Facing Your Destiny [Book 2]: A Grant Ward FanFic

Chapter 14 - New Friends, Old Enemies.

Love in the Time of Hydra.

Hunter and Taylor are being led to what looks like the command centre for this 'SHIELD' by Mack.

"So, this is what all the fuss is about." Taylor starts. "Another SHIELD?"

"Lower your voice. It'll all get worked out momentarily." Mack says. He leads him deeper into the command centre, it looks like they might be on a plane or ship of some sort, everything appears to be made out of metal. Not something you'd expect with an actual building.

"Lower my voice? You must be joking." Taylor comments.

"So, where now? To see the wizard?" Hunter jokes.

"Eh, something like that." Mack replies. He pushes a door. He then opens another door and Mack waits a moment for Hunter and Taylor to enter. They walk inside the room and it's some sort of conference room. They look in and see men they don't know and a woman that they do. Agent Weaver. There are two more agents sitting beside her. One has a moustache and beard, the other is clean shaven.

"Priceless." Hunter comments. Mack goes behind Taylor and Hunter and takes off the handcuffs. "I guess one boss wasn't enough for you and Bobbi."

"Seems the road trip hasn't dampened your friend's spirits." An older man speaks. Taylor and Hunter look over to the door. They see the older gentleman, wearing a suit and tie, standing in the doorway looking at the Brits. Mack holds his hand out to the man to shake with a smile on his face.

"Gonzales. It's good to see you, sir." Mack greets.

"It's been too long, Mack." Gonzales replies. They shake hands.

"Yeah."

"It's good to have you back on board." They stop shaking hands and Mack claps him on the shoulder as he walks over to Hunter and Taylor. "You must be Lance Hunter and Taylor Lee." Gonzales holds out his hand to them, they do nothing but stare down at it.

"And you must be crazy." They say in unison. Hunter looks up at the others as Gonzales drops his hand.

"I assure you, none of us wanted this." Gonzales heads towards the other end of the table as Hunter glances at Mack.

"I think I preferred you acting alone instead of taking orders from the clown academy." Hunter commented.

"This is not about blindly following orders, Mr. Hunter." Gonzales sits at the head of the table opposite Hunter. Taylor sits next to Hunter on the empty side of the table. "This is about leaders being held accountable."

"To the men and women they serve, as well as those that govern alongside them." Weaver adds.

"Thanks for the democracy lesson, Lady Thomas Jefferson. But, if it's all the same, spare me the sales pitch." Hunter comments.

"That's great. We should throw him in the brig." A different agent speaks.

"Let's not be hasty, Tomas. We at least owe him an explanation. We founded SHIELD, the real SHIELD, on the belief that leadership should operate with transparency and not from the shadows." Gonzales explained.

"Nick Fury simply kept too many secrets." Weaver added.

"Got it. Couldn't agree more actually. Just one little detail that you seem to have overlooked in your otherwise spot-on assessment. Guy with the eye patch and the secrets, Nick Fury. He's dead." Taylor lied.

"Fury is dead, but Coulson's alive and well." Gonzales reminded.

"Thanks to one of those secrets." Tomas chipped in.

"And it seems that instead of learning from those mistakes, Coulson's heading down the same path." Gonzales told them. Hunter sighs and gets the chair out sitting on it.

"All right. So that's what this is about. You guys don't want Coulson in charge. I'll be the first to admit the guy's not perfect. Sometimes chews with his mouth open, tends to hog the mic on karaoke nights. But other than that, he's not so bad, really." Hunter mostly joked.

"Well, I'm afraid we don't share that opinion." Gonzales disagrees. Mack sits at the table with a roll of his eyes.

"This is rubbish." Taylor told them. Hunter leans in close to Mack.

"Maybe you've drunk the conspiracy Kool-Aid but there's not a chance in hell Bobbi would ever bow down to any of this." Hunter told him. The door behind him opens and he stops talking immediately and looks over his shoulder, Bobbi enters the room on cue. Bobbi stares at Hunter as Gonzalez looks from Bobbi to Hunter, Mack turns his head away and the other Agent grins. Bobbi closes the door, gives one more look to Hunter, who's staring at her with anger, then sits next to Mack. "Perhaps we could have discussed this alone...without all of Hufflepuff looking on." This makes Taylor chuckle. Mack shoots her a look.

"Hunter...please." Bobbi pleads. Hunter looks from Bobbi to Gonzalez.

"Okay, then." Hunter reclines back in the chair putting his feet up on the table in front of him. "Indoctrinate away."

"It may come as a surprise to you, but I was very close to Isabelle Hartley. You see, she saved my life in this very facility. HYDRA had me dead to rights." Gonzales started.

"You're not the first-person Izzy helped out of a pinch." Taylor cut in.

"But I may have been the last. By all accounts, Isabelle's death could have been avoided if Agent Coulson hadn't been so relentless in his pursuit of alien technology." He continues. When Gonzalez mentions Coulson, Hunter sighs and takes his feet down off the table. Taylor just rolls her eyes.

"Added to that the tragedy in Puerto Rico, the death of Agent Triplett. The transformation of the young woman, Raina. Even Agent Skye seems to have been affected. Same with you Agent Lee." Weaver looks over to Taylor who stays quiet.

"And all because of Coulson's search for a city that his own alien writing drove him to find." Gonzales adds.

"Yeah, he's put all that scribbling behind him." Lance comments.

"Oh. Should we all just get up and go home now?" Tomas jokes. Bobbi throws an eye rolling look at Tomas's words.

"This is not a decision that we arrived at lightly. I know Coulson. He was a good agent. At least he was before Fury injected him with alien DNA. Ever since, his behaviour's grown increasingly more troubling. Can you honestly tell me that you don't share any of these concerns?" They are all looking at him, he glances at Bobbi then puts his head down after sighing. Taylor looks over to Hunter.