Hail HYDRA | Skyeward

Episode 18: The Singularity

***

Grant stood exactly where Daisy had left him.

The operations room was silent again, the only sound the faint hum of servers and monitors. A moment ago she'd been standing right in front of him.

Now she was gone.

He stared at the empty space for several long seconds, jaw clenched so tightly it hurt.

She hadn't tried to kill him.

She hadn't even tried to convince him for very long.

She'd simply... left.

Because somewhere inside her, she'd decided Hive was worth following more than he was.

The thought settled in his chest like lead.

"No," he muttered to himself.

He wasn't accepting that.

Not while she was still breathing.

Grant finally turned and strode out of the room, his expression hard enough that every HYDRA agent he passed instinctively moved out of his way.

"You," he called, pointing at one of the technicians. "Pull every satellite feed we've got from the last six hours."

The man nodded immediately.

"Yes, sir."

Another agent hurried past.

"Lock this base down," Grant ordered. "No one leaves without my authorization."

"Already on it."

"I want every report on unusual Inhuman activity on my desk within the hour."

The agents scattered without question.

Grant rarely raised his voice.

He didn't need to.

When he spoke like this, people listened.

He was getting his wife back.

Whatever it took.

He reached the office he and Daisy shared and shut the door behind him.

Only then did he let himself think.

Hive.

There was only one organization with the resources to help him find Hive quickly.

S.H.I.E.L.D.

The idea alone made him grimace.

Walking into the Playground was practically suicide.

The alarms would go berserk.

May would probably shoot first.

Mack definitely would.

Coulson...

Grant honestly wasn't sure.

He rubbed a hand over his face before his eyes landed on Daisy's laptop sitting on the desk.

It was closed.

He pressed the power button.

Nothing.

Dead.

Grant frowned.

"Daisy..."

She never let her laptop die.

Never.

She'd mocked him more than once for letting his own devices run out of battery.

"Preparation isn't paranoia," she'd once told him. "It's survival."