Chapter Text
“What’s your name?” the jerkwad who abducted her from her van and shoved a bag over her head demands. The other suit, older and wiser and probably the one in charge here, is eyeing her curiously, rather than with suspicion.
“Skye,” she answers reluctantly, defiantly.
“What’s your real name?”
Daisy.
Except she can’t tell them that, because she’s hunted and in hiding. Daisy has earthquake and vibrational powers, and has been on the run since she was fifteen years old, since she escaped from being further experimented on and dissected. Daisy is what her father, who kidnapped her from school when she was fourteen, told her she was called, and is the name he is trying to find her by so he can take her back to that illegal, off-the-books scientific facility to be turned into a weapon.
She can’t be Daisy without living a life of constant anger, dread, and fear.
So instead, she’s Skye. Skye is an orphan used to abandonment, rejection, and disappointment, and she’s a hacktivist who lives on the streets, advocating for freedom of information and exposure of shady government dealings. Daisy is haunted, but Skye is a ghost. Skye is her shield from SHIELD.
But now they’ve found her, and she’s loath to admit she’s terrified, because if they know that Skye is Daisy? Everything is over.
“That can wait,” the curious suit says. “It's another name we need... a certain hero.”
Oh, they want to ask her about Mike. Not her. They don’t know about her.
She relaxes. The furious jerkwad just bristles, but the curious one notices. He tilts his head ever so slightly at her, eyebrows furrowing minutely in confusion and intrigue. His vibrations are calm and collected, but inquisitive. He’s perceptive, Skye notes. She needs to be wary of him.
She slips back into Skye’s cocky, self-assured, rebellious personality. For now, Daisy is safe. “What makes you think I know that?”
Coulson knows.
Or rather, he suspects. Just as Skye’s about to clamber into his red Corvette alongside him after they’ve safely dropped Mike Peterson’s son Ace at his aunt’s, his offer laying on the table of joining his SHIELD team, Coulson pulls his gun out of its holster and aims it at her.
Skye reacts on instinct and raises her hand to quake it apart in less than a second. The gun parts clatter and plink as they fall into his car’s footwell. Her heart is hammering a mile a minute, and she feels like she’s going to implode from stress. It’s not the first time she’s had a gun pointed at her - not by a long shot - but it’s the first time she’s been stupid enough to let her guard down and allow them this close to her.
“What the hell?” she snaps at him. “Were you about to fire that at me!? You could have killed me!”
“I knew it,” Coulson responds breathlessly, instead of apologizing. There’s a look of pure excitement on his face. “I knew I hadn’t imagined it. In the CCTV footage from the explosion, everybody else was focused on what Mr Peterson was doing. But in the background, I saw a woman and her child soar through the air out of the way of a falling piece of debris from the building. They looked like they’d been invisibly shoved. Then your reaction when Ward and I took you in -”
Skye backs away from him and the car, her heart in her throat as she trembles in panic. He knows. He’s a SHIELD agent and he knows that she has powers. It was so, so dumb of her to use her powers back there when she knew that there were CCTV cameras on the street, but she just hadn’t wanted that poor little girl and her mom to get hurt. There’s no point in running. It takes every bit of concentration and effort to keep the shaking contained, and her arms ache painfully as she refuses to set the quakes free.
“What do you want?” she asks hushedly, interrupting his enthusiastic self-debate over whether or not its telekinesis.
Coulson blinks at her. “I made you my offer,” he replies, bemused.
“No, what do you want?” she presses. “To leave me alone, to keep quiet, to not tell -” Her voice cracks. She inhales and exhales with a shudder, hunches her shoulders, and clenches her fists. “I’ve been on the run since I was fifteen because of these stupid powers.” She doesn’t know why she’s telling him, honestly, but it feels good to actually say it aloud for once. “I won’t let you take me to some SHIELD lab to be turned into a lab rat, and I won’t let you brainwash me into becoming an attack dog on a chain leash. I’ll fight you if I have to.”
“Skye, I don’t want anything from you.” He’s looking at her now with a softened expression, a faint smile of reassurance on his face that she can’t trust. “I made you an offer, and you can choose whether or not you want to take it. I’m not going to compromise you if you choose you don’t want to join the team. There is clearly a very good reason you’re trying to remain under the radar right now and I wouldn’t place you in danger like that. But if it’s any consolation to you… if you did join the team, we would protect you. We protect our own.”
Skye regards him silently for a moment. Protection, from SHIELD. Will that work, when SHIELD is who she needs to be protected from? But what Coulson is saying is that he and the team would protect her. Coulson, Ward, Fitzsimmons, May. They’re not typical government drone agents.
“I don’t want the others to know about what I can do,” she whispers.
“Okay,” Coulson agrees. “We’ll keep it between us, for now.”
For now. That’s the condition. She can work with that, though.
She takes a cautious step back towards the car, narrowing her eyes in suspicion. Coulson is looking at her with such a patient and kind smile that she doesn’t know what to think. Clenching her jaw, Skye tries to imagine going back to her hacktivist life, in her van on the streets, struggling to get by while she throws her back out for the Rising Tide, who couldn’t care less what happens to her. She tries to imagine returning to an existence of ever-present paranoia and worry of being caught by her father and those monsters who call themselves scientists.
What Coulson is offering her is far better. Security. Access to hot water, warm food, and healthcare. Teammates. Already, he personally has shown her more care and compassion than anybody else she’s ever met, her entire life.
“I don’t want you telling them without my permission. I don’t want to have to use my powers on any of the missions, I don’t want to be forced into doing anything with them,” Skye insists. “No testing, no experiments. That includes all the blood tests and DNA profile stuff as well. If I join your team, I just wanna be your computer sciences and cybersecurity specialist and pattern analyst.”
“That all sounds reasonable to me,” Coulson nods, starting up Lola’s engine. “Although, warning you now, Simmons will definitely want to give you a physical and have your DNA on file. I’ll run interference for you if you want to switch out or delete the samples.” He checks his cell phone. “I don’t want to pressure you, Skye, but I’ve got to get to the airfield in the next ten minutes. They’ve called in an 0-8-4 they want my team to investigate.”
She hesitates, then asks, “What’s an 0-8-4?”
“You’ve got the next ten seconds to decide if you want to find out,” Coulson replies, gesturing to the empty seat in the Corvette next to him.
Skye bites her lip. And then she opens the passenger side door and slides onto the seat, simultaneously buckling up and making up her mind. Coulson doesn’t even try to hide his grin.
“There’s no way we can make it to the airfield in less than ten minutes.”
It turns out that they can. Because Coulson’s car can fly.
Ten minutes later, she’s carrying a duffel bag and cardboard box of belongings up onto their gigantic plane, which she tentatively attempts to call home in her head, while Fitzsimmons welcome her joyously, Ward and May look on with frowns and Coulson sports a ridiculous beaming smile that makes him look like her proud father.
Their first mission together as a team is to track down an 0-8-4 in Peru.
An object of unknown origin, kind of like you, Coulson jokingly says.
He has no idea how right he is. Her flashdrive, loaded with the redacted files and stolen lab reports that make up the mystery of Daisy the walking natural diaster, burns a hole in her pocket.
Skye breaks her own rules not to ever use her powers around the team when the BUS is hijacked and she’s forced to quake a man across the cabin when he aims a semi-automatic at Fitz’s head. Fortunately, there’s so much chaos in the moment, with the side of the plane having been busted open like a soda can as they try to gain back control, that nobody notices.
It leaves her shaken, though. Mostly because it pushes her to begrudgingly accept that she’s always going to feel utterly petrified at the idea of any of the others finding out who she really is. It makes her feel like her time on the team is going to be fleeting, because once they find out - and she won’t be able to keep it secret forever - Skye will have to run again.
Maybe that’s why she responds to the Rising Tide call-to-arms.
After they watch the 0-8-4 be flung into space, Skye decides to help clean up the BUS. It’ll be something to keep her trembling hands busy and quiet the black storm of guilt raging in her mind. There are already SHIELD maintenance men working on repairing the hole in the fuselage, the shattered glass, and bullet damage everywhere. She tides her bunk, which has been torn apart by Reyes’ men; after that, she organizes all of the kitchen cabinets. She remembers Coulson’s office being wrecked and figures that he might appreciate it if she helps clear up in there as well.
“Oh, sorry.” She immediately comes to a halt when she accidentally walks in on Coulson having a meeting with a tall black man wearing an eyepatch and a black trenchcoat. “I - I didn’t mean to interrupt. I thought you were still down on the ramp with the others,” she says pathetically, her cheeks flushing red.
“What did you want to do in here, Skye?” Coulson questions, more inquiring than accusing.
“Your office was trashed, I just wanted to help…” she trails off. She doesn’t know how to put into words that she’s grateful for everything he’s done for her so far and wants to show her thanks. She doesn’t know how to tell him that in barely a couple of days, he’s been more of a father figure to her than any foster dad she’s ever had. “I - I’m sorry. I’ll go. I really didn’t mean to intrude.”
Before she can turn and scuttle away, vibrations buzzing at her fingertips as embarrassment floods through her, she hears the man dressed like a pirate ask Coulson dubiously, “This is the girl?”
“Yes, sir.”
The man appraises her. She feels like a specimen under a microscope. Instinctively, she ducks her head and tenses her shoulders, because if Coulson is calling this guy ‘sir’, then he’s got to be a pretty big authority figure within SHIELD. She doesn’t like authority figures, and authority figures often don’t like her.
“Skye, huh?” the man asks. She swallows and bobs her head in a silent nod. He knows that it’s a fake name. Does he know who she really is? “Director Fury,” the man introduces himself, offering her his hand, making Skye’s jaw drop as she shakes it. She’s meeting the Director of SHIELD himself. “You try and keep your old man here out of trouble, alright, kid? God knows he needs as many people as possible watching his back.”
My old man? Skye raises an eyebrow and glances over at Coulson, who is now looking up at the ceiling as if he’s praying to be struck by lightning before the Director mortifies him further. “Of course, sir,” she agrees.
“And I mean it when I say no damn fish tanks,” Fury scowls at Coulson. He stalks past them both to the door, only peering back at them briefly to give a one-fingered salute. “Shake you later, Skye.”
Her heart drops like a stone in her chest. There’s absolutely no way in hell that he’s plucked those words from nowhere, or chosen them by chance. He’s saying that deliberately. “Shake you later,” she echoes numbly. It’s only once the door has slammed shut behind the Director that Skye wheels around and hisses, “What did you tell him about me?”
Coulson startles. “Only that you’re my new consultant, a cyber specialist. He called you a risk, but he does seem to agree with me that you’re a good addition to the team, and with proper training could become a great SHIELD agent one day - only if you wanted to,” he hastens to add. “Why?”
“Just… what he said,” she stammers. “I thought you might have told him about…”
“You mean your -” Coulson wiggles his fingers in what Skye supposes is meant to indicate her powers. He’s such a dork it’s not even funny. “No, I haven’t said anything to anyone. I keep my promises, Skye. You asked me not to tell anybody, so I won’t.” He cocks his head with a thoughtful expression. “‘Shake you later’, that’s what you’re talking about that’s got your feathers ruffled?”
Skye rubs the back of her neck, averting her eyes. “I guess I’m just jumpy.”
“So shaking things, that’s something to do with your powers?”
Skye rolls her eyes. “You know that pressing me for answers isn’t going to get you anywhere,” she reminds him.
“You’re really going to keep your old man in the dark?” Coulson complains, but with a teasing smile.
“Don’t call yourself that, and yes. I’ll fill you in when it’s necessary. Until then, it’s just better if you forget all about it. Just… know that you don’t have to worry about me when it comes to defending myself in the field.” Skye bends down to gather a pile of folders that have been swept onto the floor in her arms, so she can dump them onto his mess of a desk. “Now I came to help you clean up your office, not let you needle me. Should I make myself scarce, or…?”
“Actually, I need to debrief you about what happened, get your account for the paperwork.”
“Should have stayed with Fitzsimmons and let them babble to me about the Slingshot.”
Over the next week, Skye settles into living on the BUS, and living with the team. It’s strange to be sharing space with people after having lived by herself in her van for the past five years. It’s kind of strange, actually, as she’s the youngest on the plane at twenty years old, yet she feels like Fitzsimmons, both twenty one, are the little siblings. Maybe it’s because Skye was forced to grow up and mature at a younger age, became independent as a teenager by necessity, while both of the scientists still have an air of childlike joy and innocence to them.
Just as Coulson warned her, Simmons puts her through a physical and takes blood. She claims that her DNA is just going to be put on file in case of any future medical emergencies, but Skye knows that her file is not going to be secure enough for her liking. She knows that the people she’s running from will easily be able to access it. So she runs on a treadmill, lets Simmons take her baseline vitals, and allows the biochemist to check her over to determine if she’s fit and healthy enough for fieldwork.
Simmons says absolutely nothing when she records her resting heartrate at 110 beats per minute, her core body temperature at 3 degrees higher than a normal human being, and metabolic rate of that of a star athlete. She says nothing when she sees the dozens of scars, pale and white and jagged, marring Skye’s skin. She says nothing when Skye flinches from every needle, says nothing when she trembles at the sight of the white lab coat and blue Latex gloves. She doesn’t pry, but quickens her pace so she can finish the physical with clinical efficiency, but fantastic bedside manner. Skye wonders what the biochemist must be thinking she’s suffered through, but decides she doesn’t want to know. Everybody has their traumas. Simmons is respecting her privacy and that is something she greatly appreciates.
But when Simmons draws her blood, Skye deletes it from the analyzing program. She wipes all trace of it from the medical file. Simmons finds out, of course, and goes to Coulson lamenting about possible glitches in the system that have caused the loss of data. Coulson catches Skye’s eye. She stares back at him, steely and cold and scared. He tells Simmons not to worry about it, and that consultants don’t need detailed medical files anyway. Skye breathes.
Coulson has instated himself as her supervising officer; even as a consultant, there’s basic training she requires to become a fully-functioning member of the field team, including self-defense and firearms. He’s delegated her physical training to Ward, who at first Skye was certain hated her, and would be disinclined to help her out. The specialist seems to have remembered, however, how Skye saved his life during the hijacking. She pretends to have no idea what she’s doing when he puts her in front of a punching bag, or places a Glock in her hands.
The reality of it is that Skye knows how to fight. She knows how to fire a gun. Those sort of skills were required when being hunted. She’s pretty sure she could take Ward down on the mats, if she wanted to. She wouldn’t even need to use her powers to do it. But it’s better that everybody on the team thinks she’s some naive, defenseless little girl who doesn’t know the safety from the mag release. It’s better to be underestimated.
The morning that SHIELD 616 gets assigned another mission, Skye fakes some lame punches at the bag in front of Ward, complaining about his morning work-out routine for her.
“I’m making you do ten push-ups for every terrible punch,” Ward growls. Skye sticks her tongue out at him and deliberately messes up her next hit. “You think this is funny? That’s ten.”
“Better push-ups than pull-ups. I don’t ever want to do another pull-up again.” Mostly because of the awful aches and pains she gets in her arms, which have already been battered by her powers, when she lifts her torso.
“When you find yourself hanging off the edge of a building twenty stories up, you're gonna want to do at least one,” Ward snorts in amusement, but then he groans again at her posture. “God, Skye, straighten up and keep your hands raised. You’re just asking to get jabbed in the throat.”
“I’m a consultant, not a specialist like you and May. Why’d I have to do this?”
“Because when you’re out in the field with us, you need to know how to protect youself. May, Coulson and I have already got Fitzsimmons to worry about, we don’t want to have to waste time to rescue you too.” Ward runs a hand through his hair in frustration when she punches the bag pathetically again. “Stop playing around, Skye, Jesus… look, this isn’t a game. You might think it is now, but trust me, you’ll really wish you took this seriously when you’re mid-mission and a guy is about to beat the hell out of you. Soon there’ll be a moment when you have to make the hard call, where you have to choose whether you’re gonna commit to this training or bail.”
“You talking about a defining moment?” Skye quirks an eyebrow. “Because I think mine was when I was seventeen and hacked the Pentagon for the first time because I wanted to see whether the Roswell alien crash landing conspiracies were true.” Fourteen, a solid rock cocoon encasing her entire body and then an earthquake measuring 8.0 on the Richter scale shaking her free, changing her life forever.
Ward emits a noise of disgust. “That snark isn’t gonna save you in a fight.” He grabs her fists, wheeling her back around to face the bag. “This is. C’mon, one-two.”
Skye raises her foot and brings it down in a light stomp on top of his, before elbowing him in the chest and sending him reeling back a step. “Three-four?” she teases.
He huffs unhappily, tired with her whining and joking around, and leaves her to punch at the bag for the next ten minutes so he can go and speak to Coulson when May announces over the PA system that they’ve changed course for new orders.
As soon as Ward’s gone, Skye exhales slowly and corrected her stance. She rolls back her shoulders until her muscles are loose and pliant, rather than stiff from anxiety like before. And then she hits the bag, over and over and over again. Properly, this time. Within a couple of minutes, she’s zoned out, focused completely on how her powers amplify the resounding vibrations that ripple up her arm and through her body, each time she strikes the bag.
“Skye.” She jolts, rocking back on her heels and lowering her wrapped fists. Her eyes fly up to the gallery. May is standing with her hands on the railings, observing her with a sharp glint in her dark eyes. Skye’s stomach flip-flops. “Briefing in three,” May informs her shortly.
Skye nods, and begins unwrapping her hands.
“Drop your elbows slightly, you’re tensing too much when recoiling,” May says, looking pointedly at the bag. “And maybe don’t waste Ward’s time by getting him to teach you basics, when you already know what you’re doing.”
Her throat dries up. She nods again warily.
May continues to stare down at her for a second before turning on her heel and vanishing towards the briefing room. Forget being cautious around Coulson… May is the person on the BUS Skye is going to have to be the most careful around now. May knows she’s deliberately downplaying her skills; it would be stupid to think that she’ll let this go.
And she doesn’t. When the team agrees that Skye will be the one to infiltrate Quinn’s mansion complex in Malta to be SHIELD’s inside woman, as she isn’t bound by international laws as a consultant, May orders her to follow her. Her heart jackrabbiting in her chest, Skye tails her back to the cargo hold, where the training mats remain spread on the floor. May is going to be training her?
“If your cover is blown, there’s a likelihood that Quinn will end up pointing a gun at your face,” May tells her, her voice flat. “You’ll need to disarm him, take the gun, and aim it back at him.”
“Okay,” she says warily.
The specialist shoots her an expectant look. “Do you know how to do that?”
Usually when a gun is pointed at her face, Skye just quakes it apart. Quinn, however, is a dangerous individual with a lot of shady business and corrupt friends - it’s possible that he’s got connections to her father and the organization he was working with when Skye was captured and being experimented on. That means that she can’t use her powers in his vicinity, not even to protect herself.
“I don’t know how to disarm somebody, but I know how to use a gun,” she replies honestly.
May’s eyes flicker up and down her scrutinizingly. “If I teach you how to grab the gun, will you be able to pull the trigger?”
Skye sets her jaw. “Yes,” she replies, her voice stony.
May doesn’t ask more questions. She shows her how to disarm someone and steal their gun. Copying the specialist’s movements, it doesn’t take long for Skye to learn. Judging by the miniscule raise of her eyebrows, May is impressed by her ability to pick up new skills quickly.
Of course, later on during the mission, her new skill suddenly becomes incredibly useful when Skye is forced to disarm Quinn. Coulson and Ward are already on site, but they’re focused on rescuing Dr Hall, so she’s on her own. She aims the gun at Quinn with a steady hand, keeping a heedful eye on the guards rallying behind the billionaire.
“So SHIELD taught you a few things,” Quinn laughs mockingly. “But do you have what it takes to pull the trigger?”
Skye makes a show of lowering the gun - and fires a round into Quinn’s calf. The man screams out and buckles to the floor. She has what it takes, and so much more. What she needs now, however, is a distraction; shooting him in the leg, rather than the head or chest, provides the perfect one. She discards the gun and takes a flying leap off the balcony into the pool below, using her powers to cushion her landing.
Minutes later, she runs into Coulson, who has apparently come running to search for her while Ward deals with Dr Hall and the gravitonium weapon.
“Skye!” he shouts, sounding relieved.
He doesn’t see the guard appearing out of the bushes from the side just behind him, cocking a semi-automatic. Fear lashes through Skye’s heart like a barbed whip. She’s only known Coulson for a fortnight and already, he’s wormed his way into her heart as the father-figure she’s always wanted. She can’t imagine losing him.
Adrenalin pumping through her veins after all the action, making her giddy and lightheaded, is messing with her decision making. That’s what Skye blames when she raises her hand and quakes the attacker against the nearest wall, his skull connecting with the stone with an awful crunch.
Coulson stops dead in his tracks. Takes her in: trembling all over, soaked to the skin, with an undoubtedly feral gleam in her eyes as she drops her raised arm. His head whips around to glimpse at the man she just probably killed. When he turns back to look at her, there’s no hint of revulsion or terror on his face - just a little bit of surprise, sympathy, and immediate understanding.
“So that’s what you can do,” he says in awe.
“Yeah, we can talk about this later,” she rushes out. “We need to get to Ward.”
After Coulson has whisked off the gravitonium somewhere secure and returned to the BUS, Skye attempts to avoid him by any means possible.
She is seriously not looking forward to having what undeniably will be an incredibly uncomfortable conversation with her SO about the capabilities and limits of her powers - which will end up being a conversation about how she got them in the first place. She’s in a low mood already because she shot somebody today, as well as quaked someone into a wall. Talking about her powers and past will bring traumatic memories swelling to the surface, which she’s not mentally prepared to deal with right now.
Knowing that the first place Coulson will search for her is her bunk, Skye hastily showers, braids her damp hair, wiggles into PJs, and goes down to the lab. Fitz and Simmons are there sitting at the holotable with beers, resigned and depressed after the loss of their former Academy teacher. They toss Skye a soda, barely blinking at the sight of her in pajamas. Being the only underage member of the team is annoying at times like these, because while she doesn’t drink much in fear of losing control of her powers, she would love an ice-cold cider to chase away the tightness in her chest. She listens to Fitzsimmons as they tell her wacky stories from their Academy days, and enjoys the lack of pressure to talk about herself.
Coulson doesn’t find her, so either he doesn’t know she’s here or he’s leaving her alone. By the time it strikes midnight, Fitzsimmons are both tipsy and dead on their feet. They need to lock up the lab, so they herd Skye out apologetically and wish her goodnight.
“Oh, I, er - I heard Ward and May arguing with Coulson about you earlier,” Fitz tells her awkwardly. “So good luck… with… that.”
Well, that’s ominous. She’s too exhausted to worry about it, though, even though her body is so wired and tense that she knows insomnia has her in its grips tonight. Sighing, Skye shuffles through the plane into the kitchen, not bothering to turn any of the lights on as she can use her powers to echolocate, sensing the vibrations of obstacles as she moves about in the darkness. She’s hungry, but it’s far too late for her to consider cooking something… not that she actually knows how to properly cook. Microwaved popcorn is what she ends up making.
She’s about to grab a glass of milk from the fridge when the lights suddenly switch on. Not expecting the abrupt brightness, and having not sensed the vibrations of anybody approaching, Skye freezes. Her muscles seize as she inhales sharply with a gasp; before she knows what’s happening, the glass falls from her hand and shatters on the floor.
“Do you always wander around at night with the lights off?” May asks.
Skye just continues staring at her with wide, terrified eyes, holding her breath. Her gaze darts down to the smashed glass; razor-sharp shards blanket the floor, inches from her bare feet. Memories flood her mind of when she was six years old and accidentally dropped a mug; her foster mother at the time exploded into a fit of rage. The woman hit her over the head with a frying pan and locked her in the downstairs closet for the day as punishment. Skye is aware that punishments don’t work like that for adults, but she can’t help but instinctively flinch away from May, knowing her to be a stern female authority figure like that old foster mother was.
Tremors of apprehension run down her spine, through her legs, and into the floor. For a second, the entire plane quivers in response to her agitation. Hopefully, the others will think it’s turbulence. Skye swiftly shuts the quakes down, pulling the destructive vibrations into herself. Her arms throb painfully. She doesn’t need to roll up her pajama top sleeves to know that bruises are blossoming from her wrists all the way up to her elbows. Tugging her sleeves down self-consciously, she bows her head, not wanting May to see how upset she is.
But May seems to sense it, anyway. Without saying a word, she plucks a dustpan and broom from the maintenance closet in the corner of the room and begins sweeping up the broken glass. Skye would normally protest and say that it was her fault for dropping it, so she should clean it up, but her throat is thick and tears are brimming in her eyes, and she’s concerned that if she speaks, her voice will break.
“Wear socks or shoes around the BUS,” May advises her, in a calm voice. She doesn’t sound mad at all, which allows Skye to relax somewhat. She didn’t realize she was so anxious about the specialist yelling at her. “Next time we land and have free time, you should pick up some rubber-soled slipper socks. They’ll protect your feet from any debris that might be lying around from Fitzsimmons’ experiments.”
Skye remains silent, watching as she pours the glass fragments into the trash.
May doesn’t seem to care that Skye isn’t talking to her. “No doubt Coulson will tell you the next time you see him, but I’m taking over your physical training from Ward. I will expect you in the lounge at 5am on the mark every morning.” She turns to leave, but adds, “Your past is your past, but if there is ever another instance you feel too nervous to concentrate when being trained, to the point where you are actively disrupting your instruction, you should tell Coulson so he can change your teacher. A lot of women feel uncomfortable being trained by men significantly larger and stronger than them. Ward is not going to be offended if that’s what you’re worried about.”
It’s the most Skye has ever heard her say in one sitting - perhaps ever. And May is… comforting her? Reassuring her? Caring about her? She feels weird about it, either way. Her issue with Ward is not that he’s intimidating, but telling May that would mean she would have to explain her actual problem, which there’s no way she’s going to do.
“Thank you,” she mutters.
May narrows her eyes and then gives a short nod. “Right calf?”
“What?”
“Quinn. You shot him in his right calf. You didn’t hesitate. Why?”
Skye shifts on her feet uneasily. She completely forgot about the fact that May and Fitzsimmons were on comms and would have heard what happened. How is she meant to answer that question? “Because he’s right-footed and I needed to incapacitate him as well as create a distraction so I could escape,” she replies, unsure. She doesn’t comment at all on why she didn’t hesitate to shoot the billionaire, because admitting that she’s shot people before is not something she’s ready to do yet.
Fortunately, May doesn’t force her to explain. Her expression stays neutral. “Stop avoiding Coulson,” she calls over her shoulder as she departs. “Delaying the inevitable only ever makes things worse. And go to sleep, Skye. You have to be up in four hours, after all.”
It’s only once Skye has finished her popcorn, drained a glass of milk, and is heading to her bunk that she realizes that May just sort of mothered her.
The situation with Akela Amador gives Skye a lot to think about. For one thing, it actually increases her amount of trust and belief in Coulson. For the past five years, Skye has struggled with the idea that she’s a monster, who doesn’t deserve a second chance. Today, Coulson went out on a limb to extend a lifeline to his former protégé, despite the fact she initially appeared to be a criminal.
It’s proved to Skye that he’s the type of person she can potentially rely on if things go South for her. She’s never had somebody like that in her life before. It feels an awful lot like having a father, and considering her biological father is a psychopathic maniac who allowed her to be tortured and experimented on, she doesn’t know precisely how to feel about it.
They haven’t talked yet about what went down in Malta. She’s been too busy with training; May is a fierce, stern but incredible teacher, who consolidates Skye’s existing skills and teaches her new techniques to improve her agility, control, and power in combat situations. Yes, she and Coulson have talked mission things, but they haven’t discussed anything distinctly personal. Skye is dreading telling him about her powers and past, quite truthfully. She’s been trying to convince herself over the last few days that Coulson can’t be that repulsed or horrified by her very being considering he hasn’t thrown her off the plane yet - and he saw her toss a man into a wall like a beanbag.
She’s starkly aware that her days here are numbered; she feels like an idiot for opting in for the Rising Tide mission now that she’s come to see the BUS as her home, and the team as her family. With that in mind, she hates the idea that Coulson might be biting his tongue and allowing her to avoid him because of the communication breakdown between them.
Skye is curled up in the back of the team’s SUV with her laptop, looking through old Operations Academy test papers May recommended, when the door is yanked open. Irritated that her sanctuary has been disturbed, she glances up to snap, but her annoyed outburst dies in her throat when she sees that it’s Coulson who is nervously hovering with his hand on the door.
“Hi,” he greets her.
“Hi,” she echoes.
“Ward said you were taking personal time,” he says, with a faint smile. “Do you… still need more personal time, or…?”
Well, she can’t avoid him or this conversation any longer. Skye’s lips tick up in a small smile of her own as she shakes her head. “Slide on in. There’s always room for A.C.”
She shuffles sideways to make space so he can clamber in next to her and shut the door.
“What’s wrong with ‘Agent Coulson’ or just ‘Coulson’?” he sighs.
Shrugging, Skye closes her laptop and leans back, staring up at the ceiling. “A.C. is cooler.” A comfortable silence falls between them for a moment. Knowing Coulson isn’t going to break it, lest he feels like he’s pushing boundaries, she glimpses over at him. He’s settling into his seat, fingers entwined and his hands resting on his stomach. “Not many people would have made that call to give Amador a second chance.”
He shrugs. “I got one. Seems only fair I extend the same opportunity to others.”
“Including me?” she whispers, her voice deafening in the quiet car.
He hums softly under his breath. “You deserved one. You know, I see why you like it in here.”
“Yeah.” Skye closes her eyes wistfully. “It's kind of like my van. But without thieves and bums trying to break in.” That makes her SO chuckle. “It's more peaceful here. It's also cool knowing that someone has my back... no matter what.”
“Peaceful’s good,” Coulson agrees.
Silence falls again, this time for a good couple of minutes. It’s time, Skye realizes. It’s time she starts opening up to him a little, giving him tiny pieces of information about her life. He trusts her, and while she doesn’t entirely trust him… she means it when she says she knows he has her six covered.
“The BUS is loud,” she tells him slowly. “The engines are powerful, and the vibrations are… constant, and deafening to the point of causing headaches. Being in here helps quiet it all for a little while. Helps me wind down and relax.”
“... the vibrations?” He sounds confused. “The BUS is huge and internally insulated. You shouldn’t be able to feel them.”
“My powers, they’re, um… they’re vibration-based,” she explains, tense and nervous. “Generating, manipulating, channeling. Mostly molecular and seismic. Part of that is being able to sense the vibrations of everything around me… all the time. It’s like permanent tinnitus. I used to get pretty awful migraines because of it, before I adjusted.”
“How long did that take?” Coulson’s voice is casual, but she can hear the slight rise in pitch that indicates that he’s excited she’s offering information freely.
Skye frowns, trying to remember. Those immediate months after she escaped from the facility are a blur, although she’s not sure whether or not that’s because her brain has blocked them out as a coping mechanism, or because she was so ill. “About a year or two. About as long as it took for me to learn how to control them. There are still side effects but nothing as bad as those migraines… I’m glad I don’t get those anymore.”
Coulson turns to face her, lines of worry wrinkling his forehead. “What kind of side effects?”
She doesn’t respond immediately, internally debating over whether or not she wants to expose that particular vulnerability to him. After a minute or two of thought, Skye reckons that he’s bound to find out eventually anyway, or see one day when she accidentally forgets to wear long sleeves. She’s had to live with the bruises for the past five years, and the days where the skin of her arms are pale and unmarred are few and far between; it’s a normal part of Skye’s life for her to be bruised and battered, to the point where she’s got used to it. As her SO, Coulson deserves to - and needs - to know about this limitation of hers.
“Don’t freak out,” she says tiredly, and then shrugs off her sweater to show him her arms. There’s a mixture of fresh purple and older yellow and green bruises wrapping around her wrists, and although they are healing, they still look atrocious.
Coulson pales. He sits up from his slumped position and angles his whole body towards her so he can examine the bruises more closely. His dominant hand shakes as he reaches out to delicately brush his thumb over an especially nasty looking patch of mottled skin. “Oh, Skye,” he murmurs, sounding terribly sad. “Why didn’t you say something before?”
“I couldn’t. If I go and see Simmons, she’ll want an explanation that I can’t give her,” she admits. “It’s my own fault, anyway. My powers are linked to my emotions. When I get nervous or upset or angry, I can’t always control them as well. I have to internalize the vibrations. I can’t risk releasing them because… well, we’re flying in a rigid metal pressurized container at 40,000 feet, and I could crack it like an egg and kill us all if I’m not careful.” Embarrassed by how much attention Coulson is showing her arms, she slides back against the far side door and covers them with her sweater. “It’s not a big deal. I just see it as part of the terms and conditions. I control the vibrations, but there’s always going to be kickback. You don’t shoot a rifle without expecting the recoil to wrench your shoulder.”
“It is a big deal if it’s hurting you. If it’s hindering you during everyday life.” Coulson looks like he’s about to cry, his face ashen. “You need to tell me these sorts of things, Skye. We can try and get you help - I’m sure Fitzsimmons -”
“I don’t want Fitz or Simmons to know yet,” she interrupts. “I’m - I’m just getting used to having you knowing and I don’t think -” She cuts herself off, glaring down at her clenched fists on her lap as tears burn in her eyes.
“Talk to me, Skye,” Coulson says quietly. “What are you thinking?”
A shudder runs down her spine as she curls up protectively into a ball, resting her head against the SUV’s door. “I’ve never told anybody myself before. Everybody who knows found out without me wanting them to. Just this once, I want to be able to choose when to tell the others. Because I - I know that as soon as they find out they’re going to see me as a threat and probably be afraid and Fitzsimmons will dissect me in the lab or something -”
“They wouldn’t do that to you.” Coulson appears stunned she would even begin to think that. “They might want to do tests, but they wouldn’t do anything without your consent. And they both adore you like you’re their little sister, they would never do anything to hurt you.”
“But they’re scientists.”
Coulson looks even more taken back - and even a little insulted, but there’s mostly concern on his face. “No SHIELD scientist would ever do tests or experiments on a person without their consent. They certainly wouldn’t try and cause deliberate harm to somebody.”
Skye knows otherwise, but stays quiet, because she’s not ready to share that yet.
“Skye.” Coulson waits until she reluctantly lifts her gaze to make eye contact with him. “Did you -” he pauses, rephrases, and asks gently, “Is there a… reason… why you don’t trust scientists?”
“Don’t make me tell the team, please,” is all she responds with, a whispered plea that she despises herself for making, because nothing makes her feel weaker than resorting to begging to get her way.
Her SO doesn’t respond. It’s because he can’t promise her that there won’t be a time in the future when the rest of the team needs to know, and she’ll have to reveal her powers whether she’s prepared to or not. Skye appreciates the fact that he’s not lying to her. Especially considering that she’s lying to him about why she agreed to join the team in the first place.
Everything promptly goes to hell as soon as Skye gets involved in trying to track down a pyrokinetic powered individual in Hong Kong, learns about the horror that is SHIELD’s Index, and realizes the first person she’s ever trusted to know about her powers is going to destroy the life she’s built with Coulson and the team so far.
Par for the course.