Title: The Girl with No Name
Author: snarkysweetness
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Skye/Grant, Melinda/Phil with the team and maybe some kids idk you have to read to find out
Summary: There were days when she wished she could go back to being just the orphaned girl with a name she'd given herself living out of her van.
Warnings: Mild angst, mentions to the massacre in Bahrain and China, & mentions to Skye and Grant banging.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Author's Notes: Happy Birthday, Annie!
Her birth had never been a cause for celebration.
The nuns would only acknowledge the day in passing, too pious to make a celebration out of anything, including Christmas. She had no parents or loved ones to remember it and by the time she'd found Miles she didn't care enough to bother with it. It was just another day. One year older. One year closer to death. Meaningless.
She was a mystery.
A girl with no name and origin unknown; she was no one.
There were days when she wished she could go back to being just the orphaned girl with a name she'd given herself living out of her van.
She remembered how foolish she'd been back in the days before Hydra. Back when the team was new and full of life and a family. She remembered the first real birthday she'd ever had.
Skye emerged from her bunk ready for another typical day on the bus. It wasn't until she caught sight of Grant Ward sheepishly holding out a cupcake with a single candle in it that she remembered it was her birthday.
She'd been too touched by the small gesture to care that they were breaking with tradition here.
"How did you know?" She whispered as she took it gingerly.
He shrugged. "You have your ways, Rookie, I have mine." He winked and she smiled.
"Is there some big party I should be worried about?"
"No, it's just you and me, I wasn't sure if you wanted anyone to-" She cut him off by pressing her lips to his cheek.
"Thank you, this is perfect."
His cheeks went red and he shrugged. She smirked up at him before licking some frosting off her fingers. "Hmm, if find me a match and a knife I'll share with you."
So she'd made her first ever wish, that nothing would ever change, and they'd secretly split her birthday cake without the team ever catching on that it was her birthday. She would love nothing more than for things to stay just the way they were that morning but then everything had gone to shit.
She'd been shot, S.H.I.E.L.D. fell, and the man she loved turned out to be a monster.
It was so ironic. She hated him for becoming a monster when she'd been born one.
They really were the same.
She wished she could go back to before; before she learned the harsh truth, before her world fell apart, before she discovered how much of her life had been a lie.
Before she'd been Skye before she'd been Mary Sue Poots she was just a girl; a girl whose parents hadn't even bothered to name her; a girl who was nothing more than a pawn in a monster's game for power.
Her own parents had been about to sacrifice her, literally, when The Cavalry had saved her. Saved her and destroyed herself in the process.
Skye buried her face in May's neck and sobbed. Some birthday; her alleged birth father had tried to kill her once again and she was once again responsible for slaughter. Death really did follow her. She left destruction in her wake wherever she went. What was the point in keeping her alive?
"May-"
"No, Phil, I'm not letting her go, not this time."
That was the day she realized the family she'd made for herself was the only thing that was real.
She had even had the wrong day of birth all this time. S.H.I.E.L.D. had given her one based on when they'd found her, before they'd hidden her away in China, before the massacre, before moving her around, trying to keep her hidden.
Now she had two days to mourn her existence.
Skye emerged from her tiny bedroom in their crappy secret hidden base and walked onto their renovated plane and went straight for the bar. She ignored the looks of her fellow agents, not giving a flying fuck about the fact that it was past noon and her hair was a rat's nest and she was wearing nothing but holey sweats and one of Grant Ward's Academy t-shirts.
He was already at the bar, as if he'd been expecting her. She ignored him and poured herself a drink. It was her goddamn day of birth, right? A cause for celebration? Well, she planned to drink for every life lost because of her birth and no one was going to stop her, not even T-100 himself.
But he didn't try to stop her. He simply took the bottle in one hand and her hand in the other and led her to the sofa where he pulled her into his lap and let her drink and cry and be completely miserable.
The team knew better than to try to acknowledge or celebrate her birth. The only thing that made this day different than any other aside from the day drinking was when Mama May in all of her glory showed up once Grant had carried her to her room and gently stroked Skye's hair until she fell asleep. When she woke the next day there were pancakes (Jemma) and a tiny stuffed panda cuddling and even smaller cub.
She actually smiled that day.
Things got better. They had to, right? She could only allow the tragedy that had been her life to consume her for so long. Months passed. Holidays. Birthday celebrations. Engagements (about time A.C.). And then finally her own dreaded day of birth, the real one.
This time the team was brave enough to surprise her. Nothing big. Just a small gathering on the bus with the seven of them and-
"Cupcakes?" She whispered as she glanced up to find her other half watching her with just a hint of a smile.
"Ward said no cake."
She grinned. "It's perfect." And it was; nothing too spectacular; simple, like she was or rather how she wanted to be. How she was trying to be again. They'd overcome worse. Grant was proof of that.
"Make a wish."
She almost laughed and this time she wished for things to get change, maybe it would work, help things get better.
What she didn't expect was for things to change right away. When it was time for gifts (which she insisted wasn't necessary), Grant handed her a small box, the same box that had once held her newly concealed S.H.I.E.L.D. badge. She glanced up in amusement. "What? Did you bling out my badge or something?"
He smirked. "Just open it."
She rolled her eyes and ignored how normal things were starting to feel again. She popped it open and- "Holy shit," she whispered and glanced up to find he was gone. She looked down to find him on one knee and had to grab Trip to keep from falling over, suddenly dizzy. When she'd confessed her perfect proposal would be one where the team was there she hadn't expected him to actually propose. She'd just been musing on how much they were a family and how she wanted them there for everything.
She said 'yes', of course, and somehow her birthdays got better as each year passed.
"James Douglas, you leave your sister alone!" Skye called angrily. That damn boy was always trying to stick bugs in her hair. The poor thing was going to develop a phobia. "Lily, would you please do something about your brother. Avery's neurotic enough as it is." That damn child was like a mini-Fitz; always had to be clean. It was why she had the damn immune system of a sick kitten.
"Sweetheart, happy-"
"Don't," she warned. "Take Ellie so I can deal with your son," she huffed as she handed off their youngest to her father and stormed off to save a crying Avery from a worm.
Grant chuckled behind her. "Don't worry, pumpkin, your mama's always grumpy on her birthday."
"I am not!" She called as she scooped their poor middle child up into her arms.
"It's alright, baby girl, mama's got you."
"James is mean and I hate him!"
Skye resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She opened her mouth to scold her troublemaker when her saviors arrived.
"Grandpa! Grandma!" Avery squirmed out of her arms and made a run for it. She was in Phil's arms before James could get there and he pouted because Lily had gotten to Mel first.
"What are you both doing here? My party isn't until-"
"There is no party," Mel said with a smirk. "Our present to you is taking these four off your hands for a whole weekend. Enjoy it, baby girl, you look wrecked. No wonder she won't go back to the field," she teased and Grant shrugged.
Skye glared but was too grateful to keep it up. There was so much she wanted to do; take a hot shower that lasted more than five minutes, lay in bed uninterrupted for ten, and instead of licking frosting off of a cupcake she wanted to lick it off Grant's abs (there was a reason she popped kids out like a pez dispenser).
She kissed both of her surrogate parents before kissing each of her children and disappearing to have said shower.
Skye emerged an hour later (with shaved legs for once) and threw on one of Grant's shirts before finding him in the kitchen and attacking him.
They didn't even make it as far as the couch, hell; they didn't even make it to the counter. She lay on his chest on the floor afterward and drew small circles over his pecs.
"This is nice; can we make this a tradition? You know, I was never big on this birthday thing, but a day off with sex I could get used to," she teased as he stroked her back.
He smiled. "You like them now," he reminded.
She shrugged. "What can I say? Our tiny monsters deserve to be celebrated." When two people with terrible pasts came together to make a family it left a group of spoiled children. Each other their birthdays was over-celebrated and they were told every day how loved they were. Skye didn't care how old they got, she'd never stop. She'd grown up ashamed to have even been born; her children were never going to go through that. She was determined to shield them from as much pain as possible.
"Speaking of...I have a present for you."
"A present for me on your birthday?" Skye sat up and straddled his hips. "Well, if this is the present I'm not-"
"Shut up," she muttered as she took his hands and slid them down past her scars. One from the day she'd been shot. Another from the day James Douglas Ward had come into this world covered in her blood and screaming as he was ripped out of her (that child had been destined to be hell from the beginning). She pressed their joined hands to where no matter how much training she did she could never fully regain her figure and smirked. "This is the last one, Grant Douglas; I'd like to return to the field someday before I'm eighty."
Grant didn't even answer. They'd done this so many times before he just smiled, pulled her to the ground, and made love to her until they both fell asleep on the damn kitchen floor.
It was days like today that made the girl who now had a name and family glad she hadn't stayed in that damn van shrouded in mystery. And that in itself was a cause for celebration.