Lab I

Phil Coulson/Leader of Team SHIELD

Once they entered the hospital, John Daltry led them to the room they needed to head to, once he'd spoken to the doctors and orderly's in charge. The psychiatric hospital as a whole looked relatively normal to Phil's experience. A big part of his work in SHIELD had dealt with patients who might be enhanced, so he had been in a few hospitals like this. Some had been as close to a horror movie version of an insane asylum as you could get, others the sorts of super-advanced facilities that looked more like spaceships than hospitals.

This hospital was smack dab in the middle in terms of overall quality. Not horrible, and not great.

Coulson stopped his internal judgment of the hospital's decor once they stopped in front of a door. Sheriff Daltry opened the door for them.

The second they entered, the person within turned to face them. Coulson looked her over.

She was taller than Skye or May, almost as tall as Daltry was. Her red hair was cut at her neck, and her eyes were a pale gray. Even in the dowdy grey gown that she was wearing, the facts remained. She was pretty.

Except for the left side of her face. A huge section of her face had been melted like acid had been poured over it, melting the skin from her forehead down to her chin into a mess of horrific-looking damage.

Skye and Coulson tried their best, but some measure of their horror must have shown on their faces. The woman winced, quickly pulling at her hair so that it covered half her face.

"Hey," Daltry said softly, smiling at her. "It's good to see you walking around, darlin."

The woman looked over at him. Her smile was beautiful. "It's good to see you, John. Who are these people?"

"These folks are from BRIDGE," the sheriff looked over at him. Which must have been why he missed the woman switching from a smile to a look of horror that she tried to hide. "They had a few questions for you."

"Yes," Coulson looked over at the sheriff. "Do you mind if we speak to her alone?"

Daltry stiffened, his eyes narrowing to give them a flinty glare. "Of course I do, damnit. She's been through enough, I ain't leaving her alone to get interrogated by you-"

"John," the woman interrupted. "It's okay… Just give us a minute, please," she gave him an odd look, her lip quivering.

"I-" John looked at her, then at Skye and Coulson.

"We aren't going to do anything to her," Skye said softly. "But some of what she knows might be classified, so we have to talk alone. I promise she'll be fine though."

Coulson winced. They might well have to arrest this woman, so making promises like that was impulsive, to say the least.

Still, it seemed to do the trick. Sheriff Daltry clenched his fists, then unclenched them. "Yeah… Yeah, all right," he looked at the woman. "But if anything happens, you call me, okay!?"

"I will," she smiled at him. Could have been fake, but Coulson thought he could see genuine emotion behind it. "Thank you, John."

The Sheriff nodded, giving a final look at Skye, Coulson, and the woman, before leaving. They could hear his heavy footsteps outside, loud enough that they could tell he'd stopped just a few feet from the door.

"...You know, there were only so many people that were listed among the SHIELD personnel on the base," Skye said quietly. "And none was a redheaded woman."

Coulson sighed. "But one of our scientists was dating one. One who had enough clearance to enter the base. Mrs. Barbara Sallis, formerly Bannister. When did you betray your boyfriend?"

The redheaded woman gave them a saddened look. "For six months, before the Triskelion incident… I suppose you want the full story?"

"As a start," Coulson said. "It would go a long way to making amends, ?"

"I-" she hesitated. "Where do I start?"

"With your recruitment, I believe," Coulson gestured to a chair, which she sat in with the finality of a woman on death row. "Tell us. How did it start?"

"...with Ted," Barbara shook her head slowly, tears filling her right eye, the left scarred one still covered by her hair. "It wasn't his fault. But it started with him."

Coulson and Skye shared a look. Skye looked… reluctant. Coulson couldn't blame her. This woman, vulnerable as she looked, could have been HYDRA. Like Garrett. Like Ward. Someone who had betrayed their friends and allies, for the sake of a fascist organization that went against everything they stood for.

After a quiet moment, Skye seemed to gird herself, stepping forward and grabbing a chair for herself. She sat down in front of the woman, placing her backpack on the ground next to her, and leaned forward. "Just tell us what you can. Please."

Barbara looked at Skye. Her hair had fallen back, revealing her face in its entirety, the scars on her left side shiny in the sunlight, a combination of pale white and red masses of damaged skin. Skye looked her in the eyes, not flinching.

Coulson had to guess Skye's ability not to be fazed after an initial look was due to her experience with far stranger looking things. Being friends with Dial, who had aliens ranging from undead Frankenstein monsters, giant bug-men, and mummy or giant eyeless dogs probably helped. But her compassion had to help as well.

Whatever the case, Coulson leaned back and listened as Barbara took a moment to think.

"...When Ted and I got together, he was… sweet. He cared about me. About people. He was kind and thoughtful. He was amazing."

"And then that started to change," Skye said softly.

"...Yeah," Barbara shook her head. "Ted started to become obsessed. He kept staying up late, working on his serum. I didn't worry about it too much, but then he started getting… distant. And I didn't mind that too much, at first. I started hanging out in town. Finding my own ways to relax, to feel useful. And Ted was always there, even if he started ignoring me in favor of his research… My dad was that way, sometimes.

"And then, he just got worse and worse. He kept on staying out at the lab all night, finding reasons to avoid me. He was so focused on his work… You know, his wife, before we started dating. She tried to warn me about that."

"Ellen Brandt?" Coulson asked. When Barbara nodded, he cocked his head to the side. "She was a member of AIM…"

"I remember," Barbara said softly. "...I just wanted him back. Wanted him to stop ignoring me. And then, a man came to me."

"From HYDRA?" Skye asked.

Barbara shook her head.

"AIM?" Coulson asked. After all, according to Dial, Ellen Brandt had betrayed Ted on behalf of AIM, maybe the same was happening here?

"No, no, he was," Barbara sighed. "He was from Hammer Industries."

"...That bootleg Stark wanna-be?" Skye asked, blinking.

Barbara winced. "Y-Yes."

Coulson held in a rough chuckle. Hammer. Thank god he hadn't let his preconceptions take over.

"He promised money," Barbara said softly. "H-He said that if some other company beat SHIELD to the super-soldier serum… Ted wouldn't need to work on it anymore. He could take some time off. Come back to me. I'd have the money to let us be alive. I don't understand why I listened. At some point it was like… Like it was my idea," she said softly, sounding lost and confused.

"The same reason why he went to you," Coulson said softly. He walked forward and crouched next to Barbara. "Men like that, they are trained to prey on people. To use psychological cues to find things that will make you lean into their train of thought. They lead you into their flow, convincing you by making you convince yourself. He saw that you felt neglected. And he caught you before you could reach out to anyone else. Made it so that you weren't able to think of any option except for himself. It's insidious. It's how spies have created spies for centuries," Coulson looked over at Skye. "SHIELD mastered the technique. I've done my best to avoid doing it. But it's worse than mind control, in some ways. Because it makes you feel responsible for it. And you end up blackmailing yourself. 'I did this, so I have no choice but to keep going'."

She didn't say anything. Coulson didn't expect her to. Barbara must have been alone for weeks at a time, thinking and rethinking all of her decisions. Trying to think about how she failed, how she could have done better.

Coulson had done the same thing after the Triskelion Incident. Looking back on his encounters with Ward, with Garrett, with other allies who turned out to be enemies. Thinking about the friends he had failed. The people he should have stopped. Everyone had regrets after all.

Barbara finally spoke. "I was supposed to collect the passwords Ted used. To send as much data as I could on what the lab had on the serum. I did that for weeks, getting paid for what I stole. I should have some money in a Cayman account actually," Barbara shook her head with a sardonic smile. "I might have hundreds of thousands of dollars waiting for me. And I don't care," her lip quivered. "One day, I was visiting Ted. He ignored me, again. I collected some data on the serum, something about Abraham Erskine creating a diet and exercise routine that would lead to similar effects to the serum if done over a lifetime of rigorous routine."

The way she said that, as though she was reading from a dictionary. How often had she gone over the events in her head?

"Then, early in the morning, Captain America came on the screens," Barbara said softly. "And the Hercules app activated. Half the guards and some of the scientists were HYDRA. And then the shooting started."

Melinda May/The Caval-Agent of Team SHIELD

When the elevators opened, the first thing Melinda noticed was the smell. The horrific scent of decay had already filled the inside of the elevator, but the actual lab was so much worse.

"Oh my god!" Melati reeled back