they, Morse?"

"Yes," Bobbi gave the bigger InHuman man an enigmatic look. "Yes it is, cough, Hudima."

"We're landing," Ian Quinn said suddenly, startling everyone. "Coffee?"

Skye gave Quinn a pointed look and walked to the jet's exit. She came outside - and there was Raina, looking at her with a less than welcoming gaze, and there was also Coulson - according to their plan, which didn't include her being here, actually, not right now.

Skye took a deep breath and gave a nonchalant wave to her boss (and May, and some distance away - Fitz also).

"Hey, guys! We can explain!"

TBC