I do not need more fandoms, but I got hooked on Agents of SHIELD and this happened.
Au where SHIELD didn't hide Skye well enough and Hydra found her. I don't own Agents of SHIELD. In present tense because.
Grant tosses the flash drive to a technician who happens to be nearby and barks out to get it decrypted, then approaches Garrett.
"What's next," he asks when his SO sends away the agent he was talking to, "Another mission?"
Garrett's smile is like broken glass, all shine and sharp edges. "Oh no, son, you're getting a special assignment." He stands up and walks off down the hallway, expecting Grant to follow without checking that he is.
There are times he hates being treated like a lapdog, but whenever he starts to question why he puts up with it he stops thinking about that because it's so much easier this way isn't it?
He follows Garrett down the hall, ignoring the other Hydra agents that breeze by, all with their own agenda and things that they're doing.
His SO stops in front of one of the doors and pushes it open without bothering to knock.
It's a small room, bordering on the fine line between room and cell. The walls are concrete, but the occupant has plastered long stripes of paint down them in random directions, lending a chaotically colorful effect that is brighter than anything he's seen anywhere else in this base.
There's a girl sitting cross-legged on the bed shoved against the farthest wall. There's a table next to her, with a lamp on it, and that's it. She's intently focused on the screen of the computer in her lap, biting her lip in the blue light cast off.
"Clairvoyant," she says mockingly without even looking up.
No one should speak to Garrett like that, and it's only Garrett's raised hand that stops him from lunging forward to teach the girl some manners.
"Oh, don't be like that sweetheart," he replies, voice dripping in sweet venom, "I've brought you a present."
Now she does look up, deep brown eyes narrowed at his SO. "Last time you brought me something I broke three of her ribs and her leg," she says in chilling tones, "what makes you think I'll like this one any better."
"Because he's taking you for a walk," Garrett answers. Over his shoulder to Grant, he adds, "Grant Ward, meet our secret weapon, Skye."
"You brought me a robot," Skye says, "finally learned your lesson about scientists?"
"What is she?" Grant asks, ignoring the girl's protests.
"She's an 0-8-4," Hydra's leader replies, "SHIELD tried to hide her, but they didn't do a very good job. Did they sweetheart?"
Skye stands up now, and a chain uncoils behind her. She's cuffed by the ankle to the bed post, with thick chains that are welded halfway up the frame. He feels sorry for her but she wouldn't be here if she wasn't useful to Hydra and there's a good reason she's chained up.
She smiles, and it's full of sharp secrets and bloody promise.
"You're perfect for each other," Garrett says, and it's only then that Grant becomes aware the corners of his mouth have twitched up in response. Never let it be said he backs down from a challenge. It's why he's the best.
Then Skye moves like lightning. He hadn't realized her chain was that long, or that she could move like that, and she's on him. Garrett takes a step back not abandoning testing to make sure you're strong.
He grapples with her, and she's good, but she's also small and he's accustomed to things randomly attacking him. they fight back and forth for a minute, holding and breaking holds, and by the time he manages to pin her to the floor, she has a split lip and he's sporting a bruised cheek and his arm aches where she had twisted it. The appendage is possibly sprained, but not broken.
Skye grins at him from where her face is half-pressed to the floor, and it's all unrepentant joy and excitement. "I like this one," she manages around a mouthful of blood.
Grant thinks, that even though she was technically defeated, she looks like won something but she will always be second to Hydra.
They stop at the tech station to get her equipped with a bracelet that will send hundreds of volts coursing through her if she moves more than twenty feet away from its opposite or just if he feels like it. Skye picks at it on the elevator up to the surface, only stopping when he glares at her.
She laughs when they get to the surface, running out from him to stand in the middle of the courtyard with both arms outstretched. In the unforgiving daylight, she's pale and gaunt and they feed her exactly what she deserves.
But she's laughing, loud and boisterous, and Grant makes an impulsive decision.
"Want to see the city?"
Skye's grin, if possible, widens.
He's back the next day with the key to her cell and the bracelet. Skye perks up immediately and attacks him again. She leaves him with a black eye and a hairline fracture on one of his ribs. He breaks her arm, but still takes her up to stand in the sunlight.
She laughs like a force of nature when he shuts the door and tells him she was glad to see him.
He wonders, sometimes,what Hydra could have possibly done to that girl purely as professional curiosity.
The next day she's already standing when he opens the door, arm fully healed at her side. Her smile is full of star-bright shards when he asks how and she stands still while he unlocks her chain, simply extends an arm when he asks.
Skye twists around and drops with his weight, throwing him over her shoulder, and makes a break for it.
Grant swears when he hits the bunk, jostling ribs that haven't healed. He's starting to seriously rethink this assignment as he heaves himself up from where she threw him and chases after her.
She's leaning against the wall in the hallway right outside when he exits her room. She gives him a smile like summer sunshine and the edge of a knife.
The fourth day in a row he opens her door and takes her up to the surface, she doesn't even try to break any of his bones.
Grant thinks it's a start.
After a month of daily visits, wandering different parts of the city or just talking, Skye has stopped attacking him altogether. Everyone else is fair game, but only if he doesn't get between them.
"Good job son," Garrett says when he comes to find out how Grant has been doing, "if you can get her to tell you anything about what she can do, be sure to report it."
Grant looks after him, feeling slightly sick because Skye is a bright creature in this dark land of half-truths, who never claims to be anything but what she is and he'll always tell them everything because it's the right thing to do.
She hacked the bracelet when he wasn't looking, then their computers. Half their systems are shorting out and she's hacked the other half, turned off all the sprinklers and probably sent out signals to every agency she can think of about this base.
A bit of falling concrete catches him about the shoulders and he falls to the floor. When he looks up, she's standing there and this is bad she's a danger to Hydra and you destroy her.
She touches him, a hand on either side of his head, and the whisper in his head that's been humming in his ears for so long simply falls away. Even with bloody lips and red smeared across her teeth, her smile is like the open sky and a promise of freedom.
He takes her hand and together they run.
Grant hotwires a car and they take turns driving until it runs out of fuel in the middle of nowhere, then they walk to the next town. Skye hacks an ATM and gets them cash enough for a room for the night.
She tastes like sunshine too. Sunshine and fire and a desert rainstorm, bringing life and destruction both.
"What now?" he asks, hours later when they've exhausted each other. The lights from the street outside come slanting in through a gap in the curtains, but he can't work up the energy to go and fix it. "Find another base? Start over?"
Skye rolls over, and the light paints streaks across her skin, rendering her a ferocious thing crowned in light and shadow. Her smile is bright as freedom and shattered as the wreckage of a bomb. "We're going to take them down. No more hail Hydra," she breathes into his mouth, "Hail us."
Grant Ward thinks he can live with that.