This was meant to just be a fun, light one shot to get me back in the habit of writing, and it ended up being more. Just so you know, all the stuff about hacking is probably false, I don't know anything about hacking, but as this is AU, just go with it. Also, this takes place after season 1 of AoS and after Transformers, the first movie. ENJOY!
~Wolfy
Phil Coulson watched Sky out of the corner of his eye discretely. He was doing his best to make sure that the girl that he had come to see as a daughter was alright. She had gone so much, and he hadn't seen her smile in almost two weeks, and she had only smiled because Fitz had finally woken up with no ill effects.
The quick witted hacker that they had kidnapped from her van had pulled their team together, made them a family. Her people skills, soft words, and forgiving nature made her an invaluable asset, not to mention her computer skills. He had actually gotten an annoyed phone call from Tony Stark, complaining on how she had hacked into JARVIS and had made it so the AI could speak in nothing but French for three days. That short only because Coulson had made her undo it.
"Hey, AC, you're going to burn a hole in the back of my head if you keep staring at me like then. Then Jemma's gonna be mad at you for killing me from staring," Skye teased. Phil realized that he had been staring. Oops.
"Who are you talking to?" he asked, getting up to look over her shoulder. "Not telling anyone the secrets of SHIELD? Because that would be a breach in National Security," he added, only half joking.
"Disclose the most closely kept secrets with the Director of SHIELD not even ten feet away? Even I'm that reckless," Skye answered, her attention back on her screen as a pudgy young man slid back into view.
"Hey, Glen. This is my boss, AC!" Skye said cheerily. Coulson stared impassively at the man, then shifted his attention to the soldier marching up behind Glen. Looks like Glen was in trouble.
"Glen, you had better not be running your mouth about NEST to some civilian," the soldier snapped.
"Wh-what? N-NO! This is Skye, from SHIELD. She's a friend of mine. She's the one that taught me how to hack!" Glen protested, defending his friend.
"Hi!" Skye said cheerfully.
The soldier seemed a little taken aback. "Hello. So, if you're skye, who's the other guy?" he demanded.
"Who? Oh, AC! This is my boss, Phil Coulson. Director of SHIELD. He was making sure that I wasn't giving out national security secrets and all," she said, rolling her eyes at the notion.
"Major William Lennox. I lead the NEST team. Nice to meet you. I'm sorry about what happened with Hydra and all that. I heard that you and your elite team were coming here, so you could meet everyone here," Lennox said, his demeanor going from intimidating to kind in a second.
"We're actually on our way there, now. ETA is half an hour," Skye put in happily.
Lennox looked alarmed and checked something, his expression not changing. "We don't have you on any of our grids!" he protested.
"Of course not! We're off-grid for a reason. I hacked into your computers so you guys couldn't see us," Skye told him, smiling. "That was a fun challenge to break through, you guys have almost as good of firewalls as Tony Stark!"
Lennox appeared to be at a loss for words. Glen smirked. "I told you that she taught me. Are you really that surprised that she could hack something that I made," he said in praise. Skye grinned wider. Coulson saw that and a small smile slipped onto his face. It was gone just as quickly, but Lennox and Glen saw it.
"Is there a problem over there? I think I just saw the grey man over there smile!" Glen said, leaning closer to the screen.
Skye gave him a look. "AC DOES show emotions. He's not a robot, like-" she cut herself off, a small choked sound coming from her mouth, and a few tears slid from her eyes. "Sorry, I have to step out for a minute," she explained before making a hasty escape.
Coulson looked after her worriedly, mimicking the looks the two men on the video screen had. "She was referring to an Agent that was once part of our team. She and Agent Ward were very close, and she took his betrayal very hard. She used to tease him about how he was more like a robot than a person. Normally got him to show some emotion," Coulson explained.
"Understood. We will see you in twenty-five minutes, sir," Lennox said, shutting off the video link before Glen could ask more questions.
Coulson sighed and closed the laptop, carrying it to Skye's bunk. She was sobbing against her pillow, again.
"You know, if you keep doing that, your pillow is going to sue you for pillow abuse," Coulson teased lightly as she punched her pillow.
"AC, did you just make a joke?" she hiccuped, wiping furiously at her eyes. She sat up so Coulson could sit on the bed.
"I can do that," he defended himself, pulling the young adult into a hug. She leaned into him, her leftover sobs quieted as he held her.
"I shouldn't be crying still. It's over and done with," she said.
"You were very close to him, he was your S.O. It's only natural for you to be upset about it," he said, rubbing small circles on her back.
"Do you think Fitzsimmons need anything?" she asked hopefully. Anything to get her mind away from Ward.
"Why don't we check on them. We'll be landing in a few minutes, anyways," Coulson said, helping her to her feet and leading her to the lab.
"Skye! Thank goodness, Fitz here-"
"Skye, could ya kindly explain to Jemma-"
"-he thinks that miracle whip is-"
"-that mayonnaise is clearly-"
"-better than mayo!"
"-worse than miracle whip!"
Skye took a minute to translate Fitzsimmons to Skye-ish. "Fitz says that miracle whip is better than mayo, and you disagree, Simmons," she finally said. They nodded.
"I agree with Jemma. I hate miracle whip," Skye said. Jemma smiled at her and hugged her.
"I TOLD you that she would agree with me, Fitz. She does, after all, have very good taste," Jemma said, mock glaring at FItz. They still thought that the two of them dating was a secret.
"Yeah, Fitz. I have good taste. Good enough taste to know that a monkey would make an awful pet," Skye teased. Fitz sputtered as he tried to explain the benefits of having a monkey around, not that anyone was listening to him.
"Buckle up, people. Wheels down in five." Agent May's voice came over the comm.
"And mayonnaise IS better than miracle whip," Triplett as he walked into the lab, arms crossed.
They went through the landing routine, Skye tripping and nearly landing on the newly restored Lola. Phil caught her before she hit it, giving her his usual warning.
"Don't touch Lola. The last time you did that, she came back ruined," he reminded.
"Well then, next time I'll jump out of the BUS with the truck," she responded dryly. The ramp opened up, revealing a small group of soldiers and a lot of vehicles. A LOT of vehicles.
"How about no more jumping out of the BUS in vehicles. Not without permission," Coulson said, looking at the assembled group.
"Glad you landed safely," Lennox said. "You going to introduce us to everyone?"
"This is Agent Simmons, our biochemist and emergency medic for when we are too far away from medical assistance."
"Which means every time one of them gets hurt," she grumbled, her kind british lilt showing amusement.
"Right, Jemma," Coulson agreed. "This is Agent Fitz, our engineer. He and Agent Simmons work as a team."
"Not to be rude or anything, but you wouldn't happen to be related to a Reggie Simmons, would you?" a well muscled soldier asked, standing next to Lennox.
Simmons seemed to deflate a little bit. "He's not here, is he? He's my... overly enthusiastic uncle. Please tell me he's not here!" she said, looking around worriedly. There was a collective sigh of relief. Apparently Reggie Simmons was not popular around here.
"Don't worry. He's not here," the man assured.
"Back to the introductions," Coulson said, a small smile of amusement on his face. "This is Agent May, our pilot. Just the pilot," Coulson said.
"If I am just the pilot, then you are just a civilian," May grumbled. Coulson ignored her.
"This is Agent Triplett, our specialist. I am Director Coulson, new Director of SHIELD, and this is Agent Skye, our resident computer genius and new field agent" Coulson finished, a sweeping gesture to the team as he introduced everyone.
"Hi!" Skye said cheerfully, going up to shake each of their hands. Coulson smiled again, shaking his head at her antics. She got halfway over before Coulson spoke up.
"Skye, wait until they introduce themselves," he admonished gently. She mock glared at him but came back to the group.
"Sor-ry for trying to be nice, AC," she grumbled.
Lennox stepped forward. "I'm Major Lennox, this is Sergeant Epps, and the others are all holoforms of the Autobots. I'll let them introduce themselves," Lennox said.
"Thank you, Major Lennox," a deep baritone voice intoned, coming from the holoform of a man in his thirties, cowboy hat over sandy blond hair, shadowing dark blue eyes. He had a five-o'clock shadow on his face. He was wearing a red plaid shirt and dark blue jeans, cowboy boots finishing the look. "Greetings. I am Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots. Th-"
Skye interrupted him before he could continue. "You're the semi!"
Optimus Prime smiled at her kindly. "Indeed, my alt-form is the semi. Very good deduction skills, Agent Avery. Now, to my left is Ironhide, our weapons specialist. Ironhide, don't you dare pull out your cannons, and he is partners with Major Lennox."
Skye once again interrupted the alien leader. "He's the badass Top Kick, right?" she asked. The holoform, looking like a hard core biker, grinned at her.
"I like her, Prime. Can we keep her?"
Optimus gave him a look. "Ironhide's alt-form is indeed the Top Kick. Next to him is our Commanding Medical Officer, Ratchet-"
This time it was Ironhide who interrupted, "*cough* Hatchet *cough*"
Ratchet, whose holoform looked like a man in his late thirties, well built, and wearing clothes with oils stains and such on them, suddenly had a wrench in his hand and hit Ironhide upside the head with it. "Don't call me that, or I'll have you in my med bay for the next orn for that check-up you keep avoiding," he growled.
"You're the Emergency Hummer then," Skye concluded. Ratchet nodded. Skye looked around, seeing that there was no one else for them to meet.
"NOW can I go and greet them?" she asked Coulson.
"Yes, Skye, NOW you can go greet them," Coulson said, mimicking her tone. She smiled and ran up, forgoing a handshake, instead outright hugging Lennox and Epps. She did shake hands with the Autobots, though.
"You guys are so lucky! Getting to be around all of these cool guys! Most of the stuff we come across tries to kill us," Skye told Lennox. He didn't seem to know quite what to do with the over excited woman.
"Skye! Let them breathe!" May ordered. Skye's face twisted in distaste, but she backed up.
"May, don't ruin all of her fun. I haven't seen her this happy since..." Coulson murmured to her.
"I know. Maybe it will delay her from hacking into this place," May responded.
"So, what kind of firewalls do you guys have? What level of encryptions, o-" Skye began.
"Skye, no hacking!" Coulson warned. Skye's face fell, like she had gotten a Christmas present and he had taken it away from her. "Don't give me that look. No hacking the base," he ordered.
"She probably couldn't get past the first level of encryption that we have on the base," Ironhide grumbled, probably thinking Skye couldn't hear him. She froze and slowly turned to face him.
"Well now I DEFINITELY hacking this place!" she said, running back into the BUS and snagging her laptop.
Coulson rounded on the holoform. "You are an idiot!" he said before marching back into the BUS, hoping that he could change Skye's mind about hacking into the base.
Ironhide looked at the remaining Agents. "What did I do?"
"You insulted Skye's hacking skills. She hacked SHIELD on an old laptop that she won in a bet, using the wifi of an internet cafe. SHIELD had the best firewalls we have ever made, until NEST showed up. Do you know how long she has been itching to hack into here?" Simmons said, glaring at him.
"GOT IT!" a voice screamed. It was Skye's.
"What has she got?" Ratchet asked, stepping closer to the BUS.
Coulson came storming out, looking pissed. "She got passed the first level of encryption," he grumbled. Then he composed himself. "I would prepare yourselves for a lot of pranks," he warned.
A collective groan from the team, they had been forced to go through Skye hacking the BUS comm system and playing with music and such, so that if you said a certain word or phrase the plane would react by either telling you that there would be an emergency landing, or there would be pseudo-turbulence and they would have to sit through half an hour of bumpy flying no matter what May did.
A soldier ran over, looking nervously at the holoforms, but reporting to Lennox. "Sir, someone is hacking into our database. It's not Cybertronian, but they are pros. Estimated time for them to be all the way through is half an hour if they continue at the speed they're going at."
"Then shut it down," Lennox said.
"We already DID! They turned it back on remotely and continued from where they left off. Which means that they are on base, sir," the soldier said.
"I already knew that. Keep watching the progress. Thank you for informing me," Lennox said with a sigh. The soldier ran off.
"Can you get her to stop?" Lennox asked. Coulson glared at Ironhide.
"Yes. Ironhide needs to apologize to her. She has worked hard to get her skills up to this and she doesn't take kindly to someone she just met insulting her."
Ironhide sputtered. Optimus gave him a look. Ironhide sputtered again. Optimus gave him another look. Ironhide growled and stormed past the team, into the BUS to apologize. Following the heat trail, he found her bunk, which she was sitting on her bed, typing away on her computer, music in her ears.
Ironhide knocked on the door, not that she noticed, the music blaring too loudly. Ratchet would have gone into an hour long lecture about how the volume was harmful to her fragile ears.
"If you are going to say something, say it," she said, looking up from her screen. She muted the music, giving him her full attention. It was odd. Most humans, when they met him, would cower, not meet his eyes, or they would treat him as though he was just a robot.
"I have come to apologize for insulting your hacking skills," he said, clearly unhappy with his orders.
"Okay, so apologize," she said, a small grin on her face.
"I just did," he protested.
"No, you said that is what you were here to do. You never actually apologized," she argued, looking back at her computer and rolling her eyes. "I have amateurs trying to out-hack me. This is really insulting," she said.
"Your government seems to think that they are some of the best hackers in the world and you are calling them amateurs," he said.
"Most hackers tend to stay away from the government. We don't tend to mix very well. Normally, hackers that are employed by the government are really bad at hacking. It's just them using a system that is inside the computer," she explained. "How can they expect a computer to stop someone that can actually think for themselves and adapt how they are hacking into a system?"
Ironhide tilted his head to the side, studying her. "How would you keep someone from hacking you?"
"Easy! I have an alarm for if someone is trying to hack me. Instead of putting up more and more firewalls and stuff, I'd hack them, put them on the defensive so they are more worried about putting up more and more firewalls to stop me, giving me time to transfer everything onto a flashdrive, then wipe my system. They wouldn't find anything on my computer," she said, sounding very proud of herself. Ironhide was slightly impressed.
"I apologize for insulting your hacking skills. It appears that you are more competent at it than I first gave you credit for," Ironhide said sincerely. "Now please stop hacking into the NEST database."
Skye gave him a wide smile and lifted her hands off the keyboard. "Alright. Twenty more seconds and I would have had it, but..." Ironhide looked over her shoulder. She was right. She was almost all the way through.
"I think it would have taken thirty more seconds," he challenged. She grinned and began hacking away again. nineteen seconds later, she had successfully hacked her way into the NEST database.
"Ha," she said before shutting the laptop down. "Told you."
"You did tell me. Please do not inform anyone that I... encouraged you to finish hacking..." he said. He sounded almost sheepish.
"Don't worry, big guy. I think that I would get in more trouble than you," Skye assured.
"Thank you, Agent Skye," he said.
"It's Skye," she corrected with a smile before skipping out of the BUS. Ironhide blinked out of existence and reappeared next to his alt-form. She waved when she saw him, and he nodded to her.
"Skye, no more hacking the NEST base, and please, for the sake of my sanity, no hacking the Cybertronians, Skye," Coulson ordered.
"No promises, AC!" She said brightly.
"Skye! You have got to see the base!" Jemma insisted.
"They have a lab here, and it's-" Fitz began, just as animated as Simmons.
"-brilliant! It's better than anything that we-" Jemma continued for Fitz.
"-have at SHIELD! Their technology is so much-" Fitz continued as Simmons went to take a breath.
"-more advanced than anything even Stark could come up with! They-" Simmons said.
"-are so amazing!" they finished together.
Muffled laughter was coming from somewhere to the side of them. Lennox stepped out, chuckling.
"Do they do that often?" he finally asked.
"Do what?" Fitzsimmons asked.
"That, the whole... sharing a wavelength-thingy," Lennox amended.
"It is impossible for such an event to occur, though the very notion is fascinating!" Jemma said.
"I do believe that he was referring to our habit of finishing each other sentences and speaking at the same time, Jem," Fitz explained.
"Oh, yes, we do tend to do that a lot, don't we?" Simmons said.
Skye interrupted before they got into the science babble. "Yes, they do it all the time. That's why we call them Fitzsimmons instead of Fitz and Simmons. You can't have one without the other," she looked at them wistfully.
"They're just a couple of kids," he commented.
"Older than me. Jemma only by a month, Fitz by two. But, they grew up sheltered, always have their heads stuck in the clouds, thinking about science stuff," Skye said. Lennox nodded.
"So, you gonna tell me the story of how this all started, or am I going to have to ask around?" she asked after a long pause.
Lennox laughed and told her the story of how it had all come together, and of how, since the first meeting a year ago, they had been doing their best to get the government to see them as more than emotionless robots or weapons. In turn, Skye gave him the story of how they had kidnapped her from her van and everything that happened after that. She was crying again when she got to the point of Ward's betrayal, but Lennox didn't comment. She had left out a lot of details, like her being shot, the wonder drug, her 0-8-4 statis, and why she had joined SHIELD.
She knew that he knew she was holding back information, but he didn't press her.
"Oi, what did you do to Skye?" Fitz asked, noticing her tears. Skye snorted a laugh at his tone. After about five seconds, she collapsed into a laughing fit on the ground, tears of laughter now streaming down her face.
"Sorry, sorry, Fitz! I'm fine, but your face! You looked like you were about to kill him!" she said through her laughter.
Fitz drew himself to his full height indignantly. "Don't be ridiculous, Skye! I would have simply shot him
with an ICER," he said.
Whatever an ICER was, the thought of Fitz using one to shoot Lennox sent Skye back into her laughing fit. Lennox decided that he really didn't want to know.
"Do you want to meet the actual Autobots? Not the holoforms, their actual forms?" he asked once Skye was able to stand again. He was met with three eager yeses, four once Agent Triplett joined. He stood behind them like a guard dog, hovering in the background.
They were led by Lennox to the Autobot hanger, where all of the bots except for Optimus, who was with Coulson and May, were gathered in alt-form. They were all just relaxing, Ironhide was cleaning his cannons, Ratchet was repairing a bot that they had not met, said bot was complaining about his paintjob. Next to him was a silver version of himself. The silver one was laughing.
"Hey! Lennox brought new squishies!" the gold one said, pushing Ratchet away to stand. Fitzsimmons looked at them in awe, especially Fitz, finding them completely fascinating. Triplett looked like he was about to start shooting at the slightest hint of violence. Sky looked at the gold one, her face surprisingly blank.
"What did you just call us?" she asked quietly. She crossed her arms and glared at the gold bot.
"Squishy. 'Cause you're squishy and soft," Gold explained.
"I see. And you are?" she asked.
"Sunstreaker, frontliner for the Autobots," he said proudly.
"Sunstreaker, then. Did you know that you sound like an arrogant ass when you call us squishies. We already KNOW that we go "squish" easily, we don't need the reminder," Skye said before smiling brightly, "I'm Skye, by the way, nice to meet you!"
"You are not scared of us?" Ratchet asked, cutting off Sunstreaker's angry retort.
"Terrified, but I get the feeling you guys won't intentionally hurt us, so there isn't any reason for me to act on my fears," Skye said sagely.
"You are very wise for one so young," Ratchet informed her. "Are you..." he paused, as though searching for something, "alright? Your emotional levels are not balanced. Has something upset you recently?"
Skye looked up at him for a moment before sending Lennox a confused glance.
"He's the medic, he worries about our health a little too much," was all that Lennox would say.
"Oh, um, yeah, no, I'm fine. You don't need to worry about me," Skye assured the medic. She didn't think that he believed her for a second, but he didn't press the matter.
"So, what do you guys do for fun around here? I'm bored," Skye declared, changing the subject once more.
Lennox looked at her incredulously. "This is a military base. We don't have "fun"."
Skye looked at him sadly, "I feel so sorry for you. You are a terrible liar," she said before cracking up. Lennox groaned and fished out a twenty from his wallet and passed it over to Sergeant Epps, who whooped and snatched it away.
"Thanks girl, you won me a bet!" he told her, hugging her. Lennox chuckled as well. "As for what we do for fun…. Do you want to help us with a couple of pranks?"
Skye grinned. "Sure, but we have to bring Fitzsimmons along. They're geniuses," she said, grabbing the two young scientists and dragging them away with them.
"Skye, perhaps we shouldn't-" Simmons began.
"We mean, we don't know them-" Fitz added.
"What if they get terribly upset with us?" Simmons said.
"Yes, we don't even know them!" Fitz declared.
"Guys, relax! It's just a little fun, not harming anyone. Just loosen up. I thought that you guys loved pranks!" Skye coaxed.
"We do!" Simmons defended.
"Then I don't see the problem."
"But what about Director Coulson? Won't he be a might upset if he finds out that we were pranking people on this base?" Fitz said, still unsure.
Skye took pause for a moment. "Then he can't find out it was us!" she finally declared cheerfully, still dragging the scientists along for the ride. "So, who are we pranking?"
"The Autobots," Lennox said. Skye grinned a grin that had Fitzsimmons wishing they were in a secure bunker far away from her.