Previously: After Wolfe saves Skye from some thugs at abandoned Ohio fair, she decides to go to Wal-Mart while they bide their time before being able to meet up with the team.


Chapter Three

"Gotta say, I'm feeling kind of awkward about this," Skye said as she sat in Wal-Mart's parking lot, fiddling with the strings to her medical gown. Mentor wasn't a small town, but it wasn't anything special: just a suburban city in Ohio. It would work well for blending in.

"There's really no need to," assured Wolfe.

"I could come inside with you."

"Last thing we need is to attract attention."

"Have you seen People of Wal-Mart? This," she gestured to her outfit, "is more tame than 98% of the stuff that goes on there. Trust me, I used to frequent it."

Wolfe smiled at her, but spoke with a somewhat serious tone. "People are looking for you. Just let me grab you some clothes and you can come with me to whatever place we end up at next."

"Fiiiine,' Skye agreed eventually.

"Alright so you need a small shirt, leggings or jeans, shoes, and some panties. I think I can handle that. Any preference with that stuff?"

"Anything flannel would definitely make me feel at home but I'm good with whatever you come up with. Also um, do you think you could get me…" Skye let an uncomfortable chuckle push passed her lips. "Ah, never mind. I can just get it later."

"No tell me; it would be best if we just make one trip to a clothing store for a while."

Skye nodded, looking anywhere but his over-concerned eyes.

"I need a bra?" she stated uncertainly.

"Oh. Oh of course! I just figured you were wearing one… not that I was really giving it that much thought in the first place but-"

"Nope, they made me ditch it back at Hydra camp," she said quickly, still avoiding his vision.

Skye wasn't sure why she was so embarrassed; she was never one to be shy in the past. Girls had boobs. They needed boob holders. Facts of life, birds and the bees. Plus he was already buying her underwear, it's not like a bra was much different. It's just that he had thought of that part on his own.

"There's like a specific size you need right? Or is that something you have to try on?"

"Oh, I'm, um, a 32A. It should fit."

"Do you need more than one, or…"

"Nope, no, one should be fine. I've only got one pair," she added and felt her face immediately heat up. She bit her lip, smiling through it.

Wolfe grinned back at her, defining the lines in his face that had marked into his skin for doing it so often. She felt the awkward air diffuse a bit. "Sounds good. Be back soon."

Skye watched Wolfe leave the vehicle with a pang of envy. Locked up, once again.

As she crossed her arms and shuffled herself lower in the driver's side of the car, she knew she was being a little ridiculous. She wasn't actually locked up anywhere; this was just the most practical option.

She should actually feel ecstatic, given what Wolfe had told her.

For one, Simmons was alive and completely fine. That alone had elicited tears of upmost happiness from Skye's eyes.

Next, he'd told her that Coulson had been rescued, and that she would have been too, but she had been missing from the facility by the time they got there. Damn… whoever's fault it was they moved her.

The last thing he told her was the most remarkable: when they picked up Coulson, Fitz had been there, entirely healed.

She would have almost not believed it after seeing him had she not gone through a similar process herself, but he assured her it was true.

All the good news had made having to wait to be back with them somewhat bearable. Or less so, as she still felt pouty with impatience.

With a sulky breath that moved the loose strands of hair away from her face, she reached forward and turned the car battery on, therefore letting her control the radio.

She turned on some pop station. Her foot bounced to the beat of the unfamiliar song, her body relishing in the feeling of doing something so normal. She even let herself close her eyes, the random techno song being the only thing on her mind.

BANG.

The car completely shifted, and Skye opened her eyes with a start to brace herself, gripping whatever could be grabbed. She looked outside the window.

The SUV had been shot.

The SUV had been shot with a bazooka.

The passenger side door was completely destroyed; only burnt remains dwindling with ash in the corners of the now gaping hole. Through the hole, she saw a person.

"Mike?" she breathed.

Deathlok raised his gun up once again. Without losing a second, Skye was hurtling out of the car headfirst. She dove to the parking lot floor, her hand where Garrett had cut her sending a jolt of pain up her body as it hit the concrete. The driver's side door was left wide open so the second shot went right over her head into a group of shopping carts ahead of her. She stared at the burning mess momentarily.

Her ears picked up the sound of his metal legs moving as he advanced, and she quickly got her own legs underneath her to start and run.

He started to run too.

Skye's breathing rapidly increased from her anxiety and physical exertion. She heard Deathlok fire another shot.

Suddenly, her legs twisted together. She looked down to see some sort of gel had intertwined around them, stopping her from her progress and bringing her directly to the ground.

Skye was getting real sick of being on the ground.

Of course, she wasn't too keen on being hoisted up by a cyborg, either.

He held her with fingers wrapped around her throat, her own hands on his to try and support her weight, when he slammed her head down on the windshield of a nearby Sedan.

Skye coughed at sputtered from the force of it, having a hard time breathing anyway from the hand around her neck.

"Mike, please…" she pleaded in a raspy voice, her vision starting to fail her as black spots filled some of the space. Deathlok's face was cold, staring right into her eyes. He didn't even bother with an apology. He might have felt remorse, but was too focused to voice it.

Just as she thought she might black out, her hand started feeling for something, anything, that might help her: and it delivered.

She snapped the windshield wiper off of the car with a strength she didn't think she was currently capable of and shoved it right into his neck. He wailed in pain.

As soon as his hands were removed she hobbled away, still handicapped from the tie around her legs. There was no clear way to get the gel off. It was like a putty of some sort, but she needed something strong enough to break it.

She hopped around to different cars, checking to see if any had their keys left in them and had no such luck. She'd once thought of learning how to hotwire a car, long before SHIELD when she wasn't having the best luck in life, but decided she'd never get that low. It could come in handy now.

Deathlok was becoming less distracted by the hole Skye had left in his neck, beginning to look around the parking lot again to find her. She immediately ducked to the ground and rolled skillfully underneath the nearest car.

She focused her breathing to calm down. Quietly, she reached down to tug at the material around her legs, but to no avail.

Mike has backscatter vision. Shouldn't he have found me by now? Skye thought to herself as she felt the seconds pass.

As if on cue to her thoughts, Skye's legs were grabbed and pulled, but not by Deathlok.

Wolfe, who had her feet in one hand, a knife in the other, and two Wal-Mart shopping bags around his shoulder, hauled her roughly out from beneath the car. Once he had a better grip on her legs by supporting them underneath his arm he began to saw at the gel.

"Can't leave you alone for a second, can I?" he teased her with a grin while he worked.

She smiled tentatively in return from her compromised state, holding herself up by the elbows. "I don't normally think of myself as a high maintenance gal, but lately…"

The gel broke apart with a loud "snap!"

"C'mon!" Wolfe said, hauling her up by the shoulder. He threw her forward ahead of him, turning around to face Deathlok. Skye looked back to see why he wasn't following.

"Wolfe, hurry!"

He fired his gun only once, and a small shock went through the metal man. He stopped in his tracks, but otherwise, looked exactly the same.

"Whoa, what was that?" asked Skye as Wolfe turned to her.

"A stunner. He won't be still for long. Let's get going!"

They started running, when Wolfe slowed down to a stop as he looked inside one of the cars.

"Get in!" he shouted. Skye opened up the passenger door and plunked herself inside.

"Oh, so you find a car with keys left inside," she mumbled as he started the engine.

They pulled out of Wal-Mart's parking lot and drove only about a half a mile before he pulled over into some apartment building's parking lot.

"What are we doing?" asked Skye.

"There's a bus stop," Wolfe told her as he opened his door. "We don't want to get tagged for going around in a stolen vehicle."

They shut the doors and made their way to the covered area for waiting. "Ok… but what if the bus is still a while away? Mike could be after us at any moment."

The bus pulled up not five seconds later.

"Guess fate's on our side today," Wolfe told her with a wink.

"My nearly crushed windpipe begs to differ," Skye told him with a pointed look, "but I'll take it."

They walked up the steps to be greeted with an older chubby man; exactly the type of person you'd think would be running a bus.

"How much?" asked Wolfe.

"You need a pass," said the man. "No exceptions."

Wolfe, very quickly, produced a one hundred dollar bill and set it next to the man.

"You sure about that?" asked Skye cheekily, if not still with panic in her voice from remaining adrenaline.

"Oh uh… you two can have a seat wherever you'd like."

Skye flashed a radiant smile, realizing that she must be in life or death situations way too often to bounce back this quickly. They sat down on two seats that lined the window.

She crossed her legs in front of her only to notice a large rip in the front of her now filthy and tattered medical gown. She immediately put both feet back on the ground.

She'd caught the eye of an older woman in front of them, and a man to the side, and a teenage boy hanging on to the grip from above.

"I'm coming from a slutty costume party… lay off," she told them in response to their glares of curiosity. All three looked away as she turned to Wolfe. "This would be nothing if we were on the NYC subway."

"Hah, no kidding. But since we're in little old Ohio, how about you take a look through here?"

He held out the Wal-Mart bag.

"Oh thank god. You managed to hang on to that?" Skye asked as the whipped through the contents to see he'd actually gotten her multiple outfits, including one flannel.

"I'm a man of many talents, despite what my age may say about me."

"Hey, Agent May is about your age and she can kick some serious butt. So can you, apparently," she told him as she pulled on some black cargo jeans underneath the medical gown's remains. "You did just stop a cyborg from blowing me up."

Skye stopped, frowning at herself. Did she really call Mike a cyborg out loud? She had told herself she was never going to stop believing in him. That he was a good person just doing what he had to for his child. But now that she'd seen him with her own eyes, now that she'd been the victim, it really did seem like he was lost for good. She couldn't believe that she was so un-empathetic that she had to experience it firsthand before she could make that decision.

"Skye?" Wolfe asked with concern, pulling her out of her thoughts.

"What? Oh sorry. I just was thinking about Mike. You know, the person who just… attacked us."

Wolfe nodded. "Yeah. We were informed he used to be Mike Peterson before we came to know him as Deathlok. Did you know him?"

"Yeah. He was a really good guy… before Hydra had to blow the him up and kidnap his son!" Her voice had remained even enough at the beginning of the sentence, but by the end she was near shouting. She let herself calm down. "And if I'm really a… a weapon, they could do the same thing to me," she quietly admitted, staring down at her feet. "I don't have a kid or anything but if they used someone I care about, I'd do anything."

She knew how weak that sounded. She was an agent of SHIELD, and she just admitted that with the right leverage someone could make her do anything. She'd always imagined learning how to hold up under interrogation or torture, but she knew she wouldn't be able to be responsible for her friend's suffering.

Wolfe took her good hand. "We are not going to let them get anywhere near you, kiddo."

Skye wasn't sure if Wolfe called everyone her age this nickname or if she specifically reminded him of a child, but she took it endearingly.

She sighed. "It would just be really, really, super-nice if I could see my team right about now."

"And we will, don't worry. We just have to hang tight a little while longer. Obviously Hydra is still on your tail."

Skye scoffed. "Yeah, obviously. Why would they put me on the market just to chase after me again?"

"Could be for profit, though I'm not really sure. We'll figure it out."

Skye watched Wolfe's blonde hair flow in the breeze until her eyes drifted to the source of it, looking out the window at the busy avenue that was full of bustling cars and people hurrying to get their daily duties done, whatever they may be.

"So, where we headed now?" she asked. "Hopefully somewhere I can change and stop looking like I broke out of the psych ward."

"Ok, I'm aware of how this sounds, and trust me, I'm saying it in the most platonic way possible but… I think it's time we got a room."


A/n I give you people a decision and you make a tie... I chose the Skye chapter because I realized that will make everyone other one a Skye and then team chapter for a while. So next up: Coulson interrogates Ward!