Missing
A fem!reader-insert 'Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.' story.
Part 2 of the Agent Wildcard series
Word count: 2.281
Spoilers: S1x04 of 'Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'
Warnings: Car crash, Night-Night Pistols
"You're telling me she's gone?" The man was silhouetted against the bright screen before him. Displayed on it was the security footage from the night before. Grainy imaging of three people who had stormed the premises, and later when four of them had left. The fourth lay limp in the seconds arms, the first looking strangely familiar to the man and the third rounding up the back.
"Well, yes, but-" the tinny voice from his old phone replied, stumbling over his words.
"Do you think that I have the time to track her down?"
"Well, no, sir, but I think this might help her - help the project, I mean."
The man raised an eyebrow. "Oh? How so?"
"Well, she might get more freedom, and as we've seen before, that can lead to more codes."
The man sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. He rewinded the footage. "Are you hearing yourself? S.H.I.E.L.D. could get the codes, and then we lose our upper hand. Stop being ridiculous and just do your job like I pay you to."
"Yea, but-"
"No buts. You have 24 hours to find her, or I'll send someone after you instead."
"You want me to retrieve her?"
"No. I just want her location. I'll send someone else after her, since you don't know how to finish the job." The man then ended the call, watching the screen.
“See you soon, Coulson.”
You leaned your elbows against Fitz's workbench, twisting a nut around a bolt back and forth as Fitz worked on a gun beside you and Simmons was inspecting a couple samples under the microscope.
"What are you thinking about, Gills?" Fitz glanced over at you, polishing the pistol absentmindedly.
You sighed, squeezing your eyes shut. "I don't know," you mumbled and you opened your eyes again. Were you getting a headache again? You weren’t sure. The fog that had settled over your brain was still thick, but you felt as if it was thinning over time.
Alas, the previous week had felt long. You’d barely gotten to do anything, and Simmons had kept asking you questions. She wasn’t being annoying. Not at all. She was just concerned, and you felt so helpless about it.
On the contrary, though, they’d both let you help out with them. Simmons had let you look through the microscope at her samples, explaining to you what you’d see, and Fitz would have you help out with putting gadgets together. They’d been quick to take you under their wing when Coulson had announced you’d be staying longer (much to Ward’s protest).
You'd made up with Fitz last week the day after you'd annoyed him to insanity.
"Hey... Fitz." You were seated on the cot again, your back leaning against the wall, an open robotics book on your lap.
"What do you want?" He didn't look up at you, eyes on the blue hologram displayed before him. It looked like the shell of a gun.
Why was this so difficult?
"To say sorry..." you muttered through your teeth.
Fitz looked over at you for a moment. "...Really?"
You avoided his eyes. Why did you always do that? Why were eyes so intimidating? "I, uh… I wasn't the kindest yesterday. I don't know what came over me."
Fitz looked at you for a moment longer before turning back to the hologram. "Well, I don't know either."
Silence followed. Absolute, dead silence. The silence that makes you crazy. Made you crazy. Was that an acceptance of your apology, or a denial? Or had yesterday not bothered him? It sure looked like it had rattled him.
You let out a heavy exhale, mustering up every bit of courage in your bones, before standing up and walking over to Fitz. "Start anew?"
Fitz turned his head towards you, before smiling. "Yeah." He held his hand out to you.
"Fitz."
You took his hand, giving it a firm shake. "Nice to meet you."
"Still can't remember your name?" Fitz asked, holding your hand a moment longer, denoting his hope. Your hope.
There was a single word that came to mind every time you tried to remember. It sounded like a stupid name, but there wasn’t another candidate as of now.
"Gills... It's Gills."
It wasn't. You knew for sure that that wasn't your name. But what was, and why was Gills the only word you kept finding every time you dug deeper?
"Earth to Gills?"
You jumped, blinking rapidly. "Oh, yeah, sorry..." You held out the bolt and nut to him. Fitz looked back at you, frowning.
"When did I ask you for the nut?"
You looked at him for a moment before brushing it off. "Oh, no, I wasn't going to give you the nut, I was just, uh..."
Fitz just rolled his eyes, grinning.
Ward, who must have entered earlier when you were thinking, picked up one of the small dendrotoxin cylinders laying on the bench, holding it up to the light. "I only get one shot, and I have to knock a person back, as well as out." He turned away from the light as Fitz held up the Night-Night Pistol he'd been working on earlier. It looked a lot more polished than before. When did that happen?
"Which is why we're perfecting this little beauty. 45 caliber cartridges..."
At that point you zoned out again. He'd told you that over a million times now, explained what each thing meant and why it was important. You, for some reason, couldn't wrap your head around it. As long as it could shoot and the person couldn’t shoot you back, it was fine, right?
"... contains eight rounds of dendrotoxin-"
"In case you miss!" Simmons turned around from her work, the toxin having been her idea. Ward glared over at her, and her face faltered, but she quickly recovered. "Or, you have multiple assailants."
Ward turned his head back to face Fitz, holding his hand out for the gun. But, Fitz pulled back quickly, almost knocking his elbow against your face. You pushed it away though before he could manage a hit.
"Careful, we'll have the Night-Night pistol running in no time." Fitz grumbled, wiping the gun down again. What’s his deal with grime anyway?
Ward sighed. "Great. One thing, though. We're not calling it that."
As he walked away, Simmons cleared her throat, a smug look on her face. "Told you two."
"It's two against two now, Sim.” You said, stocking your tongue out at her. “ Actually, no, scrap that. My vote counts for three, so, that's your two to our four." You say, pushing yourself up from the bench as Fitz goes to put the gun away. You pointed little finger guns at her, and Jemma shook her head with a smile.
"Night-Night pistol for the win."
The boot of the white van you'd retreated into was dark. It felt nice. No light, no super loud sounds and no cold silence. Only you, the nut and bolt, and the old iPod with music Skye had given you. She'd told you she didn't need it anymore but could never find it in herself to throw it away.
The music wasn't amazing, but it wasn't terrible either. You liked the way it drowned your thoughts out, how it pushed down the strings of numbers that kept surfacing the fog.
Maybe you should write them down sometime. Maybe they meant something important.
The van lurched into motion, causing you to slide backwards and slam against the back doors. How thankful you were that you had closed them after entering, or you would have fallen out.
You pulled one of the earbuds out of your ear, hearing the soft purr of the motor. You must have missed when it came to life, or when someone had gotten in. Maybe you should turn the music down.
Once you got your bearings and the vehicle stopped accelerating, you crawled over to the front of the boot, popping your head up just enough to look through the small window into the cabin. FitzSimmons and Skye sat in the back, with Coulson in the passenger seat and Ward behind the wheel-
Shit.
You ducked. You weren't sure if he'd seen you through the rearview mirror. It was dark in the back, the back windows covered in a black paint. No doubt to keep whatever cargo is in the back out of sight. But that meant that there was no reason for him to look in the mirror. So why had he?
But, the van kept on chugging along, and you eventually went to sit against the wall between the cabin and the boot. You put the earbud back into your ear, although you’d turned the music down a little. You’d let your guard down.
Until the van stopped. You tumbled into the back doors, hard. The wind was knocked out of you, and the sound was loud. Your spine ached.
The van didn't pick up again. Why had we stopped? Was something wrong?
Without warning, the door behind you gave way, and you fell backwards towards the street. Before you could hit your head on the road, though, a hand gripped the front of your shirt, stopping you from falling further. Ward's hand, to be specific.
"Hey..." You grinned sheepishly up at him, his face upside down in your vision. Somehow, that made his glare even more intimidating.
"What are you doing here? I thought you were back on the Bus." That was Coulson, who stood to Ward's left. He was frowning, and he did not look ecstatic at all.
"Technically I wasn't planning on coming along…"
Ward heaved you up to your feet outside the van and you let out a startled noise. "Technically, you snuck onto the van in the first place,"
"Technically, I was here first," you say as Ward slides the back door open. FitzSimmons and Skye look at you, all three dumbfounded.
"I'm sure you can squeeze in somewhere," he mumbles as he closes the door behind you. You took a seat behind Skye, and once Couson and Ward got back in the car, he started it back up and you were on your way again. It was a tight fit, but it worked. This bus wasn’t meant to hold six, that much was clear.
“May, we’ve found the kid,” Coulson said into the radio once you were settled.
White noise rang through the cabin. “Where was she?”
“The sneak was in the boot,” Coulson replied, glancing back at you.
A simple ‘huh’ was all they got back, and Coulson turned the radio back down so that the white noise wasn’t deafening.
"How did you even get in here?" Fitz asked, clutching his metal briefcase to his chest.
"I, uh… I just opened the back door, and got in, and closed the back door." You were still holding Skye's iPod, one of the earbuds in your ear, playing 'bury a friend', which you'd probably played a million times over the last week. A long crack ran down the silver surface. You’d have to take a look at it some time later.
"Real clever, Gills," Skye looked over the back of her seat, grinning at you. "You'd make a good spy."
"If you don't make such a racket," Simmons said. "We'd have never known you were there - you could have gotten hurt."
"Well, she didn't. And Skye has a point - if you were older I'd have recruited you myself." Coulson turned his head around to look at you.
"Really?"
Coulson gave you one of his amused smiles. "Maybe, yeah. If you can keep down the racket next time."
Ward had parked the car in a secluded area, and he and Coulson had left for Zloda while the rest of you stayed behind. You'd taken the passenger seat so that the back wasn't as crowded, iPod now tucked in your pocket. The bud in your ear was now playing 'Something Blue', the tinny music making your head bop along every now and then. You were turned in your seat so you could see the others as they worked to find... What was her name again?
"You lot getting anything?" You craned your neck over to look over at Skye's screen.
"Nothing," Skye said, eyes focused on her screen and reading through anything and everything that appeared on it.
"Wait, wait, isn't that something?" Simmons asked as she pointed over at the screen.
"Maybe..." Skye mumbled as she began to decrypt the signal. Once she'd done so, a video appeared on the screen. It seemed like a heat signature, four figures clear in the frame, in a van. Wait…
Fitz seemed to be on the same frequency. "What the..." He stood, waving his arms.
The figure on the video did the same.
"That's us!" Simmons says, her voice hinted with panic as she turns to look at the window.
You're quick to your feet. Before you’ve had a moment to think, your body is already moving, and you don’t stop it.
As the three of them look through the window to spot where the filmer is, you're already taking a seat behind the wheel. You could hear the roar of the truck to your left as it revved to life, advancing. You turned the ignition switch, shifted the gear off of P and dug your foot into the gas pedal.
You felt the van lurch forward, then topple unexpectedly onto its side, and you went flying out of your seat, hitting your head. Your ears were ringing. Someone was screaming. Maybe two, maybe three, maybe four.
Your efforts had been in vain.
And your head hurt like crazy.