Title: A New Perspective
Author: Debra
Rating: Teen
Summary: When Ward's aunt arrives at The Playground looking for help in finding him, she helps Skye make a choice that leads her away from Shield to find her own answers about what she wants for her life. Takes place after What We Become and will eventually become Skyeward.
Author's Notes: In my AU Series starting with A Different Life, Skye was adopted at nine years old by Ward's aunt Lily, an original character of mine that is also gifted. I started to think what if in the canon of the series she needed maternal advice from a prospective that May can't understand, someone who understands what it is like to deal with a power that needs to be controlled.
Disclaimer: The known characters in this story belong to Marvel.
Six months had passed since the events of San Juan and it was a warm day in the beginning of May that brought Lily Ward to the Shield base known as The Playground. She ran her fingers anxiously through her dark hair as she waited for Phil Coulson, the director of Shield to come down from his office and talk to her. She had been brought to their base with a bag over her head to prevent her from knowing where The Playground was located. What they didn't know was that she already knew where it was located because of her own ties to Nick Fury and the old Shield before that mess with Hydra had started. A mess her nephew had found himself in the middle of.
"Miss Ward, if you came to here to keep us from catching your nephew and putting him back into a prison cell, you are wasting your time," Melinda May said as she walked over to where Lily was standing.
"Agent May, I think you remember exactly what I am and what I am capable of. I am dying to kick your ass for what you did to my nephew. The only reason I haven't blasted you off of your ass and into that wall is because unlike you, I want to do this the nice way instead of fists first. You really won't like me if I have to use my powers to get you to back the fuck off," Lily said, glaring at May, who wisely backed off, knowing exactly what Lily Ward was and what she could do to her.
"My mother is dying and her last request is to see her entire family. My brother, his wife and Christian have been brought out of hiding and are already at our home in the Hamptons. Thomas and Louise, Grant's other siblings are already there."
"Grant didn't kill his family?"
Lily took in the young woman that had asked the question and could feel the uncontrolled power radiating from her. She also sensed a deep well of confused feelings towards Grant, there was hatred at the things he had done but also a longing that she refused to let come to surface. A longing for him to have been the man she had thought he was.
She quickly realized that this was Skye, the woman her nephew thought he was in love with. She had her doubts because given the lies that had been told by him, she didn't know the real Grant and he didn't know that woman that his lies had turned her into. Now with her newfound powers and his own issues, neither one of them were ready for any kind of relationship of a romantic nature.
"No, he didn't. It was a ruse to get Grant an in with Whitehall. I used my powers to help him but only after he got a confession out of Christian about his part in what happened to Thomas. It was what Grant needed to help him start to deal with his past."
"So you are a gifted?"
Lily could sense the young woman had questions and needed them from someone who could understand what she was going through. She gently touched Skye on her arm, ignoring Agent May taking a step forward as if to stop her.
"If you need any advice for what is going on with you, I will try to help you. I don't have your exact power but I know what it is like to learn to control a power that you didn't ask for but is apart of who you are from birth."
"How did you know?"
"One of my gifts is to sense power in others, along with others that come with being a witch."
A look of disbelief came over Skye's face until she saw the look of fear in May's eyes. Her SO knew what Lily was and that was why she hadn't responded to Lily's confession of wanting to kick the older woman's ass. Lily Ward was the one person that could physically hurt the Calvary.
"How did you become one?"
Skye and Lily sat down at a table in the common room, each of them ignoring the audience that was gathering around them.
"My 'gift' was passed down through the female line of my family. It started with a curse on my family back in 1690 when a member of my family who set himself up as judge, jury and executioner for 'witches' in his village killed the wrong two women. Their sister was actually a witch and cast a curse on his family. His daughter became a witch and her brother's unborn daughter became one at her birth. There can be only one female born to each generation of the Ward family and at least one male. One of his children will be a daughter to carry on the family curse. Given that Christian can't conceive a child because I hit him in the groin with a bat when he was sixteen after I caught him tormenting Grant and Tommy. Tommy is not a biological Ward and Louise was born with the same power I have, so the conception of the next generation witch falls to Grant. Given his attitude about becoming a parent, I think it will die out with Louise."
"Magic is not scientifically possible," Simmons stated as her eyes narrowed in suspicion.
Lily held out her right hand, palm facing upwards and a ball of bright white energy formed in it. She took her left hand and moved it to that hand before it disappeared. The gasps of shock from everybody but May and Coulson, who was watching from the doorway, carried around the room.
"I have lived with this from the time I was sixteen years old Dr. Simmons. Given every extraordinary thing you have seen as a Shield agent, I find it confusing that you are so sure that magic doesn't exist. You sound like Grant; he refused to believe that the curse is real until he saw it in action six months ago."
"If you have talked to him, why are you here looking for him?"
"He disappeared after San Juan and he is off of the grid. I have investigators searching his safe houses but nothing has turned up."
"He is probably somewhere recovering from when I shot him," Skye said quietly.
Lily used her magic to sense Skye's thoughts and gasped in shock at the other woman shooting Grant in the back four times. She could feel the anger and hatred Skye had felt for him that day but also a need to keep his stubborn ass from following her down into the tunnels to certain death.
A vision came into Lily's mind and she then saw a woman that looked like Agent May but with scars on her face help him out of the building. She also saw another man wearing a suit come across them and help the woman with Grant.
"Skye, if you hadn't of done that, he would have followed you into those tunnels and would have died just like your friend did. I know my nephew and he is one of the most stubborn people God put on this planet especially when it comes to protecting someone he cares about. It has led him into doing some of the stupidest shit ever; like dropping a pod out of an airplane, thinking it would make things better instead of ten times worse."
"You got that right," a young man with curly blond hair muttered.
"Mr. Fitz, you have every right to be angry with Grant and I don't blame you for cutting the oxygen off to his cell. It might have been an extreme way of doing it but he needed to know exactly what his actions caused to happen to you in a way that you couldn't tell him yourself," Lily gently stated. "He forgave you the moment you did it because he felt like he deserved it."
"Did you sense all of this with your magic?"
Lily turned to face the tall blond haired woman that asked the question.
"That and I had a long conversation with him while we were planning out how to fake his parents' death, Agent Morse. My nephew knows better than to lie to me because I can sense it and also have some personal experience with being lied to by someone I loved. He knows I will zap him in the ass for it, just like I did to the person who betrayed me."
"I can see if he still has the cell phone he called me from," Skye said before cringing at the glare May gave her. She hadn't told Coulson or May about him calling her right after Bakshi was captured.
"Let me have the phone and I will call him, he might not want to talk to you, Skye."
"How are you going to let him know that it is you?"
"We have a question that only the two of us and his other siblings know the answer to and when I answer it, he will know it is me. Of course we will be changing the question the next time I see him."
Skye went and got Bakshi's phone and found the unknown number that Grant called her from. She dialed it and handed the phone to Lily, who put the phone on speaker phone.
"I don't want to talk to you, Skye," Grant harshly bit out over the phone.
"This isn't Skye."
"Aunt Lily?"
"Yes, now ask the question."
"What kind of bat did you hit Christian in the balls with?"
"I hit that idiot in the balls with a Louisville Slugger." Lily said, ignoring the snorts of laughter coming from the people with her. "Now call me on my cell so we can talk in private, it is important."
Lily hung up the phone and waited for a few seconds to the sound of her cellphone ringing. She quickly answered it, heading towards the exit. She walked out and took the elevator up to the surface, not noticing that Skye was right behind her and ignoring the shouts of May and Coulson ordering her to come back.
As they stood outside of where the base was, Lily answered her phone and started to talk to Grant.
"Your grandmother is dying. If you aren't at our home in the Hamptons by the time I get there, I will kick your ass when you do show up, Grant Douglas."
She hung up the phone and turned to face Skye, who was waiting quietly for Lily to finishing talking.
"Let me go with you. I have so many questions about how to control my powers and if I haven't found them here in the six months since I got them, I never will."
"If I allow this, I have some rules. You are to stay away from Grant; at least until he is finished dealing with his dying grandmother and that rabid bitch he calls a mother. After my mother passes and has been laid to rest, we will go to my farm in Virginia where I will teach you to control your powers and then when you feel comfortable with them, you can either stay or go back to Shield, the choice is yours. You are a grown woman and not a child; I won't treat you like one or a soldier that has to follow orders."
"Thank you. Let me go and get my stuff."
Skye went back into the base and came back fifteen minutes later, tears in her eyes.
"Coulson and May had objections to you leaving," Lily stated.
"Yes, they told me that I was making a mistake and that you could be just as manipulative and twisted as your nephew."
"They have a point but then again, my nephew was manipulated by three of the most selfish people ever born. He says that he wasn't brainwashed but he was so messed up by his own mother, brother and that asshole John Garrett, he wouldn't know it if he was brainwashed."
Skye followed Lily into the limo that was waiting for them and glanced up to see May and Coulson watching from the window before getting into the car with Lily.
AN: Grant is in the next chapter and he won't be happy to see Skye but has other things on his mind to deal with. I have written the next five chapters already and while Skye and Ward have some close moments, there isn't any real romance between them. I have started on chapter seven and there is a twist or two in regards to Ward's past and one storyline from season one will come back to make his life even more difficult. I will update this every day if not every other day at least until I get all of the previously written chapters posted.