The Avenger’s Soul

Daisy's POV

I stood in Coulson's office observing him as a record played in the background. He was carving on his wall and panting as he pressed the knife into the wall; he pressed too hard and the tip flew off.

"Damn it," he cursed, shaking his hand and turning away from the wall as I stopped the record. He looked up; finally noticing me standing by the record player, my arms crossed.

"How long were you standing there?" He asked me.

"Long enough," I told him. "May gave us specific instructions, you go on a date with the crazy wall, I have to chaperone."

"I didn't want to wake you," Coulson replied, looking guilty.

I raised my eyebrows and held out my arms, gesturing to my disheveled state.

"Oh come on! You know I don't ever sleep. Besides, do I look like I've been relaxing?"

He shrugged slightly and closed the blade.

"What's on your mind?"

"It's all connected, everything. Ward has information about my father, who just happens to have the alien buzzkill device which is somehow connected to the writing, that is related to the G.H. serum that is in our blood – like we're pieces to a puzzle," I rambled, as Coulson gazed at the wall.

"Except we don't know what the puzzle is or how the pieces even fit," he said.

"It's a hacker's worst nightmare, everlasting gobstopper of firewalls," I sighed deeply.

"It wants us to know. I can feel it," Coulson stated.

I looked confused and walked up to stand beside Coulson.

"Then it...should tell us, because I have been trying to match the writing to constellation maps, navigational charts, genome diagrams. And if it's a map, it's a map to nowhere!" I said frustrated.

"I need you to stick with it. The writing's coming more and more frequently. Used to be two, three times a month. Then once a week. Now it's ever day, every night," he was breathing heavily as he looked over to me. "I can't turn it off."

"How do you function? When do you sleep?" I asked in concern. I mean I never seemed to need sleep but I assumed that was due to my powers.

"That's why we need answers," replied Coulson.

"And what if we don't find them?"

He gave me a helpless look.

"Anything else?" He asked, turning away.

"When does May get back?" I asked.

He picked up a new knife and opened it.

"Not until we find Ward." I frowned, as I watched him go back to carving.

*****

"We found Ward," Coulson informed me as we walked into his office. I just stared at him showing no emotion. "What?"

"One of my sources, this guy Micro – he's kind of a crime scene junkie – he came across something," I told him. He took a step closer to me. "The writing but not exactly how we wanted to see it." I handed him the tablet I was holding and showed him the picture on it. Coulson stared at the picture of the dead women with carvings all over her body with shock then looked up at me only to return his eyes to the tablet and scroll through all the pictures.

"When were these taken?" Coulson asked.

"Last night," I told him. He scrolled to a full body picture of the woman. She was laying on her stomach, no shirt but still with pants, and her back was all carved up. "Whoever did this is still out there."

He scrolls to see a picture of the woman's drivers' license. It says her name is Janice Robbins.

"Is this the victim?" Coulson asked staring at a picture of the women's drivers license: Janice Robbins.

"Janice Robbins. Lives – lived in upstate New York," I informed him.

"She's a Shield agent."

"No, she's an art teacher from Iowa. I have her full bio," I corrected him.

"I'm not wrong. I've seen her. We should check it out," he said.

*****

"You know we're breaking about 14 laws right now," I hissed as Coulson and I broke into Robbins apartment later that night - which was a current crime scene...

Coulson heaved a heavy sigh.

"One of the perks of being outlaws," he commented.

"This had to happen on my shift? You couldn't wait till May got back?" I complained.

"May's got her hands full with Ward. And we're the only ones who know what we're looking for," Coulson said.

"What are we looking for?" I asked.

Coulson's flashlight scanned the ground and he stopped walking when blood was illuminated by his flashlight.

"Answers," he simply replied.

"You're right. This place just screams Shield agent," I said sarcastically as I looked at a statue of Buddha as I said this. Coulson reached a doorway at the end of the hallway and entered the room. "You two don't have a single thing in common unless you have some Enya albums you've been hiding," I teased.

"No. Nothing in common at all," he called out from inside one of the rooms.

I entered the room and stared at the paintings inside with wide eyes and an open mouth.

"I take that back," I whispered as we stared around at all of the artwork that was covered in the same carvings Coulson had been making.

*****

"There's a lot of overlap. We were definitely working on the same design, but she has some pieces I was missing," Coulson commented as he spread out the photos we had taken at Robbins and grouped them together.

"How does the carving found in Miami fit into this?" I asked.

He sighed and shook his head.

"Whoever did it was on our wavelength," Coulson said, standing up to look down at the photos now covering the floor. "There's just a few pieces missing. It's almost there."

"You were right. She's a Shield agent. Agent Rebecca Stevens, Level 6. Stationed at The Triskelion," I told him as I turned my computer around and showed the pictures to Coulson.

"That's probably where I saw her," Coulson replied.

"Not recently, you didn't. According to this she died five years ago from cancer. How is that possible?" I asked, though I really wasn't one to talk considering how many times I had died over the years.

"We won't know until we perform an autopsy," Coulson said.

"Don't you need a body for that?" I pointed out.

*****

I watched in shock as Mack and Fitz lifted a big body bag onto a table where it thudded.

"How'd you two manage to acquire a body?" I asked in surprise.

"Corpsey Diem" – seize the dead!" Fitz chirped.

"Huh. Like I told my man here, if you want something in life, you got to grab it and walk out like you own it," Mack said with a cocky smirk.

"Is that all it takes? Really?" Jemma said. "Because I always thought if you wanted something in life you had to work hard and earn it," she walked up to the table as Mack and Fitz separated to give her space. "Give me some room, please." They both backed away but Coulson and I remained at the other side of the table. Simmons unzipped the bag, and I took a step back as Coulson took a step closer. I exhaled sharply and looks down away from Robbins.

"Does she have any family?" Jemma asked.

"No one. No relatives, no kids," I told her with a frown.

"She didn't deserve this," Coulson commented.

"Is anything coming back to you?" I asked him.

"She was level 6. It should all be in my head, but it's not," he replied.

Simmons looked at the other lab tech in the area.

"We're going to need blood and tissue samples, full CBC and multi-element analysis," she instructed. The lab tech nodded and typed on her tablet. Simmons looked around at everyone. "Would anyone like to leave before we get started?"

Mack and Fitz quickly raised their hands, as did I as Coulson stared at me worriedly, knowing exactly why I didn't want to be in the room while someone cut open a body.

"We'll stay out of your way," he said.

"I'll let you know when I finish," Jemma assured him.

*****

"The cuts were all quite deep but the cause of death was cardiac arrest. She died from shock due to pain, not from the wounds," Jemma informed Coulson and I. "Very common in this type of ritualistic murder."

"Ritualistic?" I asked.

"It has all the characteristics. 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. It's also not the first time we've seen these carvings. They're the same ones Garrett was making, correct?" The lab tech that she asked for blood work from walked over to her now as Coulson and I shard a look.

"Dr. Simmons, here are the reports you requested," the lab tech said.

"Thank you. It's the analysis from the subjects," she told us.

"Subjects, plural?" Coulson asked.

"We found blood and tissue samples from a secondary source under her nails. She put up a fight." Simmons hit a button on the tablet pulling up the results. "Oh, no. Just as I suspected. She had GH-325 in her blood," she exclaimed.

"Another Tahiti patient," said Coulson.

"Whoever killed her also had GH-325 in their blood," Jemma read out. Both her and Coulson turned to look at me.

"Don't look at me. I didn't do it!" I exclaimed.

"No, of course, but you both had GH-325 injections. Hypergraphia was one of the side effects they tried to treat with memory replacement. Garrett suffered from it. Apparently so does our killer, and they both turned into dangerous psychopaths. Have either of you been experiencing a compulsion to write or carve?" Simmons asked.

"We're fine," Coulson told her though I shot him a look. "But somewhere out there is a Tahiti patient who may be targeting all the others. We need to find him." We started walking down the hallways following his lead.

"The patient files were all destroyed, how would anyone be able to locate them?" Simmons asked.

"I don't know," Coulson replied.

"How many Tahiti patients were there?" I asked.

"I don't know," he repeated.

"Do you think the killer will come after the two of you?" asked Jemma.

"I don't know," Coulson repeated a third time as we reached a brick wall and he took a hold of one of the bricks.

"If you don't know anything then how are we gonna find them?" I exclaimed.

Behind the brick was a keypad, Coulson entered some numbers and a secret door opened up. Inside the room was the memory machine that Raina used on Coulson not too long ago.

"You're gonna have to torture it out of me," Coulson said, turning to look at him. I stepped back wanting to shake my head at him as I remembered what it was like to see him in the machine the first time.

*****

"Is all this really necessary?" Coulson complained as Simmons hovered over him.

"If you're going to insist on doing this I'm going to be monitoring you very closely. It took me and Fitz six weeks to figure out how to operate this and quite honestly, I never thought we'd have to use it," Simmons told him.

"We should've destroyed it," I hissed, glaring at the machine as I took my place in front of Coulson. "In the history of bad ideas this is light years ahead of everything."

"No, trying to bring dead agents back to life using alien blood blows everything else away," Coulson argued.

"They buried those memories for a reason, Coulson. They were driving people insane. And now you want to uncover it when you've been getting worse. May would never –" I started to tell him.

"May's not the director. This is my call," he told me. "I was put in charge of the Tahiti project so those people are my responsibility. If going back in this machine saves even one life, then it's worth the risk!" He retorted passionately before laying down on the table as Simmons and I went about strapping him down.

"Mack, I need you close just in case," I called out.

"In case...?" He asked.

"In case he starts screaming and you need to hold him down," I answered somberly. "Okay, try to stay relaxed. Listen to my voice. I'll guide you through but at the first sign of any duress I'm pulling you out," I instructed Coulson.

"No, not until we have everything we need to find this guy," Coulson demanded.

I took a deep breath and nodded my head then looks at Simmons.

"All systems are go," she told me.

I checked over my shoulder seeing Mack and Fitz there, then turned back to Coulson and pulled up my tablet. I took a photo of Agent Stevens and held it up for Coulson.

"Concentrate on Agent Stevens. She's your access point. Focus on her," I said. Coulson stared at the photo for a moment then looked away and nodded his head. "All right, take him back." Simmons hit a button and the machine lit up and hummed, Coulson closed his eyes. "What do you see? Where are you?" I asked.

"The Guest house. In the interview room," he told me.

"Do you recognize anyone?" I prompted.

"I'm alone."

"Concentrate on Agent Stevens," I reminded him.

"She's here. She's doing well," he informed us.

"And the others, how many are there?" I asked.

"Six patients, well adjusted," he mumbled, caught up in his memories. "I'm recommending immediate release."

"His heart rate is spiking," Simmons cried out.

"What's happening, Coulson?" I demanded to know.

"I see the writing...for the first time. Something's happening to them," he gasped out having trouble breathing as his heart monitor went off rapidly.

"Vital signs elevating!" Simmons warned.

"Tell me what's going on, Coulson!" I cried out.

"Degenerative effects. They're unstable. They're getting worse every day. We're losing them. We need to shut down the program," he rambled. "What have we done?" He looked over to me, but it wasn't clear if he was seeing me or memories. "What have we done?"

"What did you do? Tell me," I pleaded, hating the tortured and pained look on his face.

"We erased them, all of them. New names, new memories – it was the only way," he said.

"You did the right thing. Can you find their new names?" I asked.

"Uh, how much more can he take?" I heard Fitz say.

Coulson was breathing heavily and it seemed like his body might be seizing.

"Whatever you're doing to him, you need to stop!" Mack shouted.

"Coulson, we need their names! Find their names so we can pull you out!" I called out. He continued to shake and have issues breathing but he looked at me again.

"Lewis Seaver," he stuttered.

"That's one. That's-that's one. That's – k-keep them coming. Keep them coming!" I said.