Friends and Foes

When Grant Ward got out of his (well, 'his' place of rest and relaxation) and went out once more through the streets of Li Shi, he was not happy. If he had been in S.H.I.E.L.D. he would've grinned and born it quietly; if in Hydra - then not (Dr. Whitehall considered his underlings demolishing one another on the sly to be very therapeutic - for them; of course, if they got caught, it was off to the attitude adjustment center for them, brainwashing style); but he was in Li Shi, so he had no idea as to how to behave here and now, and so just walked through the streets, trying to figure out what to do next.

It seemed so simple back when he had hit on his new plan - use S.H.I.E.L.D. to solve Li Shi's Andrew-Lash problem; he'd pull his weight, of course, and once that was done, he'd settle in Li Shi, alongside Kara, and maybe come into contact with S.H.I.E.L.D. on a part-time basis, using his secrets that his former friends didn't know about, to keep them fooled. It wasn't a perfect plan, it left plenty of possibilities to go wrong, and Grant wasn't director Coulson, who actually enjoyed improvisations of various sort, but...but it had been a plan that appeared to be workable, especially after when Raina would use the astrolabe for Grant to bring back Kara and for Leo to rescue Jemma from Hellheim, apparently, if that was how it was called?

(Grant had his doubts about this; this realm/planet/dimension sounded suspiciously Asgardian, and he didn't have too many fond memories of Asgardian natives or items, thank you very much, but a plan was a plan, and Raina was the one with the access to the astrolabe, and Grant wanted to bring Kara back, period, so there he was - and came back, too.)

So far so good, but now...it had all fallen apart, and Grant didn't honestly know where to proceed. He wasn't sure if he could stay here - with Kara around and not with him it was going to be unpleasant, to say the least - and he wasn't sure if he wanted to go back to S.H.I.E.L.D., even if he could.

"Hey, could we talk?"

Speak of the devil, it was Skye, Daisy, Chuju, or however Grant would call her. (He would never admit it, but he had enjoyed winding up her and Fitz these past few days - apparently he had a sense of humor, thank you very much.) "Chuju, you're a woman, right?" he asked, catching him just in time from calling her Skye or Daisy: given how his luck was going, she would've figured his real identity then and there, something else that he didn't need. "So, can I ask you something feminine?"

"In a bit," Daisy looked flat-footed, but quickly caught herself. "Can you tell me about Lincoln?"

"Who?" Grant used his alternate identity to look completely confused. "The fellow from Green Branches, right? I believe that you know him better than I do-"

"Well, maybe," Daisy wasn't going to argue on this vague point, "but weren't you the one who took Raina to him?"

"Oh yes," Grant remembered. "This is him, I agree. Sometime before this all began between us, Raina asked me to fly her back to America - she doesn't know how, you see? Since I intended to humor her for my own reasons, I agreed. So, off we went, and landed and went to see this Campbell fellow. He didn't look wrong, but he wasn't happy to see us, and told us to leave. Raina tried to sell him something - he wasn't interested. So maybe she used reverse psychology on him, or maybe the disinterest was mutual, I don't know, but she shrugged, bid him good-bye and wished him good-luck working with you - the S.H.I.E.L.D. agency, I mean."

"Lincoln told me that in Raina's vision he did end up working with us-"

"Raina can foresee events in general - in details it becomes fuzzier, and she cannot guarantee that a future will remain unchanged after she had her vision, see? In some of them she saw your friend agent Fizz go and rescue his girlfriend, agent Simmons, via some sort of Hydra-like portal, so earlier today she used the astrolabe and had me help him do that here and now instead."

Daisy blinked. "...Wait, what?" she asked, clearly confused. For reasons of his own, Grant decided to misinterpret this.

"Li Shi has a huge vault full of alien technology, among other things," he replied, "well, rather- just alien technology, I guess. Part of the reason why the elders of Li Shi want a deal with S.H.I.E.L.D. is because of it - Hydra's in Japan, AIM in North Korea, and on its own Li Shi cannot deal with either them, not really. They could join them, especially Hydra, I suppose, but I don't think that your people and especially director Coulson would like this, and honestly we like you better than Hydra or AIM, too."

"Oh," Daisy blinked as she thought over this. "I didn't think of this. I-I admit I didn't really figure that Raina would be this far-sighted-"

"Well, neither did I, not really," 'Hudima' rumbled. "But, you know? Throughout her life, Raina was either by herself or with Cal Zabo, and neither option was too good. She didn't have anyone, any place to put her roots in, so now that she does, she intends to fight for it. You see?"

"I guess," Daisy muttered, thinking back on her past life, in a van. "Anyways, Lincoln?"

"Meh, when he heard that so far - back then - his future was going to be working with you in S.H.I.E.L.D., he thought this over, very hard, and decided against it. I don't know him, so I didn't pry, but did the two of you have issues?"

"No," Daisy shook her head. "We didn't have anything. Lincoln has plenty of issues, but...yeah. Sadly, Dr. Garner was our resident psychologist, and you've seen how it turned out..." she paused and added. "So, your question? And the FitzSimmons?"

Grant looked askance...and saw a commotion at the place where he had left the couple in question, as a matter of fact, so-

"Why don't we start at the end and see how your friends are faring, shall we?" he suggested to Daisy and the two of them walked that-a-way to see what was going with the FitzSimmons.

As a matter of fact, it was a mess. When Leo and Jemma had come to their senses, Leo took it upon himself to convince Jemma that it was all real, and one thing let to another, and that other thing was procreation, and Jemma's yell of "Fitz!" had been especially shrill. Sadly, Phil Coulson, who had been coming to see Jemma for himself, had ignored this cry, and walked in on the couple, and Jemma had a muscle spasm from the surprise, and right now poor Leo was stuck. In her, cough, so now the question was how to separate the two.

"...Well, don't look at me," 'Hudima' said firmly while the others waited for Lincoln to arrive with some muscle relaxant of one sort or another. "I could separate them manually, but some pieces could be left behind-"

"No! Bad idea! Bad idea!" Fitz yelled in a high tone of voice. "I want to be whole, thank you very much!"

"Yes, yes! Bad idea!" Simmons echoed the sentiment. "I want my Leo to be whole, thank you very much! Where is that man of Raina's?"

"He isn't my man," Raina glared at the Englishwoman with a blush that stained her green cheeks hazelnut brown. "And he's here."

"Yes, I am," Lincoln agreed as he walked over with his tools of the trade and gave Jemma the shot. Before long, (though for the FitzSimmons it was probably an eternity), Jemma's muscles relaxed enough for Leo to slid out of her, his member red and swollen and clearly painful. "Let's wrap it up," Lincoln continued, not sounding very sympathetic towards poor Leo's plight.

"Isn't it going in reverse?" Hunter had his own issues with sympathy, it seemed. "Shouldn't Simmons have-"

"In the name of Oscars," 'Hudima' grumbled. He moved forwards, his hands outstretched and glowing. He grabbed Fitz, who squeaked, and the glow briefly spread all over him, and when it vanished, the smaller man was in less pain than before. "This is the last time I do something like that, got it? I just broke up with my girlfriend whom I've thought of marrying; the last thing I needed was to paw another man. If it'd been your wife - maybe..."

"Sorry," Leo muttered, "and technically she isn't my wife - not yet..."

"Our priest can hold a ceremony," Raina brightly suggested, eyeing Coulson in a pointed way. "Want to do a double?"

"Maybe another time," May, instead, replied just as brightly as she moved between Coulson and the InHuman woman. "He's a bit shy and gets scared easily."

"What am I missing?" Jemma blinked and turned to the nearby person, who was Daisy.

"Let's see," Daisy grew genuinely thoughtful. "Andrew Garner is an up-and-coming villain who is working either with Hydra or some new S.H.I.E.L.D. splinter cell. He and May had a daughter some time before Bahrain so now she's our age - Garner had her as a hostage in Hydra or somewhere associated with them, 'cause Ward busted her out and handed her over to May for some plan of his own. So far we've been trying to infiltrate Andrew's friends, already had a car chase, and busted a bunch of InHumans out of the holding cell alongside Hudima over there, so now we're making a deal with Li Shi, which included your rescue."

"In other words, it's like you never left," Hunter spoke brightly, even though Bobbi tried to shush him. "Agent Simmons, welcome back! Do you want to kiss agent Fix- I mean Fizz, I mean - Fitz and make it all better?"

There was a pause, during which 'agent Fix' made his way across to 'agent Hunter' and promptly kicked the older man in his own balls.

"Oh yeah," Jemma nodded sagely to Daisy. "It's like I never left."

"Jem, welcome home," the hacktivist turned S.H.I.E.L.D. agent hugged her friend. "We missed you."

TBC