The air in the cabin was thick and cold, and the palpable awkwardness did nothing to quell the discomfort. Skye sat on one side of the plane, in the same seat she had sat in during that last game of Battleship. He sat on the other, examining a shot glass. It was easier that way: if he feigned interest in the minute discrepancies in the glass, Ward wouldn't have to pay attention to her.
The light above him shone through the glass, casting an almost purple glow onto his skin. She always wore purple, he thought; it was her favorite color. She wore that purple tank top with knee-high boots, and he couldn't help but think that for someone who claimed to care so little about fashion, she clearly did. It worked, too: it made her eyes sparkle even more when she laughed, and Ward decided right then that he hated purple.
Skye had been so completely different from the black-suited anonymity he associated with SHIELD. And Ward knew that he sounded like a child with his cries of unfairness, that his decision to place his trust in her had been solely his. But - he snuck a glance to her side of the almost empty cabin - maybe he was tired of the neutral. Ward didn't know what other choice he'd had. She had come in, all laughter and color and brightness, and turned the plane into a rainbow.
He almost snorted in disdain. What was a rainbow if not just a deception, just water and air?
The tears stung. Both physically and mentally, for Fitz felt a strange sense of inevitability with each drop of liquid that fell. His eyes were red, surely. Fitz couldn't even wipe away the tears; his hands were lead weights, were handcuffed to the table likes Skye's hands were to each other.
He hazarded a scant glance around the apartment. It hardly looked the part of a crime scene. It didn't lend itself to the heaviness of the moment, with its cream-colored walls and beige sofa and lack of contrast. The plane's metal walls glinted with spectrums of color when the lighting was right; the apartment appeared muted. Skye stood out against the background of brown, her purple shirt a shock of color that now only served to make her look even smaller.
Her own red eyes were almost reassuring. But not quite. So as Jemma's hand rested on his shoulder, and his hands sat useless on the table, and his eyes continued to sting, Fitz thought that the world seemed a lot more blue than before.
There was a doodle laying on the lab desk, a messy beaker drawn in glittery orange ink. Simmons assumed it was Skye's work; she could scarcely fathom the idea of May owning an orange glitter pen. It was so typical of Skye too, a doodle done as she skipped through the lab and happened to see an unused sheet of paper out of the corner of her eye.
Simmons held it up by the corner, unsure if this discomfort stemmed from anger or from pain. She didn't hate Skye - she couldn't hate Skye - but there was a sliver of something like betrayal that Simmons now felt. The paper seemed almost transparent as she held it up, the blue of the cabinets behind it bleeding through. It made the orange darken, made the ink appear almost black. Simmons found it fitting, that dimmed color.
The door opened suddenly, and the paper dropped back to the table with a swoosh. Simmons turned to see Coulson, face uncharacteristically downcast. All she could do was nod.
Skye shivered, wishing she'd thought to wear something over her purple tank top. Ward seemed perfectly, annoyingly content to pretend to study that shot glass as she froze to death. So she took to studying him, out of the corner of her gaze.
The light made his hair look almost warm, a soft chocolate-like shade of darkness. Skye couldn't see his eyes, but she'd bet that they lacked that same softness. His head was tilted down slightly, the line of his jaw casting a blue shadow on his neck. There was a faint pink flush to his cheeks, from exertion or discomfort or both.
Even his outfit, so carefully coordinated to be blank, sparkled. It was everywhere, from the reflection of the sky on his leather jacket to the red stripe across his sock.
For someone so determined to see the world as black and white, Skye mused, Ward sure contained a lot of color.