She's riding the three am train into Los Angeles where she'll get a bus to the airport and a flight back to Washington DC. She's just spent two weeks tracking down an international arms dealer. Her jeans are ripped at the knees; one side has a long knife cut through it, that didn't quite reach her skin. The other leg has a tear the top of her thigh, the mark of a knife wound.
This is what she focuses on now, seated in the back corner of the shaking subway car. She pulls at the needle and thread, hissing as she stitches up her skin. The knife hadn't gone too deep, just enough for her to stitch it up just in case. Phil would probably give her hell either way.
The light in the car flickers momentarily, and she looks up through the strands of black hair that she has carefully parted over her face. Her face is a colorful mess of blue and purple, with a long thin gash running up the side of it. It's the reason she's on this stupid train instead of flying straight back to the capital. People on trains don't ask questions.
The lights are bright again, and she finishes stitching up the wound in her leg, and tying the thread. Her watch reads 3:47.
Ten more hours and she'll be home.
At 5:02, she steps off the train and walks up the steps into the dim morning.
Her plan is to stop at the first convenience store, wash off the blood and cover her bruises. And then find the first bus station and a bus to take her to the airport.
She finds a convenience store easily, and buys all the necessities, laying two twenties on the counter before the cashier can ask any questions.
At 5:36, she steps out of a public bathroom, blood gone, face covered in a thin layer of makeup that hides the bruises. She is just zeroing in on the bus station when something in the alley next to her catches her eye.
It's a leg.
More specifically, it's a woman, whose leg, despite the freezing temperatures, is lying bare in the alley.
She turns towards the alley, approaching the woman carefully, whether she's alive or not is still a mystery. She steps in front of where the woman is lying, behind a pile of trash.
She freezes.
It's not a woman.
It's a girl.
And god, is she young.
She can't be more than sixteen.
She takes inventory of the girl. Her jeans, though long, have been shredded and tattered all the way up to her knees, making them look more like shorts. She's wearing a thin t-shirt with a fleece over it, but the sleeves are pushed up. Her hair is long a brown, and clumped with what looks like dirt and maybe vomit. When she reaches down to feel the girls arm, she notices two things.
The first is, the girl is freezing.
The second are the puncture marks.
Almost shaking, she presses two fingers to the girl's throat.
A weak beat sounds under her fingers.
Thank god, she thinks.
Without missing a beat, she calls an ambulance, making up her story along the way.
They don't ask many questions when they arrive. The EMT's only push her into the ambulance beside the girl, telling her that the girl will be fine.
At the hospital, they whisk the girl into a room and a kind doctor tells her that she can wait out here while they assess her daughter.
Well, she thinks, the story was easier than I thought.
When the doctors come back to tell her it will be a couple of hours, she disappears to a corner and calls her boss.
"A girl?" She can see her boss rolling his eye through the phone. "Rescuing innocents on the street? You're almost as bad as Coulson."
"This is nothing like that," she responds quickly. "He brought in an assassin, and let Barton bring in another one. I just rescued the girl. She's sure enough not coming back to Washington DC with me director, I just wanted to see if she lived. She's barely sixteen for god's sake."
"Romanoff's only seventeen."
"I'm not bringing this girl back."
"Point taken."
She hears another voice through the phone, garbled, and the director respond.
"You'll be back by next morning," he says, not as a question.
"Definitely," she replies before hanging up.
Two cups of coffee later, the doctor reappears.
"She's alive," is the first thing the doctor says as he sits down next to her.
"Had an incredibly high dose of heroin inside her, but we managed to get most of it out of her bloodstream. She's incredibly lucky. You'll be able to take her home tomorrow." He says, before getting up and striding away.
She's taken aback at his quick exit, but, she remembers, this is not Washington DC or S.H.I.E.L.D. Overdoses are probably common here. She easily breaks the girl out, careful to avoid any hospital personnel as she transports the girl in a wheelchair.
When she gets to the garage, she hotwires an inconspicuous car, and lays the girl in the passenger seat. The girl is thin; she can feel her ribcage through the gown and see the bones of her wrists where the hospital bracelet hangs off.
Halfway down the street, she realizes she doesn't actually know what her plan is. She can't exactly drop off an unconscious girl at another hospital, or a rehab center. In the end, she buys a room at a motel and hopes the girl wakes up soon.
Luckily, just as the second episode of a nameless sitcom ends, the girl begins to wake. She moves quickly, placing the girl back into the car and fastening her seatbelt before leaving the motel. The girl shifts in her seat, taking note of the hospital bracelet and gown before turning to her.
"Where are you taking me?"
The girls' voice is strong, unwavering. The girls' eyes bore into her as she drives.
"Rehab," is her reply.
"You can't do that," the girl replies angrily. The girl is too weak to fight her, but is still glaring in her direction.
She eyes the marks on the girl's arms, and the girl moves to cover them.
An hour later, they pull up in front of the center.
"You can't do this," the girl says again, and she's shaking a little now. Withdrawal is starting to set in.
"I don't have any money," the girl says quietly.
She says nothing, only goes around to the passenger door and opens it. The girl takes her hand, shaking. They walk into the rehab center. She tells the nurses that she is with S.H.I.E.L.D. and places the cash for the rehab on the counter. She turns to the girl, who eyes her, half suspicious, half thankful.
A nurse takes the girl gently by the arm, leading her down hallway marked "detox".
The girl doesn't look back.
She drives the car back to hospital, and takes a bus to a motel. In the morning, she takes a taxi to the airport. She takes the 6:05 plane back to DC.
At 11:30 the next morning, a nurse comes into the girl's detox room. The girl is still shaking, curled on her bed, hair matted around her face.
"Sweetheart, what's your name?" The nurse asks, sitting beside her.
"Skye," the girl whispers.
Two thousand three hundred miles away, Melinda May steps off the plane from Los Angeles and climbs into the passenger seat of a black SUV.
"Heard you had an eventful day yesterday," the driver says.
She looks over at Phil Coulson smiling, and smirks.
"Let's just go home," she says, and they pull away from the curb.