Three Bad Omens
Episode 5: Three Bad Omens
September 15, 2018- Present Day
“So, what’s the future like?” Coulson asked sliding into the driver’s seat holding out a cup of coffee for May who narrowed her eyes and sniffed at the beverage wearily, “Relax agent May its not poisonous. It’s just a drink, you drink it. See?” He said taking his cup and sipping it. Currently the duo was now staking out the rendezvous where Jemma was supposed to appear. Having been sitting for hours Coulson had gone to get beverages and a bag of donut holes to tide them over.
Taking the cup from his hand May took a tentative sip her eyes widening at the slightly bitter taste, “Good, isn’t it?” Coulson beamed like he had just won a huge prize. May found that she really couldn’t figure the guy out. He was most likely the calmest and laid-back person she had ever met and despite the world ending in a few months it didn’t even seem to faze him.
“Is this your idea of small talk?” She asked taking another sip while raising an eyebrow at him. May had to count herself lucky that she hadn’t been stuck with anyone obnoxious. Coulson she could deal with. He was relatively reasonable and didn’t act half his age, but that still didn’t mean that she wasn’t going to get annoyed with him.
“What would you have me talk about? We have no idea if your friend is even going to show up or maybe she already has, and we missed her.” All good points, but May didn’t haver time to worry about any of those.
“The mission. I’m here to focus on the mission, not stuff my face with circular shaped foods or drink bitter yet sweet drinks.” She said turning away from him to train her eyes on the spot they were supposed to meet up at.
“All work and no play make’s Melinda May a dull girl, and by the way they’re called donut holes you should really try them they will blow your mind.” He hummed waving the offending pastry in her face. “Come on May just one bite, you know you want to.” Glaring at him she ripped the donut from his hand rolled down the window and tossed it out onto the street.
“Well, now that’s just mean and a serious waste of a perfectly good donut.” She was wrong Coulson was definitely half his age at heart and now the man was sulking. She was beginning to wish that she had been stuck at the base with Daisy at this point.
“No wonder people from the past are obese judging by the way you lot eat.” She muttered quietly under her breath.
“Hey! I heard that. Did you just call me fat?” he asked leaning in to narrow his eyes at her. “I’ve only been in the past a few days but all I’ve learned about any of you so far is that your food oriented, and by the way you’re the one who called your self fat, not me.” She pointed out raising her brows, waiting for him to realize.
“That’s not… well I mean technically I…. alright stop looking at me like that, just…. Shut up May!” He said turning away from her flustered and with a pout on his face. Knowing that he had lost the round. May grinning smugly at him in victory.
“So, you do have a sense of humor and here I was thinking you were a stick in the mud.” Coulson said grinning at her. Rolling her eyes, she snorted and turned away when movement from outside caught her eye. Slapping Coulson in the arm causing him to shout before narrowing his eyes at her, she sighed and pointed towards the window watching as he followed where she was looking.
Jemma, along with the marauder were walking. The girl looking disheveled and all around sick. Gritting her teeth, she felt the urge to bash the marauder in the skull. Pulling her gun out she checked the rounds before slowly pushing the door open. Feeling a hand fall on her arm she turned and saw Coulson giving her a look, “Hey, I know she’s your friend and all but don’t be stupid. We have to think about this before you go charging into battle.” He hissed.
“And that explains why you all got the world destroyed. Thinking about it is what gets you killed where I’m from. Every second you hesitate is another second that something can go wrong. I’ve never hesitated in my life. I know what I’m doing so get out of my way.” Jerking her arm away from Coulson she pushed the door open and stepped out into the sun.
“Wait, Melinda” he said moving around the car to grab her arm. Glaring at him he shrunk back as she narrowed her eyes. “Oh, I didn’t know we were on a first name basis Phil” she scoffed. “Now let go of me” Tightening his grip, she glared at the offending hand before turning around and punching Coulson right in the nose knocking him to the ground.
Pulling her gun out she moved across the street and pointed it right at the man holding Jemma’s arm. Squeezing the trigger Jemma turned her eyes locking onto May’s widening in surprise before shoving the man just as the gun went off. Silence fell for a minute the bullet narrowly missing the man. “Jemma! What the hell did you do that for? You idiot!” She yelled glaring at the girl.
“Don’t kill him. We don’t need to kill him. I am tired of people dying May I don’t want to see any more deaths. Lets just take him in, okay” Jemma pleaded. Looking at her younger friend, she sighed. “Fine” she said before turning back to Coulson who was still on the floor.
“Are you going to get up or not? I didn’t punch you that hard.” Pulling himself off the floor he rubbed his nose wincing.
“Sure, felt like you punched me hard.” He said his voice muffled by his hand. “Just grab the man and let’s go.” She said having gotten fed up with the shield agent.
Pointing her gun back at the Marauder, “Don’t move or next time Jemma won’t be able to save you.” All she got was a glare in response.
Elena stood in front of the large building with Mack a frown on her face. “So, do we knock or just walk in” she asked walking up the steps.
“Don’t know, the instructions weren’t very clear” Before he could raise his hand to knock though the door opened with a click. “I guess that means enter” Mack said about to walk in before Elena stopped him with a hand.
“Wait, Maybe I should check it out first.” Before he could open his mouth to say anything Elena zipped forward only to return a second later in the exact spot that she had left.
“Huh, so that’s what you can do. Move fast but snap back to the place that you originated from. Kind of like a yoyo” he said looking impressed.
“What’s a yoyo?” she asked. Looking up at him confused.
“Maybe ill show you sometime. Come on let’s go. By the way did you see anything on your run?” Shaking her head, the answer was no. There wasn’t anybody home she had run all the way around and hadn’t caught a single soul
.
“So, who are we looking for anyways.” Mack asked taking in the structure of the place his eyes wide as he had never seen anything like this place before.
“That would be me” a voice said startling the pair.
“Jesus Christ! Where the hell did you come from?” Mack yelled before turning to Elena. “I thought you checked the whole place.”
“I did, there is no way he could have gotten through me.” Elena said trying to wrap her brain around what was going on.
“Well clearly you missed something.” Mack said pointing to the man with the red cape.
“She didn’t, I just didn’t want to be found. Its more fun scaring the living day lights out of people don’t you think?” he asked looking between the pair which earned him a simultaneous “no!”
Sighing he muttered something to soft to hear under his breath before snapping his fingers and suddenly both Elena and Mack were now sitting in chairs with beverages in their hands.
“Alright let’s get down to business, shall we. Fury sent you right. The futures at stake blah blah blah…” Trailing off, he waited for the pair to catch up with him. “Let’s get down to business, shall we” he said clapping his hands.
“Fury sent you to me because he wanted to know what is coming and while I can’t outright see the future not like my mentor can. I do get snippets or feeling for what is coming. This fight is far from over and before the end you will face some terrible, unavoidable things and when the time comes you have to except that.” He said.
“Who are you?” Elena whispered getting a chill just from looking at this man.
“Oh, forgive me. I forgot to introduce myself, Steven Strange and that’s about all you will need to know about me.” Leaning back, he waited for them to absorb the information.
“So, are you like a wizard?” Mack asked his eyes falling on the cape. “What’s a wizard?” Elena hissed leaning over to whisper in Mack’s ear. “
“Oh, its kind of hard to explain, its like….”
“I can hear you both, you know” Dr. Strange said raising a brow at them which shut them up quick. “Let’s focus for a minute, shall we? As much as I would love to tell you everything. I find that too much information is never a good thing. So, I will leave you with three things. Knowledge is a powerful thing its best not to burden you with it all at once.” He said.
“You all have a long road ahead of you and it may yet be the most difficult path of your lives before the end one of you will die, that is an absolute and unavoidable outcome and you need to let it happen. In a way it’s already begun, since the moment you came to the past it has been set in motion.”
“One of us is going to die, you mean the time travelers.” Elena whispered looking up. “Yes, one of the travelers” Dr. strange said.
“Who, who is it!” She yelled getting to her feet.
“I wish I could tell you that, but I can’t. That is something that you will have to see for yourselves. Before the end one of you will betray. This too has already begun and like before its unavoidable even if the betrayer doesn’t know what they are about to do.” Taking a sip of tea, he waited for them to absorb the information.
“How does somebody not know they are going to betray or even that they are planning to do it?” Mack asked as Elena stood up her chair falling over as she glared at Dr. strange in anger.
“I have known all those girls for years and none of them would betray the team, none of them.” She yelled shaking slightly from anger.
“Sometimes what someone considers a betrayal is not actually a betrayal to another person and now I give you your last piece of advice before the end someone will be
lost and like before this is unavoidable and cannot be stopped and just like before it has already begun.” And with a snap, both Elena and Mack found themselves outside again.
“Someone will die, someone will betray, and someone will be lost. We can’t tell the others. It could cause a rift in the group especially about the betrayer.” Elena said looking up at Mack.
“Your right. We’ll keep it to ourselves for now and tell Fury that the lead was a dead end. Its not like he could do anything with this information anyways. Let’s head back.” Nodding her head, she followed him until he came to an abrupt halt.
“hey, on the way back I think we should get tacos.” He said.
“Ugh, again with the tacos”
“Wait, is this thing on? Can you hear me?” A voice blasted in her ear causing Bobbi to wince. Resisting the urge to shout at Hunter and blow her cover, she sighed. “Hunter, I can hear you just fine now shut the fuck up” she whispered through her teeth.
Getting into Hydra had been the easy part. Apparently, they were just begging for recruits after all nobody wanted to be apart of a Nazi death cult, but maintain her cover was another story. Especially with hunter involved he was going to get them both killed.
Moving down the hall Bobbi was currently at one of the hydra bases as a new recruit. Hunter was obviously a no go since he was a very well-known strike agent and would end up getting discovered immediately and Bobbi was non-existent which made her the perfect candidate.
Passing Hydra agents her body stiff and her heart pounding in her chest she made her way towards the file room. “Hey” A voice said causing her to freeze in her tracks and turn around slowly to face the hydra agent walking towards her.
“Are you new? I haven’t seen you around before” Taking a deep breath, she nodded.
“You got this bob” Hunter said in her ear. Yea, easy for him to say. He was currently tucked safe inside a van without having to worry about being in potential danger of getting tortured. She wanted to tell him to shut up, but she didn’t think the hydra agent would understand what she was talking about.
“Yea, can I help you?” She asked nervously balling her hand into a tight fist. “Yes, I need you to take this down to the lab. It’s some test results that they wanted your heading that way anyways, right?” he said.
Nodding her head, she grabbed the file tucking it under her arm. Waiting until he walked off and turned the corner she turned around abruptly and opened the file curiously. “The GH formula” she muttered. “Have you heard about the GH formula?” she asked Hunter softly snapping the file shut.
“No, its probably not that important lets just stick to the mission.” Sighing, she continued on muttering softly under her breath. “Why the hell did they have to stick me with a brain-dead idiot anyways.”
“Hey! I heard that.” Hunter yelled in her ear again. The man had no inside voice that was for sure. Stopping at one of the doors she looked towards the left and then the right before slowly pushing open the door and walking in.
The lights flickered on and she found herself in the file room. Heading towards the computer. She pulled out a flash drive and stuck it in before turning the computer on. “We’re almost there bob” Hunter said softly in her ear.
“Gee, thanks for stating the obvious. How about you tell me something useful or are you only good at babbling nonsense and repeating things like a parrot.” Dead silence fell over the other end and she grinned finally able to shut up the annoying man child that she was stuck with. She hoped the others were just as miserable as her and suffering just as much. If May had been stuck with a guy like Hunter she might actually kill the poor man so maybe, it’s a good thing she was paired with Hunter.
Waiting for the computer to boot up she could hear Hunter in the background spouting annoying nonsense. Having enough she took out her earpiece setting it on the table just as the computer flickered to life. Searching the files for the employee database she grinned and clicked on it before downloading the names of a list of people who worked for hydra if any of them matched the shield list then they would have their mole and this hole thing would be over before any real damage could be done. Although really when did things go that easy.
Something suddenly felt wrong and Bobbi couldn’t shake the feeling of a presence behind her before she could turn to investigate a voice spoke up, “Well what do we have here? A spy in our midst. Now what am I going to do with you.” Whirling around Bobbi swung her fist only to have the hand catch her wrist and twist painfully.
“Now, now. Let’s not be so rough. Although I have a lot planned for you.” The blow came to her stomach next and Bobbi fell to her knees gasping. Hunter shouting through the intercoms in the background trying to reach her desperately.
“Bobbi! Bobbi! Answer me damn it!” the voice shouted but fell on deaf ears. Smiling the man picked the earpiece up and deftly dropped it on the ground before stepping on it with a crunch. Holding back tears the man hit her again in the jaw knocking her to the ground.
Tears gathered in her eyes as she stared at the now shattered earpiece and now the last link that she had to protection was gone, hunter was gone and for the first time since arriving in this time she was now truly alone and that was the last though she had before everything became dark and she finally blacked out. Knowing that when she awoke there would be more pain to come.
Standing in the hallway Daisy paced back and forth nervously debating whether to go down below or not. Reaching for the handle she paused and shook her head. She didn’t care about Robbie’s backstory, they all had backstory’s where the came from and what he did was no excuse and having a crappy up bringing didn’t justify all the horrible things he did or will do.
“Nope, not going in there. Don’t care. He can go rot in hell. Not going to give him the satisfaction.” She muttered shaking her head from side to side. Her mind raging with internal conflict. May would probably slap her for even thinking of going down there. Giving the enemy exactly what they wanted wasn’t a smart move it was never a smart move and Daisy had always prided herself on knowing what the right thing was and then Robbie came, and all reason just went out the window.
“Are you gong down there or not. I think your starting to burn a hole in the ground with all that pacing.” Logan said leaning against a wall where he hadn’t been a second ago.
“Great, its just you. The last person I wanted to see. What do you want?” She grumbled glaring up at the older man.
“I know your avoiding me and frankly I don’t care. Don’t know why, but I also don’t care. Would you just go down there already and save us all this pathetic hallway show?” Growling, she stomped her foot and went over to the door flinging it open. Staring down into the darkness her nerves came back as she stared into the endless black.
“Oh, for fucks sake.” Logan said shoving her right into the dark and before she could even react slamming the door right behind her as the lights began to dimly flicker on.
With heavy steps she walked down until coming face to face with Robbie who hadn’t seemed to notice her yet. Sitting on the bed cross legged, his eyes closed. Opening them when the lights came on his eyes met hers and silence fell for a few minutes.
“You going to stand there all day or are you going to ask me what you want to ask Chica?” Tilting his head softly to the side he waited for her to speak.
Taking a deep breath, she walked over to the chair and turned it around sitting backwards, “I want to know why. You said you hated humanity and I want to know why. No more games. I will hear you out no matter what you have to say.” She waited with bated breath and watched as he slowly exhaled before grinning.
“In the world we come from it is nothing like the world you see now. You and I both now how ugly the world can actually be. All the things we’ve seen and done. Nobody is innocent in that world. If anybody from the present found out what kind of saviors all of you were they might not be so inclined to trust the fate of the world to you lot. Before I became the ghost rider I had a family, a mother and father, brother, an uncle and I lived in a small community that mostly stayed neutral. We gave Hydra what they wanted, and they left us alone. My parents despised Hydra, but they kept that to themselves including the fact that they were working against the organization and that was dangerous work. If Hydra ever found out they were against them they would kill them for sure.”
His parents were advocates against Hydra? But then why was he working with the horrid organization that stood against everything his parents believed in? “One day Hydra came to our group and announced that there were traitors amidst us and if we didn’t bring them in by tomorrow. We would all be burnt alive. I don’t know who found out about my parents, but the villagers sold them out and instead of waiting until Hydra came they drug them out of bed in the middle of the night, tide them to a pole and burned them alive. I woke up in time to hear their screams. It was the worst sound I ever heard.”
Daisy couldn’t speak. The words wouldn’t come out and she didn’t even know what to say. She couldn’t relate to him, yes, she watched her parents die but she was so young that she hardly remembered it anyway and Logan…. Just the thought of what had been done to her adoptive dad made her want to puke.
“After that my uncle took my brother and I and we left. We couldn’t stay in that village, not after what those monsters had done. We moved for a few yeas after that until we found a place that we could finally settle on, a place that maybe we could call home. The people were nice, and they welcomed us into the community and for the first time we found genuinely good people until night fall when they threw us into the pit to be eaten by roaches. That was their way of keeping the beasts at bay. They fed them what little scraps they could and then lured weary travelers to the compound as the roaches next menu.”
Daisy had heard about people like that. Horrible monsters that preyed on people before feeding them to the roaches and then eating what was left over like cannibals. Feeling her stomach churn in disgust she took a deep breath and waited for him to continue.
“When the roaches came they went after my uncle first, but the man I had come to love like a second father used my brother like a shield and I watched helplessly as he died. That was the moment I lost all faith when even your blood could betray you? I realized we deserved to rot in hell, but it didn’t end there. After using brother as a shield, he used my next except this time I prayed as hard as I could, I prayed to whatever god was listening to give me vengeance on the world, to make all the monsters suffer like I have and as I lay dying my call was answered.”
Daisy knew what he was talking about, the ghost rider. “I destroyed that village that day and hunted down my uncle who had escaped before following him to the very village that my parents had died and that’s when I found out the truth. He sold my parents out to the villagers. He was the reason they were dead, and the reason my brother Gabe was dead as well. I destroyed the village that day and just like he did my parents I tied him to the stake and burnt him alive.”
Robbie fell silent and Daisy found she could no longer speak, her voice lost. Tears slowly rolled down her cheeks, but she didn’t bother to brush them away. Too shocked by all that she had heard. Raising his head his eyes searched her face and he frowned softly, his brows furrowing. “Why are you crying Daisy?”
Bolting from the chair and without giving him a response she raced up the stairs and flung her body out into the hall, bursting into tears she collapsed onto the ground sobbing. The tears flowing heavily like a river. She wasn’t supposed to cry anymore. Not for a man like him so, why wouldn’t the tears stop?