Charles Hinton was a minor character from the third season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., appearing in the episode "Spacetime". Once an ordinary human, his life changed forever when he underwent Terrigenesis and became an Inhuman with the power of tactile precognition. Whenever he touched someone, both he and the person he touched would experience visions of death, whether it be of someone close to them or their own.
History[]
Early life[]
Before Terrigenesis, Charles Hinton was a teacher and a loving husband and father. He and his family were well-liked in their community. However, one fateful day, Charles underwent Terrigenesis and was reborn as an Inhuman with the power of tactile precognition. His visions of the future were always of impending death; his wife witnessed a car crash in one such vision and Charles also foresaw the death of his mother-in-law in hospital. On a number of occasions, he witnessed the impending deaths of various people and attempted to prevent the premonitions from coming true, but failed every time.
Driven to despair by the death visions and seemingly powerless to stop any of them from happening, Charles left his wife and daughter, not wanting to burden them with his ability. He lived as a vagrant from then on, avoiding physical contact with people.
Capture by HYDRA[]
One night, Charles was resting behind a grocery store carving a small wooden bird. The store owner, Edwin Abbott, came out and politely asked him to move on as he didn't want to lose customers. He even offered Charles money to buy food, but Charles hesitated, not wanting to touch the man. Edwin thrust the cash into Charles' hand, at which point he saw a premonition of his own death. Charles apologized profusely, but Edwin went inside and called 911, asking for Daisy Johnson, an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. who he had seen in the vision and hoped would be able to prevent his death.
By morning, S.H.I.E.L.D. arrived and Daisy met with Edwin while Charles remained huddled away in the alley behind Edwin's store. As Edwin told Daisy about his vision, a HYDRA QuadCopter attacked, destroying the police cruisers and killing Edwin as he had envisioned. The QuadCopter then released a claw-like device that scooped up Charles. Daisy attempted to help Charles, reaching for his hand, but experienced a vision of her own when she touched him. Charles was brought aboard the HYDRA aircraft which then flew off with him.
Charles was taken back to HYDRA's base at Schoonebeek Oil Field where he was presented to Gideon Malick and the Inhuman known as Hive. Later, Malick and Hive brought Charles with them when they visited the headquarters of the Transia Corporation, where Malick told CEO Rowan Hamilton that he wanted to buy the company. Hamilton refused to deal with Malick, but then Hive had Charles brought into the board room. Charles was forced to touch Hamilton's hand, showing him a vision of the gruesome deaths of his fellow executives. Terrified by what he saw, Hamilton agreed to give Transia over to Malick in order to spare his and his colleagues' lives. However, Hive still killed the executives anyway while Hamilton watched with abject horror. Unable to fight back against HYDRA, Charles simply sat in a corner while Hive and Malick continued their business. After Malick donned Transia's new prototype exoskeleton, Charles watched with sorrow as Malick murdered Hamilton by crushing his skull.
Death[]
S.H.I.E.L.D. later raided Transia HQ in order to rescue Charles, with Daisy taking point. Daisy was dead set on changing the future she had seen, but she hadn't seen every detail of the events that were to occur at Transia. She thought she had seen Phil Coulson shooting at her in her vision, but it turned out that Coulson was actually shooting at a two-way mirror in the building's security office at an armed HYDRA goon on the other side. With S.H.I.E.L.D. interfering, Hive decided it was time to leave and had Charles escorted to a helipad on the roof, wanting him alive for the Inhuman army he was building.
Daisy managed to reach the helipad before Charles was taken away. Before she could reach him, Malick - still wearing the Transia exoskeleton - attacked her and beat her to near death. Before Malick could deliver a killing blow, however, Charles ran over and touched Malick's neck, showing him a vision of his own death. Horrified by this, Malick reacted by grabbing Charles' throat and partially crushing it. Gaining a second wind, Daisy used her shockwave power to strike Malick, destroying the exoskeleton and defeating him.
Mortally wounded, Charles fell down beside Daisy who told him that she had been sure she could save his life, but had discovered that he had been meant to save her instead. Charles expressed his delight that he had died making a difference before requesting that Daisy do whatever she could to look after his daughter once he was gone, which Daisy promised to do. As Charles handed Daisy the wooden robin he had made, he accidentally touched her again, giving Johnson another vision of an approaching death. He then succumbed to his wounds and died.