{ closed for @gracefuldisgrace }
Why was it that bad guys always seemed to choose creepy abandoned warehouses to house their illegal and dubiously ethical activities - in this case, Inhuman trafficking? It didn’t matter whether it was Hydra or, as in this case, some random, unidentified baddie - they all seemed to have the same modus operandi. Honestly, if Lance Hunter had had a dollar for every time he’d skulked through the hallways of one of these barren old buildings with a rifle at the ready, he’d’ve been a hell of a lot richer man. Probably could’ve retired by now.
“Are we having fun yet?” he joked quietly over the comms, deliberately avoiding the stern, no-nonsense glare he knew would be emanating from Agent May beside him.
“Tons,” Daisy’s voice crackled over the line from the other side of the building, and a smile flickered across Hunter’s lips. God, he was looking forward to this op being over, to getting back to base and snatching some alone time with her. They’d been way too bloody busy lately, and with their relationship still kept under the radar (from everyone except Agent May, he’d wager, since that woman never missed anything), they couldn’t exactly hold hands in the jet on the way home.
He bit back the suggestive comment that rose easily to his lips, glancing over at May, who was arching an unamused eyebrow at him. Yeah, he’d put money on the possibility that she knew exactly what was going on between him and her protégée. Maybe the surprising part was that she hadn’t killed him for it yet.
They rounded a corner, and Hunter snapped back into mission mode, clearing the next hallway before he and May began to advance down it. They, Daisy, and Bobbi and Mack were heading toward the center of the base from three different sectors, trying to triangulate the location of the captive Inhumans SHIELD had been tipped off about. According to the schematics, there should be a hallway up ahead to the right that connected to the corridor Daisy was working down. Security seemed light, so far - well, nonexistent, actually. And as they made their way further into the depths of the base, it began to nag at the back of Hunter’s mind that something didn’t feel right here.
“Guys?” Daisy’s voice came over the comms again. “I’m seeing wires over here. I think this place is rigged to blow.”
That stopped Hunter in his tracks, his eyes flicking up to the ceiling to check for evidence of explosives. But he saw nothing, at least not in their hallway. He exchanged a glance with Agent May.
“Nothing over here,” Bobbi reported.
“Be careful, Daisy,” May returned, her lips pressed tight. “We’ll meet you in the center of corridor F.”
This was getting serious now. A tingle of adrenaline zipped along Hunter’s veins, his senses suddenly on higher alert - every sound sharper, every angle and line of the hallway standing out a little more crisply to his eyes. Less security made sense, if you had a self-destruct button. But if they had people in here, they weren’t gonna blow the place. Not yet.
His steps quickened as they advanced toward the rendezvous point with Daisy, his heart now drumming in his ears. Fifteen meters from the corridor - ten meters - five. Two.
And then he saw the ripple shudder through the walls.
“Dais!” he cried, leaping the last two meters ahead into the corridor, just in time for the world to turn upside down.
The shock wave from the explosion flung him backward, slamming him against the concrete wall on the other side of the hallway, and the entire building shook as the sector where Daisy was operating came down, a thick cloud of dust rolling down the hallway toward them.
He could barely hear May yelling at him through the ringing in his ears. God, why was she yelling? Why the hell was everything spinning? And Daisy -
Daisy.
“Daisy!” Her name tore from his throat frantically, as his hands scrabbled against the hard floor, trying to find some leverage. He managed to shove himself up, lurching down the hallway toward where she’d been, his rifle forgotten and abandoned on the floor behind him. “Dais!”
She wasn’t answering.
The hallway now ended in a pile of rubble, cracked and broken concrete and twisted rebar, swathed in a choking cloud of dust. Panic shot through him, and he began flinging pieces of concrete aside in a blind frenzy.
“Hunter!” May’s voice, choked but commanding, rang out from behind him. “We have to go. This whole place could come down.”
Go? Like hell he was going to go. They couldn’t go! She was still in there somewhere!
He carried on frantically trying to shift the enormous pile of wreckage, until May was behind him, spinning him around and pushing him up against the wall, her eyes blazing into his.
“You can’t get through there, Hunter!” she barked. “She’s gone. We have to go. Don’t make me ICE your ass and drag you out of here.”
Gone. His mind tried to grasp hold of the meaning of that word, failed. Tried again, and again failed. She couldn’t be gone. Not Daisy - those laughing dark eyes, soft lips, the wavy hair he’d curled around his fingers a thousand times, the way she melted against him and whispered “I love you,” the way she believed, God, believed in him. Believed in something, with enough passion and fire and conviction to drag him into it along with her. The touch of her fingers, carding through his hair, smoothing across his skin. The quiet moments they’d stolen, just the two of them, a million lifetimes away from all of this.
She couldn’t be gone.
